Bland, unattractive and cookie-cutter? Try modern, elegant and surprising. These incredible remodels transcend all stereotypes about apartment and condo designs with unexpected materials like galvanized steel, design tricks that make small spaces appear bright and open and a masterful balance of vintage and contemporary.

Industrial Modern Metal Apartment Design

This minimalist, monochromatic metal apartment design in Moscow uses repetitive geometric shapes to add interest to what might otherwise feel like a cold and rather unwelcoming design. Remodeled by architect Peter Kostelov, the apartment is made almost entirely out of industrial materials in shades of black and gray with corrugated steel, visible welds and exposed rivets adding a little texture to this living space.

Minimalist Remodeled Warehouse Loft Apartment

To some, this apartment remodel may appear unfinished, but for those who find beauty in simplicity, it’s perfect just as it is. Once a warehouse building, this Tokyo loft was redesigned by Schemata to reveal the bare bones of the space and revel in the contrast between polished, modern surfaces and the raw, aging architecture.

Dramatically Designed Small Apartments

Tiny apartments with low ceilings can feel stifling and cookie-cutter, but the architects of A.A. Studio certainly gave this space personality and a sense of airiness with an unusual, surreal apartment redesign approach involving lots of white. Curved corners, built-in bookcases, reflective surfaces, patterned lights and niches make the space feel larger and also strangely timeless.

Glacier-Inspired Interior Design Idea

Inspired by the snow-and-glacier-capped mountains of Lucerne, architect Gus Wusterman remodeled this small apartment into a simple white living space that is somehow warm despite its chilly origins.  With strategically placed wood panels and lots of built-in surfaces including a tier of stairs leading to a rooftop deck, the design makes the space feel more like a landscape than a set of individual rooms.

21 Rooms in 1 Flat

Remodeling a 350-square-foot apartment-turned-condo on a budget, Gary Change somehow managed to create a luxurious space that transforms into 21 different layouts through the use of sliding walls, fold-down desks and other movable architectural elements. Simply by folding, unfolding and sliding some elements around, Change creates a steam room, home cinema, a guest bedroom and more.

Color- and Pattern-Based Apartment Design

Instead of making furniture and décor the focal points in a living space, why not do the opposite? This vibrant apartment design by Tham and Videgard Hansson gets all of its visual interest from the strategic use of color and pattern, with shades that shift from autumnal reds to cool blues to create different moods in various rooms. White furniture keeps the overall look of the apartment from being too busy.

Laid-Back Modern Luxury Loft

The juxtaposition of bright white surfaces with warm wood, especially when combined with metal and glass, can make a space look modern and luxurious – but achieving that effect doesn’t have to be expensive. Chart.Corb renovated this loft in Paris using affordable materials like plywood to create a cozy, contemporary living space that is simple without being stark.

Rustic Recycled Modern Home

Remodeling an unused space into a historic apartment is much easier when the space that you start with has as many beautiful features as this. Unfinished walls, peeling paint, concrete surfaces and exposed brick hardly look unkempt when finished with wood floors, white partitions and modern furniture. Designed by Gus Wusterman, this apartment is thoroughly modern, yet retains a vintage feel brimming with texture and character.

Religious Conversion: Church to Loft Condo

With its many desirable architectural features – from high ceilings to an open floor plan – it’s no surprise that a place of worship would make such a fantastic conversion into a loft. This East Village project by Manifold transformed a synagogue into a beautiful three-story private residence that is a shining example of adaptive reuse.

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Nicola L. is one of those artists who has simply been around forever. She’s known by only her first name and last initial, and she manages to bring unmistakable style to each and every thing she does. She’s been known to create performance art, films, conceptual art, and sculptures, but perhaps her most enduring form is her functional art. It’s at once whimsical and serious, serving a very real function but having loads of fun doing it.

Looking at Nicola L.’s art, it’s hard not to notice her preferred subjects: eyes, heads and snails make repeated appearances. Though she does at times visit different forms for her functional art, the human body remains a subject of continued interest for her.

Since her first solo gallery show in 1969, French-born Nicola L. has been showing her functional art in galleries all over the world. She makes her pieces – lamps, planters, fish tanks, tables and sofas – in extremely limited editions, and in 2006 she had a large retrospective show of her functional art in Ingrao Gallery in NYC.

