I visited the opening of a gallery in London (The Carpenters Workshop) last week with a friend of mine. I’m not that much into design, so this was a bit new to me. Okay, I like unique furniture, but what Maarten Baas was exposing at the gallery, was simply amazing.

First of all his Smoked line is simply fantastic. Using a gas burner, he burns old (or new, whatever) furniture, until it’s completely black. Then, using some kind of epoxy finishing he makes sure it doesn’t give any stains when you actually use it. I guess that also makes it a little more durable. icon magazine had a piece on it back in 2005, by former editor Marcus Fairs (whom I happened to run into on the opening of the gallery).

Apart from Smoke, Maarten also did Sculpt and some other great stuff, which you can see on his website.

After having left icon by the way, Marcus Fairs started a design blog on dezeen.com. With daily updates on what happens in design land this blog is highly recommended.