A good iPod dock is hard to find, especially if you're of the iPhone/Touch generation. That's why QDOS' Sound Frame, due this July, is such a refreshing find. It weighs less than half a pound and it's designed to be a real space-saver. Better yet, it rotates 90 degrees, making it easy to watch videos on the screen. (Tiny? Yes. But do we still use ours? Absolutely.) The 1.5-watt speakers won't knock anyone's ears out, though its size and versatility make it especially road-friendly. Look for it in July; price remains TBD.

[Crave]

In New York this weekend? You could do a lot worse than hitting the parties around Design Week: Once you know where to go, it's (relatively) easy to get past the clipboard-wielding door dictators. With the International Contemporary Furniture Fair opening tomorrow in Manhattan, there's no shortage of related events. We've broken down the best in our night-by-night itinerary:

The Terence Conran Shop turns red with an installation of Spanish works. Designs by Jaime Hayon, Martí Guixé, and others mix with stuffed piquillo pepper hors d'oeuvres (407 E. 59th St., 6-9 p.m.). Another option? Smallpond, Matter, and I.D. magazine's Housewarming, with installations by Established & Sons, Tom Dixon, and Thorsten van Elten (101 W. 24th St., 6:30-9 p.m.).

Spend the night in Soho: The Moss-Moroso-Maharam complex (150-152 Greene St.) features Studio Job's Robber Baron (pictured, the side table from a suite of five objects) alongside Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny's vases made by bees. Stop by the live auction at Cappellini (151 Wooster St., 7-10 p.m.), and check the scenes at Design Within Reach (110 Greene St., 7-10 p.m.), Kiosk (95 Spring St., 7-10 p.m.), and Bond (133 Greene St., 6-9:30 p.m.). Best bet? Core77's black light Ping-Pong party, which is exactly what it sounds like. (For secret location, e-mail rsvp77@core77.com.)

Yep, the panel-based office prison turns 40 this week. Originally known as an Action Office, it was developed in 1968 by Herman Miller designer Robert Propst. (He would later say he regretted his contribution to "monolithic insanity.") Celebrate by burning yours down—or at least making time for another screening of Office Space.

Reopening next week: Museion, an Italian museum of modern and contemporary art whose inaugural exhibit, Peripheral Vision and Collective Body, is a massive group show that includes works by Vito Acconci, Hans Haacke and Jean-Luc Godard, among others. Berlin architects KSV Krüger Schuberth Vandreike designed the new building as a five-story glass and steel cube that comes with the requisites: exhibition areas, events space, and a library. Added bonus? The museum's facades double as screens; curators will be able to project specially commissioned artworks onto them at night. That'll be handy come fall when Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix, a retrospective of the alternative band's multimedia career, goes on display. This is going to be the year punk broke in Italy, apparently.
Opening May 24, Via Dante 6, Bolanzo, Italy, (39) 0471-22-34-11, museion.it

[Dezeen]

Out soon: Jaime Hayon Works, the first monograph of the designer's work. It includes sketches, castings, and samples from his playful oeuvre, including the MGM musical-inspired BD Showtime furniture collection. The release also coincides with Arrojadoa, an installation of Hayon's work for Dutch furniture store Moooi. The centerpiece is Hayon's Elements, a functional reinterpretation of his ceramic cacti for Moooi (and a highlight of the Milan Furniture Fair) making its U.S. debut.
Jamie Hayon Works, $100, gestalten.com; Arrojadoa, May 17 through July 7, Diesel Denim Gallery, 68 Greene St., New York, NY (212) 966-5593, diesel.com

The globe-hopping jet set has descended on Cannes, and while style matters, it's really all about size—yacht size. Alberta Ferretti's 148-foot Prometej will be docking off the beach, as will the Missoni clan's 162-foot Pegasus. Meanwhile, Roberto Cavalli's 135-foot R&C makes up for its (relatively) diminutive stature with all the subtlety you'd expect from the man who gave the world leopard-print eveningwear: It's painted with an iridescent lacquer that gleams electric-purple in the sun and softens to navy at sunset. We checked—Hypercolor's not involved.