These stylized shapes of the human head, eyes, body and limbs take on a whole new meaning when they are in the context of functional art. They become familiar and warm, but also very playful. We don’t usually see head-shaped bookcases or eye-shaped ceiling lamps, so Nicola’s pieces often inspire wide smiles as the unexpected shapes are noted by viewers.

But there is also a hint of creepiness about some of the pieces, especially those featuring eyes. The artist manages to interject that tiny bit of discomfort into these pieces that many of us are used to feeling from conceptual artists: it seems that there might just be a subtext there, but we feel like we are missing it.

The artist says that she came by functional art almost accidentally after constructing a foot-shaped sofa for her and her friends to sit on. Nicola L.’s impressive body of work spans over 40 years and is truly something to behold. And if you can afford to furnish your home with functional art, hers is some of the most timelessly impressive you’ll find.

Creative & Unique Modern Furniture Designs

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What could be more welcoming than a pot of tea in the morning? (Coffee drinkers, you are not allowed to answer that). From its humble beginnings in ancient China, the teapot has gone from obscurity to the height of luxury and finally to worldwide ubiquity, embedding itself firmly in the English language (”as useless as a chocolate teapot“) and becoming an object of adoration by millions, particularly the Brits. But now teapots are disappearing – at least the traditional kind are. The next generation of beverage-buckets are here and they couldn’t look more different from the norm, as these 19 examples show.

(Image via: Yanko Design)

Believe it or not, this is a teapot (rather than a model from 2001: A Space Odyssey) – and its curious, gorgeous design addresses the age-old problem of tea leaves. Those of us who insist on a full-blooded brew skip the tea-bags and go for the loose-leafed option…but are forced to faff about with a strainer to get the results into our cups. The Dione Tea Set is the best of both worlds by containing a fine mesh that traps the tea leaves in one hemisphere, and when you are ready for your cuppa, you flip the pot over, straining the tea through the mesh into the pot’s base which becomes your cup!

(Images via: Yanko Design and Gizmodo)

Is that pot still warm? Since there is little nastier than a tepid cup of tea (hot, good; iced, good; tepid, bleargh), modern designers have invented teapots that can tell you at a glance how hot their contents are. The Creativi*tea pot blushes to an appropriately flaming scarlet when it is up to temperature – while the Space Invaders pot lets loose its pesky interstellar critters from behind an innocuous pastoral scene when your tea is piping hot.

(Image via: Clothing Shoes Accessories)

Staying with teapots that should rightly be called tea-carafes, here is the snuggest of them all. The Eva Solo teapot’s winsome curves (because this pot is slightly kinky, let’s be honest here) are hugged by a zipped cozy to trap the heat inside. For those wishing a slightly less naughty-looking version, it also comes in black.

(Images via: Sorapot)

Now for a design that has got tongues wagging. Garnering the enthusiastic attention of Wired, Dwell, New York magazine, Apartment Therapy and many more, the Sorapot is a word-of-mouth marvel. Glance above and you can see why: the body is transparent and allows you to see your tea brewing, all without sacrificing the simply grab’n'pour functionality. Unclip, up-end, pop your leaves in, top up with hot water, reassemble…and enjoy the show.

(Images via: Peter Bo and Design Milk)

And for other teapots that look nothing like teapots? First up, the Maru, a torus of ceramic with a walnut base that wants you to slow down – which you most certainly would, as you struggle to work out what it is and how it works. Then there is the Potter, looking like a cross between a non-stick saucepan and a kettle (so much so that the product page comes with a warning for the unwary).

(Images via: design boom)

You have just woken, and you are blearily making your first cuppa of the day in the hope that it will give you the strength to go on. The Mistea is designed to catch your mood – shaped like a snail, it encourages you to take your unhurried time and enjoy yourself before things get manic. Just don’t get too comfortable.

(Images via: freshome and Yanko Design)

But if getting too comfortable is your guiding principle in life, aim for Lotte Alpert’s Lazy Teapot. Thanks to its rocking action when in dock, you don’t have to lift this pot to pour your tea – and the temperature control means you don’t have to expend a single second’s thought on wondering if it’s hot enough.  The Zygo looks like it should do something similar, but in fact this sturdy, fantastically curved design (centred around a stainless steel sphere) is the traditional kind of pick-me-up beverage.

