::Metropolis Tokyo :: INTERIORS

Trina O'Hara checks out the design celebrities hatching playful furniture and accessories for kids.

Putting together an ultra-chic pad is easy: add one sleek designer couch by Corbusier, one dining table made of plexiglass cubes, some minimalist paintings and a rare 1950s three-legged floor lamp by the master architect Philip Johnson. Creating an ultra-chic and practical interior when you have young children, however, is a little more challenging. Many new parents describe a kind of design discomfort watching their racy "sports car" living room take on the appearance of a functional family wagon.

But a new addition to the family doesn't have to end the dream scheme. Some of the hottest architects and designers are injecting glamour into the world of children's furniture with designs to cultivate the imagination, maximize the modern setting and add a buzz of celebrity to the home. Here are a few examples to help you out of the "wagon."

Star-studded spaces
Enter international design superstar Philippe Starck. The modern icon has literally scattered Japan with architectural tours de force. He is responsible for the giant beer glass-shaped building that is the Asahi Beer Hall, the Nani Nani Building in Tokyo and the Baron Vert building in Osaka. He furnished the Elysee Palace apartments for the President of France and won numerous industrial design awards, including a Design Oscar.

And Starck does children's furniture. His latest, offbeat, cartoon-like armchair named "Zbork" makes use of new modeling techniques in plastic. It's designed to look like a fabric beanbag, only its polyethylene stands up to industrial-strength child's play. His modernist designs are available from the innovative furniture company Kartell, located in Shinjuku.

To add a playful, Japanese flavor to your contemporary living space, try Tang Chiang's inflatable, sea urchin-inspired "Uni" chair. Chiang's designs are available under the Bozart (a play on "beaux arts") design label thanks to company director Larry Mangel. Mangel cherry-picked "Uni" for his range of whimsical design products, all of which are created by exhibiting, museum-quality artists.

Following a successful career in advertising, Chiang crashed onto the international furniture design scene in New York, Cologne and Milan, becoming a finalist in Felissimo's design competition in Paris along the way. Children certainly enjoy his award-winning imagination because they can launch themselves onto "Uni" and be taken in by its 24 air-filled arms. Go to www.bozart.com or the Asia Modern store in Tokushima-shi to experience it for yourself.

As the son of an archaeologist, legendary American furniture designer Josh Owen spent the summers of his youth excavating sites in the Middle East. He's still uncovering great artifacts, including his latest lighting "experiments" for children, shown at the Paris Furniture Fair and the International Contemporary Fair in New York City.

Owen's interactive "Knock off" lamps, available at the Asia Modern store and the Bozart website, are arguably the most fun-filled lights on the market. The exact size and shape of a bowling pin, the light stays on when it's standing up and turns off when it's knocked over. For any child who is afraid of the dark, these attractive lamps are a fun way to turn out the light.

The kids are all right
To give children a head start in the language of good furniture design (and add another slice of design heaven to your own home), you can't go past the "Kaleidoscope House" designed by conceptual artist Laurie Simmons and architect Peter Wheelwright. The house looks like a masterpiece of the modern design movement and has to be the sexiest, most inspiring dollhouse ever! The house features funky mid-century modern furniture, scaled-down versions of real paintings, photographs, a piano, kitchen accessories, even color transparencies that slide over each other for exercises in color mixing. The "Kaleidoscope House" is available at Room Service in Meguro or on the Bozart website.

For a young, fashionable look in your living room, you could also opt for some "Kapsule" chairs by English/Egyptian industrial designer Karim Rashid. The "Kapsule" is an innovative seat design offering a practical solution to the small Tokyo living room-it functions as a storage unit or toy box.

A worldwide design sensation, Rashid has been called the "poet of plastic" because he can take the most inexpensive material and bring it to life with even the most basic form. His Japanese clients seem to agree; they include Issey Miyake, Fujitsu, Sendai City, Idée and Sony. His designs have also appeared on MTV and are favored by the likes of Missy Elliot, Kevin Spacey, Patricia Arquette and David Lynch. Tokyo Gas even has his work in its private collection. To start your own, go to www.bozart.com or the Asia Modern store.

Studies show that kids respond well to pure, bright color and pattern, so it's not surprising the latest line of EVA foam furniture from the Tarantino design studio has left a monster-sized footprint on the children's furniture market. As this husband-and-wife design team live and work out of their Frank Lloyd Wright home in the United States, their practice has a special focus on Frank Lloyd Wright structures.

Guided by Wright's architectural principals, the couple developed a durable, modular seating system allowing the chairs to be stacked and played with like building blocks. Kids love them and so do the judges. These "EvaDva" chairs won the prestigious Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design's Good Design Award in 2003. "EvaDva" chairs are available at Room Service in Meguro.

So, the parental interior design cringe is over! With all the architects and designers injecting award-winning glamour into children's furniture, your home should be brimming with self-confident chic. The (designer) hand that rocks the cradle is looking after you too.

Photo Credits:
Starck beanbag chair, credit Kartell
Colorful waste paper bins, credit Kartell
EvaDva stackable chairs, credit Tarantino Studio
Kapsule chairs, credit Bozart
'Uni' Chair, credit Bozart
Kaleidoscope House, credit Bozart
'Knock off' Lamps, credit Bozart