[WWD]

Foosball is worth obsessing over, so we're understandably wowed by up-and-coming designer Jared Arp. He crafted this maple and silver lace wood table while still a student in Denver, and the one-off piece is up for sale for the relatively bargain price of $9,500. (Just think of it as bespoke.) With its sensuous curves and hint of Swinging Sixties sophistication, this is foosball as God (and Alfie) intended. If you can't quite swing that Ferrari yet, gentlemen, it's nice to know there are other toys worth bidding on.
For more information, contact jaredarp@gmail.com

Budding NYC design darling Victor Vetterlein just unveiled his Reboot concept house over on Dezeen. The structure is completely self-sufficient, complete with solar panels, on-site wind turbines, and a special rooftop drain for collecting (and then recycling) rainwater. You can even control the building's precise internal temperature remotely from a cell phone or computer. All of which means it'll never be built, but should Wes Anderson ever direct a sci-fi film, now he knows who to call to make the set.

Now on view in Japan: XXIst Century Man, a multimedia exhibition curated by pleat-loving designer Issey Miyake. He's assembled works by notables like sculptor Tim Hawkinson and late designer Isamu Noguchi on topics like the environment, fashion, design, and architecture—the last of which includes 25-year-old Koutarou Sekiguchi's enormous masking tape and newspaper tower (pictured). An accompanying magazine, a collaboration between Miyake and the Japanese mag pen, has just made its way across our desk—not quite in time for the exhibit's late-March debut, but with plenty of time to spare before its July closing. (Hey, news of the dead-tree variety still travels slow.) It's a fascinating document, and better yet, it's available for $14 at Manhattan's Issey Miyake boutique—much cheaper than a trip to Tokyo.
XXIst Century Man runs through July 6, 2008, at 21_21 Design Sight, 9-7-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan, +03-3475-2121, 2121designsight.jp

Shepard Fairey is among the nine designers PC Mag has tapped for Computerlicious, an unfortunately named (if well-intentioned) charity auction of one-of-a-kind laptops. (Other participants include G-Unit cofounder Coltrane Curtis and graffiti artist James De La Vega.) Fairey's contribution (pictured) is based on his famed Peace Ornament and Zapatista Woman designs, and the current bid is $1,025—only 300 bucks more than the cost of the computer underneath, a plain ol' Hewlett Packard ZT1000. All proceeds go to the National Cristina Foundation, which donates used PCs to schools and nonprofits.

[via Gizmodo]

Score one for corporate synergy: Fortune reports Pixar's upcoming Wall-E will star Eve, an iMac-like robot created by Apple design guru Jonathan Ive. The collaboration's no shocker given Pixar was founded by Steve Jobs (who is also Disney's largest shareholder), and comes after last year's Ratatouille featured appetizing meals created, of course, by Thomas Keller.

[via Gizmodo]

Microsoft's Worldwidetelescope.org launches today, offering free downloadable software that allows even the most armchair-trapped astronomer to peruse the universe. The program functions as a virtual telescope that enables users to zoom in on far-flung corners of the galaxy. The rub? It's not live—the images have been cobbled together from varying times in the past. Still, it beats sitting around and waiting for the Science Channel's next Cosmos marathon.

Philippe Starck's "retirement" seems to be going about as well as Jay-Z's: He's just unveiled his first line of outdoor furniture, dubbed RobinWood. As you might guess, the collection is inspired by the prince of thieves, and looks-wise, the sustainable teak and polished-aluminum pieces are more Flynn than Costner. They include a canopy bed and chairs with names like Marian, Loxley, and Lil' John. (No, not this one.) And despite the name, the prices are more suitable for King Richard than for Merry Men.
RobinWood Deluxe, $1,650 to $2,350, available from David Sutherland Showroom, 1025 N. Stemmons Freeway, Dallas, (214) 742-6501, davidsutherlandshowroom.com

[via Luxist]

NYC and Tokyo apartment dwellers, take note: The Fractal 23 bureau is a space-saver if ever we've seen one. Designed by Takeshi Miyakawa, the plywood chest (named, presumably, after the number of drawers) made its debut at this weekend's BKLYN DESIGNS festival and uses every cubic inch for storage. And given that it's only 28 inches tall to begin with, you'll need all the space you can get.