(Images via: TeaPottery and Book Hunter’s Holiday and thisnext and design boom)

Can’t tear yourself away from the computer screen or from your book, even for just one cup of tea? The Computea or Book Teapot might help (or make your problem worse – one of the two, anyway). If you’re feeling distracted or too tired to think, the Gun Teapot waved in your face should refocus your attention nicely…while the T-Pot’s function is obvious even to the fuzziest brain.

(Image via: design boom)

When teapots are having such obvious identity crises, it seems inevitable that many designers will turn to other non-beverage sources of inspiration…such as birds. The Birdy tea set copies the perky shape of our smaller avian friends- but for good practical reasons. The set’s tea-cups and saucers are fixed directly against the pot’s body, heating up as it heats up – so when you’re ready to pour, it is into pre-warmed receptables that won’t cool your tea before it reaches your mouth.

(Images via: Yanko Design and The Boston Globe)

The Cigno’s inspiration is obvious, and the design manages to look stunning and be practical at the same time – the handle is its ribbed-rubber neck.  (Now to ruin the elegant vibe: would it be the perfect venue for a spot of teapot-blowing?) On similar lines, the So Fly copies the shape of a nesting black-headed gull (the “head” being a rubber lid).

(Images via: uberreview and designboom)

But the world is far from finished with the traditional teapot shape, as these two designs show. The Toaster Teapot slots in nicely with our current obsession with multifunction gadgetry, firing out slices of toast while your tea is brewing inside. Tropics, on the other hand, isn’t a teapot at all, it’s actually a citrus fruit squeezer…but the teapot shape lends itself so well to the idea that we’re amazed it hasn’t been thought of already. So, while faux-teapots dispense lemon juice, actual teapots are getting harder and harder to identify…all over a hot drink that is supposed to relax us! Ah, modern life.

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While many of us go for a functionalist, pick’n'mix approach to home decor (”I need curtains: oh, that will do” etc.), let us be upstanding for the financially brave, creatively passionate and unashamedly geeky souls who transform their homes into miniature versions of their favorite corners of modern culture, as these 8 thoroughly unique examples illustrate.

(Images via: Hack N Mod via Geeky Gadgets)

If you wish that the Steam Age was still with us and have a thing for overengineered pipes and rocket-firing dirigibles, you would feel thoroughly at home in this Extraordinary Gentleman’s house in New Zealand. The house is designed to look like a beached  Twenty Thousand Leagues-style submarine, complete with rust, encroaching greenery and a working periscope! Feeling similarly inspired? Prepare to have your savings torpedoed – this beast cost $100,000 to build.

(Image via: Gizmodo)

Everyone wants a treehouse. (Even adults want a treehouse.) But is it going too far to build a treehouse in your bedroom?

(Image via: Gizmodo)

The Kidtropolis Magic Indoor Treehouse Bedroom is kitted out with everything a treehouse-hugger could wish for. As well as the bed (only accessible via ladder), the room contains trapdoor storage facilites and a table that folds down from the ‘fence’ running round the room.

(Images via: Illusion 360 and Sellsius)

Staying with wood, what happens when you want a plushly-paneled basement study and your budget won’t stretch? For Lexington (Kentucky) lawyer Charlie Fratzer, the answer was simple: pull out a pen and draw it. With nothing but a $10 Sharpie and a fertile imagination, Fratzer has decorated his basement with staircases, furniture, members of his family and historical & fictional characters including Winston Churchill, Sherlock Holmes and Bullwinkle & Rocky.

(Image via: Gizmodo)

Now for the work of truly dedicated parents. This is a kid’s bedroom (please let it be a kid’s bedroom) in a house currently up for sale…

(Image via: Gizmodo)

…and the centerpiece (if you can call something entirely filling a room a ‘centerpiece’) is a reconstruction of a Star Wars Y-Wing. If you are wondering where the bed is, it’s laid along the wing. All you need is a droid alarm clock and the illusion is complete. (”R2, that duvet’s broken loose again, see if you can’t tuck it in”).

(Images via: SlipperyBrick)

Or perhaps your scifi tastes lean more towards the other largest franchise in the known Universe – in which case this NCC-1701D (that’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation’s USS Enterprise” to us terrestrial folk) home theatre should push all the right buttons. Check out other 14 similarly creative / mad-as-a-fish examples over at SlipperyBrick.

