The rubik’s cube may have a competitor. This toy isn’t only educational and stimulating, it’s the recipient of whole bunch of design awards in Europe and sits in the Deutsches Museum of Modern Art! Not bad for a play thing.

Designed by Jean-Phillipe Rossinelli for Naef Toys, the Quadrigo is made in Switzerland of safe, non-toxic materials. It is available in three sizes and two color options, white (above) and multi-color (below). The sizes are mini ($79), medium ($149), and large ($679!).

You can get it at Grow Modern, a site that claims, “You will be amazed by the level of creativity that these apparently purist components allow you to reach.” I’m sure you’re also amazed that such a thing can be created for $679 bucks!

As if chess wasn’t action-packed enough, in comes the wobble chess set from Umbra. Designed by Adin Mumma, a stunning landscape of hills and valleys sets the stage for the weighted wood and metallic, ball-based pieces.

Granted, your concentration may stray from the actual strategy and forethought required to play the game as you hypnotically stare at the pretty pieces flailing around!

Available from Umbra for $263.00

Calling all loft dwellers! Do you live in one room that functions as your bedroom, kitchen, dining room, foyer, library, closet, office, bathroom, and all those other rooms than suburban folk actually have walls to separate, but you consider it a small price to pay for living in the heart of a big city? Then you’ll be particularly grateful for any multi-functional piece of furniture that has a tiny footprint. Especially when that piece of furniture also happens to be this gorgeous!

The Home Office Trike is imported from Europe and made from plywood, leather and stainless steel. It is intended to provide all the accommodations of a regular office desk set-up without the space-guzzling that entails.  It’s jam packed with various nooks and crannies to fit all your office supplies as well as provide an adjustable surface to house your laptop.  The wheels allow you to roll your entire home office from one place to another with ease, and the fact that there are three wheels, as opposed to four, provides better stability when in use.

It goes for $2,200 at Deeply Madly Living.  If you’re already spending 90% of your yearly income on your city loft, you probably won’t mind sinking another 2k into this baby because, seriously, how uncomfortable are you in that cramped space as it is?!

Here’s something sleek and chic: the Blomus UTILO Tea Stick! Make tea-time a treat not a trick. With a click, you can get your stick quick. If you don’t like my shtick, you can Blomus my… arm.

Sometimes you just want to brew a great cup of tea for one without employing the unnecessarily large tea pot to do so. But because you’re a style maven, the literal old ball and chain infuser simply won’t do. Designed by Floz, this innovative and stylish tea stick allows you to place a portion of loose tea leaves onto the plastic tray that slides out of its stainless steel sheath. By sliding that plastic tray back into the stick cavity, a plastic handle is created on the opposite end by which the stick can safely be retrieved with bare fingers from your piping hot cup.

Of course, fine mesh would probably fare better at keeping bits of tea leaves from entering the water as these holes look rather large to effectively contain the tiny particles. Also, there doesn’t seem to be much room for water to fully encompass the leaves thus extracting all their tea goodness. But I’m sure it’s relatively effective and, as always, it’s perty!

Available for $17.99 at The Flatware Store.

Whether you occasionally bike for leisure or use it as your daily mode of transportation, this bike takes the cake in terms of engineering, convenience and style. Developed over 22 years ago, the Strida Folding Bike is easily the most advanced bike of it’s kind on the market.

Coming in at 22 lbs, the aluminum bike is incredibly light to handle. It folds and unfolds in second (see animated demo below), and can easily be rolled in its folded form. It also features a kevlar belt drive that not only resists bullets but also eliminates the usual greasy chain.

There are two models available, the 3.2 model is available at Bike Mania for $490.99 while the 5.0 model runs for $799.00 and can be ordered at NYC EWheels. See chart for comparisons between the two models:

Consider the proverbial envelope pushed. Italian designer Massimo Giacon created this little guy for Alessi. It’s a bathtub or sink plug that when used and filled makes Mr. Suicide float dead above the water. As if that weren’t enough, he also comes packaged in a little box shaped like a coffin. What a perfect gift for that special suicidal someone in your life!

He comes in three happy colors (see image after jump): blue pink and yellow and is available at Retro Modern for $24.00

Zahara Hadid received a degree in Mathematics in Beirut before she moved to London to study architecture. Among many other architectural prizes to her name, she is the first and only female recipient of the coveted Pritzker Prize (2004). Not sure what eating utensils have to do with her lengthy list of achievements though. Maybe 3-dimensional buildings get old after a while and you just start to crave something flat. Enter the Zaha flatware set for WMF. Took too long to get to that punch line, didn’t I?

These ergonomically shaped utensils are designed to inspire. More so than to eat with.

It’s $250 for one such place setting of stainless steel flatware with a soup spoon reminiscent of the grim reaper, but they sure are visually stunning. Available at Arango.

Never thought you’d see a special article devoted to a matchbook, did you? Well this blog is just chock full of surprises! Ok, so it’s $25 for two matches, but that’s not the point. This is just a representation of the fact that even something as simple as a matchbook can find its place in the art world.

Designed by Tobias Wong who, according to Unica Home, “captures the mood and soul of an entire city” because if you light the only two matches in this book, you change the entire skyline. I don’t know if I’d go that far in stretching the depth of meaning in this concept. Especially since this same guy created a 5-speed vibrating ottoman with a 12-inch fur-lined hole! But it’s an interesting piece and so I thought I’d present it to you.

Now you can go Google that ottoman. You know you want to.

On yet another trip to Aruba, I saw these oil lamps in a beautiful but unnecessarily overpriced and over hyped steakhouse L.G. Smith’s. OK, so I’m not reviewing the restaurant, just had to put in my two cents about it… Anyway, I thought the lamps put such a beautifully sleek and modern spin on an historic and almost forgotten item that I even took a picture with one (see evidence after jump) hoping to one day discover the makers of this product.

Who would have thought that I would stumble across this very item completely by accident when I saw the company advertise on my very own blog! (Turns out those ads can lead to some pretty neat stuff!) This oil lamp is one of several that Glass Dimensions offers.

They have some other beautiful designs, but this one in particular is designed by New England glass blower and founder of Glass Dimensions, David Perkins. It’s called Lexington Oil Lamp – Style C and it retails for $74.00. For $89.00, you can get the Anniversary Lexington, which you can have engraved with whatever special names and dates you like.

I’m just excited at how randomly and unexpectedly I came across an item that struck my fancy 2 years ago, and right here on my blog at that! It was just fate for me to bring you this breaking story.

There are pop-up books and then there are wired pop-up books! Using 3mm LED bulbs your guests well never see this one coming as they reach to lazily flip through the pages of this coffee table book. The cover is bound with linen and it’s available in the traditional lampshade (above) or the Parisian street lamp (after jump). I’ll take both.

Available at Unica Home for $95.00