The design collaboration between Andrea Colombo (interested in iconic cars) and Linda Assandri (passionate about Swarovski and glam details) led to the development of the Glamour Beetle Armchair. The duo from ZAC Glamour Design launched a unique approach to furniture, combining Baroque elements and Car Art. In the case of the armchair presented in the photos below, the designers used real Volkswagen Beetle MY1968 wings and an upholstered chair with Swarovski crystals and LED lights. The unconventional furniture piece also comes with solid finishes in in silver leaf or gold leaf (available in real gold 24 kt. / or real silver), produced by a highly qualified Italian craftsmen team. With a flashy, easily noticeable look, the Glamour Beetle fits well in a modern bachelor’s crib or a public space with a unique personality. Where would you place it? [...]

Car body parts been used to construct unusual and ultramodern furniture since the beginning of automobile. Italian company Tavomatico are continuing the tradition but with a little twist. In 2012 they introduced line of tire coffee tables in array of color combinations. Tires have been fabricated and refinished to make them odorless, and top/bottom plexiglass covers create easy accessible storage space. Coaster wheels makes tables easy to move around. Option of colors is plentiful for any modern space, see for yourself - Tavomatico. For more information please visit Tavomatico [...]

If artists, musicians and furniture designers Simon and Nikolai Haas feel they don't have a sufficient number of adjectives before their collective name, they can surely pick up a few this week at Design Miami/Basel. The Haas brothers' latest range of furnishings - launched in Basel by New York contemporary-design gallery R 20th Century - comes with a list of descriptives a mile long, and when viewed at once it casts a whole new light on the craftsmen. The new collection of reptilian brass tables and feral fur seating has a brutish quality that both attracts and repels. The brass coffee tables and stools employ the designers' groundbreaking hexagon-tile surface to unusual amorphous effect, creating a shape that appears to physically skulk. Combined with Plexiglas to form the 'Unique' lamp and shade, the hexagonal tiles take on a phallic quality that will shock and delight in equal measure - even among the cosmopolitan crowds at Basel. [...]

What do you do next when you are Zaha Hadid? Twice winner of the Stirling prize and the first woman to win the Pritzker prize, the 62-year-old architect has been celebrated by both Forbes and Time magazine in their lists of the world's 100 most influential people – and she was recently named businesswoman of the year. [...]

'I never thought about art when I was young, but I did like to draw' says furniture artist Wendell Castle, surveying his new exhibition at New York's Friedman Benda gallery. [...]