[Core 77]

On view now: designer Hussein Chalayan's Level Tunnel, a 50-foot-long, 16-foot-tall, 20-ton interactive art piece commissioned by spirits-maker Level. (Hence the name.) How it works: Blindfolded participants walk through and get a "sensory experience" of the brand's vodka, including scents of lemon and cedar, and listen to music played on a Level-bottle flute (sadly not for sale), all while a monitor broadcasts the user's heartbeat to viewers outside. (Your reward for enduring all this? A sample of actual vodka at the end.) The installation opens in Mexico City this May, before traveling to Athens and Paris later in 2008.
For more information, visit levelvodka.com

[Designboom]

Capsule-espresso models are dominating the market, with Nespresso leading the Clooney-endorsed charge. Now Italian powerhouse illy is stepping up to the plate with its Francis X7 and X8 capsule models. Look familiar? They've been available to commercial clients, like Le Bernardin, Nobu, and the Mandarin Oriental, for some time. The iperEspresso line (that's "hyperEspresso" to the rest of us) has much to recommend it: both illy's lauded beans and an appealingly, uh, normal design. In other words, it's not quite Le Cube. No offense, George, but the Francis just looks more Lake Como-ready.
illy iperEspresso machines, $395-495, illyusa.com

[Luxist]

BKLYN DESIGNS kicks off in, uh, Brooklyn tonight, marking the unofficial start of the five boroughs' monthlong furnishings bonanza, which will culminate in two weeks with the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in Manhattan. This weekend in DUMBO, 70 exhibitors will present their work, like Re-Surface Design's "SOLO pendant lamp" (pictured), a repurposed microphone made into a light, replete with a "soft disco-like glow." (Sounds like Brooklyn to us.) Those who prefer less kitsch in their fixtures, take heart—the festival's Web site features both high- and low-minded examples.
May 9-11, $15, brooklyndesigns.net

Gripped by 8/8/08 fever? Us neither, but architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron are. The duo's design was chosen for Beijing's new Olympic Stadium, which is profiled tonight on National Geographic's Man Made. Of note: The superstructure can seat 91,000, and it looks like an enormous bird's nest made of twiglike beams. The architects say their inspirations include "a big pot" and "the Eiffel Tower." (Uh, sure.) Tune in—once August rolls around, you'll be too sick of the Games to care.
9 p.m., the National Geographic Channel

While not as limited as, say, Codatronca's Batmobile, this version of Mercedes-Benz's 2009 SL63 AMG roadster isn't exactly going to be available to the masses, either. The company will only produce 200, each of which will feature a new white paint job (in a shade called "designo mango Kashmir") and the requisite 525 horses under the hood. The price is still TBD, but as a bonus purchase incentive, they're throwing in a limited-edition timepiece from Swiss watchmaker IWC Schaffhausen, just in case you were looking to kill two birds with one stone.

James Bond may be returning in the forthcoming novel Devil May Care, but his Aston Martin isn't. Instead, 007 will be tooling around in a custom Bentley R-type Continental convertible, as he did in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (Guess that wreck got to him, too.) To celebrate, Penguin Books commissioned Bentley to design a limited leather-bound edition of the book, complete with a matching pewter die-cast model. Salivating Bond fanatics can place orders at penguin007.com, but be warned: Hot Wheels prices these aren't. It will cost about $1,400 to buy the pleasure of making vroom-vroom noises with the tiny replica—around the price, we're guessing, of an evening's rental of a real one.
Bentley Devil May Care limited edition available May 28 at penguin007.com

As part of their Forever!series, Dutch designers BCXSY have created the conceptual "Infinity Aquarium," a handcrafted glass polygon in which fish can swim in an endless loop. The tank is part of a collection that attempts to solve existential problems in design—i.e., defining the length of an eternity. (Other products in the series include "Destilled Nature," a vase for dead flowers, and the "Forever Dish," a plate molded with a ceramic sculpture of a steak dinner in its center.) The updated aquarium is certainly an improvement over the old model, even if the fish swimming in it are unlikely to notice the difference.