(Image via: The Telegraph)

But for sheer unadulterated Trek-lurve, the prize goes to interior designer Tony Alleyne. After his marriage faltered, Alleyne decided to turn his flat into the ultimate geek bachelor pad – by modeling it on the set of Star Trek: Voyager.

(Images via: The Telegraph and The Mirror)

Press the doorbell and a voice says “welcome to the 24th century” – and from there it’s a Trekkie’s paradise, complete with a “fully-working transporter” (a what?), touch-panel lighting, command consoles and a replica of Voyager’s warp core that propels the ship between the stars. (It’s in the spot where the fridge used to be).  The price of all this geeky luxury? Fourteen maxed-out credit cards,  $160,000 in debt…and bankruptcy. Alleyne remains philosophical: “I’m still proud of what I created, but it’s been a financial disaster”.

(Images via: Wired)

If you constantly have the Mario theme-tune running through your head (like the creators of this little masterpiece), why not turn your home into a shrine to your favorite Italian plumber? That is what Antoinette J. Citizen has done, as reported by Wired. The walls are painted in jolly Mario colors and are studded with bricks that play the original sound effects when poked and pushed (and maybe even when jumped on). How many shiny gold coins did this cost?

(Image via: Daily Mail)

And finally, for all young girls pining to live the Cinderella dream (the glamorous ending, not the sitting-in-cinders part) then that dream can be a reality – if daddy is a premiership footballer with $80,000 to kick around, that is.

(Image via: Daily Mail)

The individually-tailored work of Mark Wilkinson Furniture, these luxury items of furniture include ornate murals and hand-crafted carriage beds. Some footballers have even come up with their own designs – leading the British media to label these creations the latest demonstrations of footballers having more money than sense. Would you like your darling treasures to grow up expecting to be treated like fairy-tale royalty?

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The Pencil Chair: Get The Point?

(images via: Design Boom and Techeblog)

You could say German artist Kerstin Schulz might not be the sharpest pencil in the box, but that’s understandable as she’s worn out every sharpener within reach to create a suite of furniture only a lovesick porcupine could love. Just looking at her graphic graphite Pencil Chair is giving me lead poisoning… and don’t even ask what she did with all the shavings. Schulz was commissioned to craft something special for Faber Castell’s 100th anniversary exhibition in 2005; we can bet she’s looking forward to doing something similar for Bic.

The Concrete Chair: Heavyset Seat

(images via: Crunch22 and Dornob)

Here’s the perfect chair to have when you need a friend to help you move… and you happen to really hate your friend. Stefan Zwicky’s 1980 homage to the classic 1929 Le Corbusier Petite Chair has little to recommend it besides rock-solid durability – and one ton of mass. Comfort zone? More like Twilight Zone. Plunk this concrete chair in the middle of the Sahara Desert at high noon and it’ll STILL be cold & clammy.

The Panda Chair: For Your Bear Bum

(images via: Geekologie and Moss Online)

The Banquete Chair with Pandas by Fernando and Humberto Campana is said to be a limited edition – no surprise, there aren’t that many pandas left after all. Especially after the Brothers Campana cobbled together 25 of these somewhat disturbing chairs. OK, they’re not made of REAL pandas but they’re still uncomfortable, at least to look at. Actually sitting on the Banquette Chair is probably extremely soothing for your body, just not for your soul.

The Stick Chair: It’s The Wood That Makes It Bad

(images via: Core77 and Scandinavian Design Online)

The Stick Chair comes to us courtesy of Carlo Volf of Danish design firm Volfdesign, though from the looks of it “courtesy” isn’t one of Volf’s better qualities. It’s doubtful he has a soft spot for comfort either, since YOUR soft spot will never forgive you for sitting in this chair. Designed for the 2005 Carpenter’s Autumn Exhibition, “Stick”, as Volf calls it, will definitely stick it to you… where the sun don’t shine.

The Cheese Chair: What’s That Smell?

(images via: InventorSpot and Cosimo Cavallaro)

Like a little Limburger with your La-Z-Boy? Maybe a lot? Step right up and sit right down. Cosimo Cavallaro’s Cheese Chair is either cool, or it stinks. Literally. When you design a chair covered in cheese there just isn’t any room for compromise. Compro-mice, maybe, but I digress. The 1999 curvaceous curd-aceous cheesy chair is just one example of Cavallaro’s specialty, food art. Looking to visit the artist’s studio? Book a flight to Montreal, Quebec, and follow your nose.

