Every fabrication lab in the country is quietly accumulating a problem. Failed prints, test runs, leftover filament, the ghost of every prototype that didn’t make the cut. Most of it ends up in the bin. Architect Hyojin Kwon noticed this and, instead of moving on, asked a different question: what if all that discarded plastic could hold a note?

The result is Ninefold: A Distributed Resonant Field, a collaboration between Kwon’s design studio Pre- and Post-, percussionist and composer Jeremy Muller, and architect and material researcher Misri Patel. It’s currently on view at the Reeves House Visual Arts Center in Woodstock, Georgia, through September, and it is one of the more quietly radical things happening in design right now.

Designers: Hyojin Kwon × Jeremy Muller x Misri Patel

The installation is made up of nine large-scale forms, each one 3D-printed from discarded PLA collected from campus makerspaces and fabrication labs. The team shredded that waste into pellets, blended it with virgin material, and ran it through a pellet-based additive manufacturing process. The resulting objects are not identical. Some grow into tall, slender columns. Others widen into chambers or narrow toward their centers. Each carries its own texture, its own layered color variation from the mixed-batch sourcing, and its own distinct harmonic frequency. Together, they form a distributed sound field, meaning the sound is never coming from one place. It moves with you.

That last part is what makes this more than a sculpture show with a good concept. As you walk through the space, your position changes the acoustic picture entirely. Tones overlap, separate, recede. You’re not passively observing nine objects; you’re completing the field. The project draws on the thinking of composer Edgard Varèse, who called for “organized sound” as architecture, and on the spatial music systems of Iannis Xenakis and Le Corbusier. Those are not small reference points. They’re pointing at a lineage that treats space itself as a musical instrument, and Kwon, Muller, and Patel are building within that tradition using material that would have otherwise ended up as landfill.

The aspect of Ninefold that deserves real attention is how seriously it takes the material. The layered plastic isn’t hidden or smoothed over into something that looks deliberately “designed.” The texture is part of the expression. You can see the deposition, the color shifts, the history of what it was made from. The project doesn’t pretend the recycling didn’t happen; it foregrounds it. That honesty feels important at a moment when sustainability has become more of a marketing category than an actual practice.

The nine forms were also fabricated in modular sections, which means they can be transported, reconfigured, and reinstalled elsewhere. That might seem like a logistical footnote, but it matters: an installation about material longevity should probably have a long life. These objects weren’t made to be shown once and archived.

Ninefold is part of a dual exhibition that also includes Plastic Reimagined: Material Agency & Circular Design, developed with students from Georgia Tech’s graduate architecture program and curated by Carolina Cuevas. The full show runs through September at the Reeves House, and admission is free. If you’re near Woodstock, Georgia, it’s worth the trip. If you’re not, the images alone carry something worth sitting with. A lot of projects right now wear sustainability as a label. Ninefold actually earns it, and then manages to also be beautiful, which is rarer than it should be.

The post The Georgia Art Show Turning 9 Broken 3D Prints Into Music first appeared on Yanko Design.

I am not a parent myself, but I have been around enough parents that I make some unsolicited observations (to myself, to be fair), especially when it comes to them carrying babies and toddlers. Whenever I see them carrying babies on a sling, I keep thinking, “That doesn’t seem to be that comfortable for both the parent and the kid.” So it’s interesting to see baby brands try to come up with design solutions for this kind of problem, since it’s something that will be around forever.

South Korean baby brand Konny’s contribution to easing the life of parents is the Dual Support Hip Seat Carrier. It aims to solve two of the prevalent problems that they face when using slings. First, it has a foldable hip pad and back pad to make it more comfortable for the kid. Second, the parent doesn’t just bear the weight on one shoulder because of this carrier’s Dual Support.

Designer: Konny

This portable baby hip seat carrier’s main purpose is to replicate the security of a parent’s arms so the baby is upright, safe, and comfortable. It has a foldable hip pad combined with a back pad to give this sense of security. It even has a non-slip bottom so the kid will not slide off the seat, which I sometimes see happen with other seat carriers. The seat is made of soft 3D mesh, giving a more comfortable feeling for your baby as you carry them around.

It also takes into consideration the comfort of the parents since they’re carrying the heavy load, so to speak. The carrier has wide shoulder straps that are able to spread the weight evenly across the back to avoid the one-shoulder strain that a lot of parents experience. You also have the option to carry the baby from a hip position or a front-facing hold. The fabric used is the same stretch-and-resilience material that the other Konny Baby Carriers use, a fabric tested and trusted through over one million carriers sold.

The Dual Support Hip Seat Carrier weighs only 0.5 lbs and can be folded into a small enough item to put in a purse or a diaper bag. But when not being used to carry a baby, it can actually function as a chic and stylish bag that you can carry stuff around with. It claims to be a one-size-fits-all accessory as it is accessible for all kinds of body types.