[BCXSY via Coolhunting]

Richard Meier & Partners: Complete Works 1963-2008 is a massive new monograph that plots the starchitect's career from Le Corbusier acolyte to his more recent commissions executed in glass and steel. Included are designs for the Jubilee Church in Rome (pictured) and Manhattan's celebrity housing project (home to Nicole Kidman, Calvin Klein, and Martha Stewart), among others. The oversize tome also features blueprints, sketches, site plans, and models for "unbuilt" projects like a multitower Madison Square Garden megaplex that will dominate New York's skyline—if the city ever gives Meier the chance.
$150, available at Taschen.com

Later this month Beijing will host the world's biggest color LED display, the Zero Energy Media Wall. (Zero energy? Sounds like a case of the Mondays.) It harvests solar energy by day to power a trippy light show by night. Given the city's notorious smog levels, we're not sure how this will work on either side of sunset, but it looks undeniably cool, as you can see in a preview below:

[Technabob via Engadget]

SpadaConcept's Turismo Sportivo Codatronca (pictured) piqued the auto world's interest a year ago when designs first hit the Internet and again late last month when the Italian studio announced that the car had actually gone into production. What's new? Its price. The car will sell for around $394,000—about what you'd expect for a vehicle that goes from 0 to 60 in under three seconds, tops out at 211 miles per hour, and takes its aesthetic cues from Corvette (and, judging by appearances, the Batmobile). Act quickly: The company's only manufacturing 20.

[Goldarths]

Architect Eric Olsen's Solar Water Disinfecting Tarpaulin is the kind of invention we love—a portable filtration system created for areas where potable water is a luxury. The flexible bag is powered by solar radiation and can be easily filled and carried. (As an added bonus, it doesn't look half-bad as a sarong.) Recently awarded the Metropolis Next Generation Design Prize, it runs circles around the competition. Yeah, Fiji bottle: We're looking at you.

[Design Boom]

Offering industrial retail design (think poured-concrete floors and exposed beams), Tesla's first dealership opened in L.A. last night. The 10,000-square-foot space features the company's Roadster, a 100-percent-electric car that goes from 0 to 60 in under four seconds and gets about 221 miles of driving per charge. It also has the benefit of not looking like that other rechargeable vehicle—the golf cart.
Tesla flagship store, 11163 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, (310) 473-8337, teslamotors.com

Plataforma Arquitectura has published pictures of Alberto Mozó's new offices for BIP Computers in Santiago—an impressive three-story building constructed of laminated wood, featuring exposed rafters and a winding interior staircase. It's more treehouse than cubicle complex (which, we imagine, can't hurt staff morale). The structure's already earned some high-profile admirers: How many office buildings are endorsed by noted architecture critic Kanye West?

If you want to match your lighting equipment to your Modenese sedan (and, hey, who doesn't?), Italian lighting designers Lumina have created a lamp (pictured) inspired by the grille of the Maserati Quattroporte. It even includes the brand's trident badge, but fear not: It's officially licensed.

Something tells us the same can't be said for this new pair of Nike Dunk-inspired sneaks that (finally!) detect if a live Wi-Fi signal is nearby.

Italian designer and Memphis Group cofounder Ettore Sottsass died in Milan last year on New Year's Eve, but the 90-year-old was working right up until the end—a 2007 London Design Museum retrospective was even called A Work in Progress. Today some of his best stuff goes on display in NYC. Sadly the show doesn't include Sottsass' most famous piece—1969's portable plastic Valentine typewriter—but it does have a sizable sample of his playful, po-mo creations. Witness his laminated wood Nefertiti desk (which bears some resemblance to Rem Koolhaas' CCTV headquarters) or his early seventies line of rarely seen Flying Carpet furniture. The latter falls on the right side of shagadelic, so you might need some really good stuff before achieving liftoff.
Friedman Benda, 515 West 26th St., NYC, (212) 239-8700, friedmanbenda.com

It's getting harder and harder to make a splash in luxury-crammed Dubai, but we bet Donatella Versace can do it. Italy's blondest couturier unveiled plans yesterday for the Palazzo Versace Dubai, a 1.4-million-square-foot hotel and residence to be outfitted exclusively with the Versace Home line. Amenities include a Versace boutique, male and female hair salons, and—you guessed it—a "scuba lagoon with a simulated tropical marine environment." Given the rumored sale of Versace's Lake Como estate to an unnamed Russian multimillionaire, is Donatella crafting herself a new lair? Hard to say, but safe to assume she won't be bunking in the just-announced Dubai tower designed by Christian Lacroix.

[Fashion Windows]

Miuccia Prada's Fondazione Prada just unveiled the plans for its new digs, and boy do they look dumpy. Kidding, of course—the new multipurpose complex, designed by Rem Koolhaas' Office for Metropolitan Architecture, is fashionably baroque, not to mention huge. The foundation has outfitted a former distillery south of Milan with more than 100,000 square feet of additional space, including a museum tower. It's all a vast improvement on the old space—but don't take our word for it, check out the pictures below.