Anti-Homeless Benches: Sit, Now Git!

(image via: Oh My News)

Cities around the world have begun to make public seating uncomfortable – by design! The intent is not to annoy visitors to parks, trains stations and so on, but to discourage those who habitually use such seating for much longer than the usual few minutes. Take the fiendishly artistic bench above, located in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro West Park. Built from stainless steel, the bench gets hot in summer and cold in winter. Its rounded, smooth surface is slippery and anti-ergonomic. According to the local parks office, the benches are intended for short-term use and “people should take the utmost care when sitting on them.”

The Radiator Chair: Steam Heat Seat

(images via: Design Lines and Stylenorth)

“Made from 80 year old radiators, this chair is surprisingly comfortable.” That just may be the case, since the Radiator Chair looks unsurprisingly UNcomfortable. It also looks somewhat out of place among the traditionally styled offerings at the Barrymore Furniture Galleries in Toronto… until you glance at the $1,430 written on the price tag. The Radiator Chair comes with an optional companion piece: a $1,200 end table that sports a red valve handle on one front leg. Don’t turn it, whatever you do!

Cactus Couch: Me So Thorny!

(images via: Dark Roasted Blend and China Chair Project)

Not just merely uncomfortable, it’s Sofa King uncomfortable! Looking like a gag gift for Wile E. Coyote, the “Ouch Couch” is (thankfully) not real, but a processed graphic image. The diabolic divan starred in a series of ads for Sony’s AXN pay television, cable and satellite television channel in conjunction with the tag line “Relax. If you can”. Just below the ultimate tough-love seat is a hand-molded silicone chair & footstool combo modeled after a prickly pear – and what a prickly pair they are! It was featured at the China Chair Project art exhibit and is the work of artist (and sadist, obviously) Xiang Yun.

The Clutch Chair: Sip Right Down

(images via: Scott Jarvie)

The Clutch Chair by Scott Jarvie was made out of 10,000 plastic drinking straws as a commentary on our throwaway disposable culture and was selected by Zaha Hadid as for the Curators Choice award at Noise Festival 2008. A winning design, thus, but a loser when it comes to practical, comfortable seating. On a positive note, at least The Clutch Chair is well-ventilated though if comfort was a concern, the designers should have used 10,000 bendy straws

The Steel Bean Bag Chair: Heavy Metal Wonder

(images via: Bedzine and The Design Blog)

Rick Ivey’s “1825″ steel beanbag chair displays the rough-edged, riveted look of an Industrial Revolution boilerplate steam engine – just the thing you DON’T want to sink into at the end of a hard day’s night. The $4,500 price tag, however, WILL make you weak at the knees.

The Venus Chair: Sitting On The Edge

(images via: Oh Gizmo! and Core77)

Going green, getting back to nature, growing your own… it all sounds comfy & cozy, doesn’t it? Well, not always – as the Venus Chair by Japanese designer Tokujin Yoshioka illustrates. Grown in a tank filled with a supersaturated solution, the Venus Chair slowly takes shape as tiny crystals precipitate out of the solution and onto a prepared chair form. Tiny SHARP-EDGED crystals, growing bigger, sharper, pointier by the minute. Just the thing you’d like to plop down on – which is perhaps the reason the Venus Chair is in the running for this year’s Brit Insurance Furniture Award. No dummies, those guys.

The Skeleton Chair: Bad To The Bone

(images via: Michael Aram and Neiman Marcus)

Commenting on his polished aluminum and steel Skeleton Chair, designer Michael Aram states “The shape of the human body is a great source of inspiration. Stripped of its skin, it becomes an arresting and unexpected natural form.” Sure Mikey, but this arresting and unexpected chair is the last thing most people would look to when they need to take a load off their feet. If “adding drama to your living space” is your thing, however, prepare to bone up $650 for the privilege.

The Electric Chair: The Original Hot Seat

(images via: Roadside America and Biogant)

To close this baker’s dozen of deceitful seats, we present the most infernal piece of furniture ever created, built for speed and not for comfort: the Electric Chair. Though many replicas of Ol’ Sparky and others of its ilk now cool their heels in various state prison museums scattered across the US of A, there doesn’t seem to be a “home version” available for horror freaks & geeks to set up in their rec rooms. Yet…

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