What I find particularly reassuring, especially for those who aren’t baby gear experts, is that the Dual Support Hip Seat Carrier is IHDI certified. The International Hip Dysplasia Institute recognizes baby carriers that actively support healthy hip development in infants, so this isn’t just a comfort win for parents; it’s a safety win for babies, too. That kind of certification adds a layer of trust that goes beyond just good design.

And speaking of good design, the carrier actually won the 2024 Good Design Award, one of the most prestigious design honors in the world. The jury praised it for achieving a “near-perfect balance between infant safety and parental convenience,” and honestly, it’s easy to see why. The fact that it doubles as a bag when you’re not carrying a baby is already a clever touch, but knowing that the structure was the result of dozens of prototypes and extensive real-world customer testing makes it even more impressive.

The Dual Support Hip Seat Carrier is available on konnybaby.com starting at $59.99, and it comes in a range of colors, from classic Charcoal and Black to more playful options like Green Tea and Blue Grey, as well as a Corduroy version for something a little more textured.

As someone who has watched many a parent struggle with a squirming toddler and a lopsided sling, I’d say this is the kind of product that makes you think, “Finally.” It may not replace the full-on baby carrier for long hauls, but for that “carry me now” stage, when your toddler suddenly decides their legs no longer work, this seems like exactly the right tool for the job.

The post Konny Just Solved the One Thing Baby Slings Never Could first appeared on Yanko Design.

Most lighting gets chosen the same way people pick curtains: functional, inoffensive, and quickly forgotten. You walk through a showroom, you point at something that won’t clash with the sofa, and that’s more or less the end of the design conversation. That’s not a criticism of how people live; it’s just an observation of how light, despite being the single most transformative element in any space, rarely gets to have fun.

Davide Groppi’s Race of Lights is the exception to all of that. The Italian lighting brand, based in Piacenza and known for making some of the most quietly radical lamps in contemporary design, released Race of Lights in 2025. On paper, it is a modular wall lamp. In reality, it is a slot-car racing track that someone decided should also be your light source, and the whole thing somehow works beautifully.

Designer: Davide Groppi

The concept is exactly what it sounds like. An electrified track, made from textured matte black polyethylene, gets mounted on the wall in whatever configuration you want. The track carries current, and the light sources are tiny car-shaped spotlights that snap into place magnetically and can be moved, repositioned, or rearranged any time the mood strikes. The basic kit includes two short straight modules, four longer sections, six curves, and four colored light-cars in green, white, blue, and red. The whole system can run up to five metres across your wall and power up to eight spotlights, each with an adjustable head so you can direct the beam exactly where you want it. This is, objectively, absurd. It is also one of the most genuinely exciting things to come out of the lighting world in years.

What makes Race of Lights so interesting to think about is how it sits within Davide Groppi’s broader body of work. This is a designer who built his reputation on doing less. His lamp Nulla, which won the Compasso d’Oro in 2014, measures just 18 millimetres in diameter and is practically invisible in a ceiling. The name literally translates to “nothing.” The philosophy has always been that the lamp should disappear so the light can remain. Race of Lights does not disappear. It sits on your wall, looped and curved, with little colored cars parked along the track. It makes a statement in the exact opposite direction of everything Groppi has been doing, and yet it makes complete sense.

Because the brand has never really been about minimalism for minimalism’s sake. The design language has always carried a sense of emotion. Groppi has spoken about light as a tool for seduction and curiosity, about design emerging from the heart as much as the mind. Race of Lights just takes that emotional dimension and makes it literal. The inspiration was childhood, specifically the memory of electric slot-car racing sets, the kind where small cars zip around a winding track spread across the living room floor. The track moves to the wall; the cars stay put and illuminate. Play becomes design, and the object retains the spirit of the original thing it was borrowing from.

The result is a piece that functions as a legitimate lighting solution and as a conversation starter and as something closer to a sculptural installation. You can compose it in a new shape whenever you want. That kind of flexibility tends to age well in a space, because you never quite exhaust the possibilities.

Cynics will say it is a gimmick. I understand the instinct, but I think that reading misses the point. Good design has always borrowed from play. The best chairs make sitting feel effortless. The best lamps make light feel intentional. Race of Lights makes light feel like something you chose with genuine enthusiasm rather than resigned practicality.

Lighting does not have to be a decision you make and then stop thinking about. Davide Groppi has spent decades proving that point in quietly different ways. Race of Lights is just the first time the argument came painted in red, white, blue, and green, with tiny cars attached.

The post The Italian Lamp That Uses Toy Race Cars as Light Bulbs first appeared on Yanko Design.