The band logo, once an all-important visual component of any self-respecting group's identity, has famously declined now that everything has to squeeze onto the screen of an iPod Nano. Need an easy way to remember what it was like before the fall? Check out Bodhi Oser's new Band ID: The Ultimate Book of Band Logos. In it, he's collected 1,000 of the genre's best, from the iconic Stones tongue (yes, it's based on Mick's mouth) to more obscure (and troubling) examples, like Shepard Fairey's pre-Obama work for the Black Eyed Peas. Oser also interviews the artists behind the emblems. We learn, for instance that Kiss' classic logo was drafted by a failed graphic designer who decided to take up the guitar instead—some dude named Ace Frehley.

Click here for a slideshow >

Tomorrow's auction at Phillips de Pury includes items from established artists on the order of John Baldessari, Francesco Clemente, and Jean-Michel Basquiat, some of whose work is selling almost suspiciously cheap. (Signed Larry Clark bookplates for 800 bucks? Not bad.) But the items by those luminaries aren't quite as pose-able as the ones by Kaws, the nom-de-street of artist Brian Donnelly. Companion (Five Years Later), pictured, is from a limited edition of 500 that he made for Medicom Toy. Mickey Mouse's evil doppelganger is estimated to go for between $500 and $700. Be prepared to blow your toy budget.
Philips de Pury, 450 W. 15 St., NYC, (212) 940-1210, phillipsdepury.com

At the MoMA's George Lois: The Esquire Covers, opening today, you'll find 31 of the designer's groundbreaking designs for the magazine from 1962 to 1972. Many are now justly revered icons: Sonny Liston as a glowering Santa Claus; Muhammad Ali as St. Sebastian, persecuted by the draft board; and Andy Warhol drowning in his totemic can of soup. But we're partial to one of his lesser-known works: Lois's fold-out send-up of Hubert Humphrey (pictured), reviled in progressive circles for his silence on LBJ's escalation of the Vietnam War. The full version is below, a punch most definitively not pulled.
George Lois: The Esquire Covers at the Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53 St. NYC, (212) 708-9400, moma.org

One of the best parts of playing the Wii (aside from the thrilling risk of possibly throwing a control through your TV) is setting up your Mii—the eerily lifelike avatar you control while gaming. Now Mii Sculpture has taken the next logical step: making them into four-inch sculptures, and selling 'em on the Web for 79 bucks. (Shipping's on them.) And if the idea of having a mini Mii around the house is too creepy, they also make versions of celebrities like Jack Black and Woody Allen. Which, come to think of it, might be even creepier.

[Gizmodo]

Late last year, BMW opened the Welt (as in "BMW World"), a new showroom-cum-museum in Munich. Designed by Viennese provocateur Wolf D. Prix of Coop Himmelb(l)au, the €100 million behemoth is fronted by a vortex of entwined steel and glass called the Double Cone. The structure seems to literally suck visitors inside, and a new book about the building's creation is equally irresistible. BMW Welt: From Vision to Reality includes 256 pages of photos, which document the construction of the 1,000-room edifice from start to finish. The pictures are as gritty and raw as the building is clean and polished. Better yet, at $125, the book's a lot cheaper than the latest M3—or a trip to Munich.

Click here for a slideshow >

As often as we use our kitchen—i.e., pretty much never—the fixtures you'll find there are more about form than function, which is why we dig this new model from Kohler: It looks fantastic, thanks to a textured, carbon-fiber surface and an angular, four-part arm, which comes with specially designed brass joints that help it stay in your chosen position. The only flaw: The Kamp Krusty-esque name.
Kohler Karbon Faucet, $925, availble in June, us.kohler.com

Coming never to a rec room near you: This high-design foosball table from Dutch firm GRO Design. (They've also designed cell phones for Nokia.) Too bad: With its solid-brass, chrome-finish players, this board far outclasses that broken-down beater you used to play in your friend's basement. Inspired in part by Pelé's autobiography (hence the name), it makes its debut today at the Milan furniture fair, where passersby can test it over the next few days. Enjoy it while it lasts: There are no plans to put the concept into production.