You wouldn’t design a bookshelf around the latest best sellers or some fad self help books. But you might if the books were the most important ever written. That’s what design firm Mike and Maaike did when they form fitted a piece of reclaimed redwood to display humanity’s most holy literary works: The Bhagavad Gita, The Bible, The Qur’an, Confucius’ The Analects, The Tao Te Ching, Discourses of the Buddha, and The Torah. Together they make for 3,700 years of wisdom, brought together harmoniously on this beautiful bookshelf.

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There are two cool things about the wallpaper from Dutch designer Jonas Samson:

First, when it is turned off it looks like normal wallpaper — stylish and sophisticated, with flowing floral patterns, but otherwise normal.

Second, this is the sort of wallpaper you can predicate with the phrase “when it is turned off.” When it is turned on light appears from behind the wallpaper as if by magic. The sensation it gives to a room is truly transforming. See more photos below:

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One piece going on display at Artists Space in New York City this month especially caught our eye. Local River is more than a flowerpot-and-aquarium-in-one. It is a symbiotic system: the fish feed off the plants, and the plants drink the water nutrient-rich with fish waste, which in turns purifies the water for the fish. Designers Mathieu Lehanneur and Anthony van den Bossche were inspired by the Locavores movement that encourages locally sustainable lifestyles. We like that Local River eliminates the need for us to feed the fish or clean the fish tank. Catch it at Artists Space from 25 April to 21 June 2008.

LEARN MORE: Mathieu Lehanneur | Artists Space

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