HBL Retail: Mademoiselle Oiseau

Mademoiselle Oiseau by Lovisa Burfitt for Rörstrand

Swedish porcelain brand Rörstrand has teamed up with Paris-based fashion designer and illustrator Lovisa Burfitt to create a new collection of painted bone china inspired by Burfitt's fantasy muse, an eccentric character named Mademoiselle Oiseau.

"She's a woman who has withdrawn from a decadent life. She lives with good friends, cats and birds in an enormous apartment in Paris", explains Burfitt. "They all read newspapers to one another and eat pastries, in an indeterminable era where anything is possible."

View the collection here.

HBL Pattern: Josef Frank

A Josef Frank pattern-filled interior by Lukas Göthman, as seen in Plaza Déco, May 2011

Plaza magazine's latest newsletter highlights a revival of the patterned wallpapers and textiles by Austrian-Swedish interior designer Josef Frank (1885-1967).

Artist Lukas Göthman has created an interior decor scheme dedicated to the designer's work - and has even gone to the lengths of having Frank's patterns tattooed onto his own arm.

HBL Analysis: Dipped design

Liga collection by Elise Gabriel

Dip-dyeing may not be an innovative process, but it is definitely becoming more popular, as its usage spreads from fashion and beauty to furniture and home accessories. From handcrafted to mass-made, an interesting variety of materials are being used. WGSN-homebuildlife analyses how conceptual inspirations become commercial items.

Promisedesign: Milan preview

Happy Material armchair by Pini Leibovich

Promisedesign 2011, curated by Ely Rozenberg and Vanni Pasca, will be in the off-fair district of Venture Lambrate during the Milan furniture fair next month, and will then tour around Europe afterwards. The exhibition aims to celebrate the best of Israeli design with work on show from fifty designers, ranging from well-established names to emerging talent.

IKEA Bedroom Makeover Contest

IKEA Hong Kong Bedroom Makeover Contest

Due to the nature of Hong Kong’s large population and the contrasting size of the country, homes tend be to flats with very limited floor space (therefore the ritual of entertaining guests is usually located outdoors). IKEA Hong Kong has launched an online campaign that provides the rare opportunity to view people's private bedrooms.

Via its Facebook group page, the Bedroom Makeover Photo Contest invites submissions of personal stories - with accompanying before and after photos – of how IKEA products have helped solved a bedroom nightmare. Once uploaded, friends are invited and encouraged to vote for the entry. The ten most voted photos will determine the top ten finalists. After which, the jury of the contest will select the top three grand prize winners based on the creativity and popularity of their photos and descriptions.

HBL Exhibitions: Susan Hiller at Tate Britain

Monument by Susan Hiller (1980-1) at Tate Britain. Photo: Tate Photography/Sam Drake

Visiting Susan Hiller's current solo exhibition at Tate Britain, WGSN-homebuildlife were struck by how much the prevailing themes in her work have in common with our A/W 12/13 macrotrend Radical Neutrality. Hiller investigates memory, language and imagination largely through assemblage and installation work, and many of her pieces fit with ideas central to Radical Neutrality, such as absence, faux uniformity and quiet protest.

HBL Book of the Week: Tokujin Yoshioka

Tokujin Yoshioka, published by Rizzoli International

Our choice this week is remarkable for both its visual beauty and the rare insight it offers into one of the most poetic minds in the design industry. Tokujin Yoshioka (Rizzoli International, 2010, ISBN: 9780847834112) presents a photographic retrospective of Yoshioka's career to date, from the Honey-Pop chair to his installations for brands including Swarovski, Cartier and Issey Miyake.

WGSN loves: the clarifying structure, which first of all breaks down Yoshioka's approach into four concepts - interdisciplinarity, immateriality, novelty of structure and spatiality. Yoshioka also offers thoughts and explanatory statements throughout, which make apparent the depth of thinking which goes into each project.

WGSN-homebuildlife subscribers can read our recent interview with Tokujin Yoshioka here.

Multiplex by Tom Dixon: Milan preview

Etch by Tom Dixon: the new 100cm diameter version will be launched at Multiplex

British designer Tom Dixon will host Multiplex, a pop-up viewing theatre, exhibition, shop and restaurant, during next month's Milan Furniture Fair. Working in collaboration with Blackberry, the designer will use the 400m² space to showcase his new collection across six interactive environments, including a science lab and hotel lobby.

HBL Blog of the Week: Things Organized Neatly

Things Organized Neatly

WGSN-homebuildlife favourite Things Organized Neatly is our choice this week: at least one member of our team enjoys this blog on a daily basis, being as it is a haven for all the neat obsessives of the world. Its selection criteria are described as follows: "Things that have been laid out carefully, precisely, evenly; things on shelves, in vices; studio photography, diagrams and right angles."

WGSN loves: the niche it has carved out for itself, based on an incredibly specific area of interest.

HBL Analysis: Under wraps

Spool chair by Keisuke Fujiwara

Furniture that has been wrapped or tightly bound with yarn, wire or thread has emerged as a strong new aesthetic at this year's trade shows and product launches. This trend is about decoration as well as protection, combining colour with texture and recycling with craft. WGSN-homebuildlife subscribers can click here to see the key pieces.

ModoLuce: Milan Preview

Icaro by Brian Rasmussen for ModoLuce

Italian lighting brand ModoLuce will present a new lamp, called Icaro, at next month's Euroluce in Milan. The design is suitable for both floor and ceiling use, with a table lamp format also available, and comes in three colourways: white, black or chrome.

HBL Retail: Grow! Urban gardening at Selfridges

Cavalier plant pots by az & mut

Selfridges' concept space The Wonder Room will play host to Grow!, a pop-up retail space focusing on the modern phenomenon of urban gardening, for the duration of April 2011.

Guerrilla gardening will be a major theme throughout the space: Kabloom have created Seedboms in vibrant shades of Selfridges yellow especially for the event, while guerrilla gardener Richard Reynolds will be installing a photographic celebration of guerrilla gardening to date in the Wonder Windows.