Urban Gardens

It’s hot outside! Let’s bring the the outdoors inside. I’ve stumbled upon quite a few cactus-inspired designs that prick my funny bone.

Sitting on thorns? Maurizio Galante’s Canapé Cactus for Cerruti Baleri, above, is a grouping of cactuses that form a single sofa.

Offering up a little visual play and irony, Galante’s succulent seating is filled with high density polyurethane foam supported with an internal steel frame, then covered in a bi-elastic technical fabric using a photographic print that won’t hurt your derrière.

Then there’s the real thing that you wouldn’t want to sit on…

Photo: Pixdaus

Photo: Cactus Lover

Through the Sitting Glass

Challenging our perceptions of furniture and design, Deger Cengiz’s Cactus Chair examines how visual data affects a user’s experience by eliciting an emotional response that is temporarily discomforting and at the same time challenging. The user knows the cactus in safely under the glass, yet might experience a slight hesitation before sitting down–tempted both to sit and avoid it. Available in a limited edition of 13 pieces for $3000 from Outdoorz Gallery, the tinted plexiglass chair includes the Barrel Cactus and river stones.

Plant Yourself Down: Chair as Planter

For Italian manufacturer Nonogiorno, designer Simone Ruffato has folded a tri-color piece of plexiglass into a chair planter, the Conquera Chair, which was exhibited at this year’s Salone di Mobile design fair.

Prickly Pair

In a juxtaposition of Mexican and European aesthetics, Mexican designer Valentina Gonzalez Wohlers blends a classical French Louis XV oval chair from the Rococo period with the Nopal cactus to create a fun, whimsical set of chairs that symbolize the artist’s Mexican heritage and national pride.

Desert Cactus Pouf

Sanne van den Hoogen, a student in textile design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Maastricht in the Netherlands, based her knitted POUF, above, on the shape of a cactus flower. Check out this other cactus pouf, The BUX, by Dutch design team Dutch Summer that we posted about last year.

Cactus Stool

The cylindrical barrel-shaped cactus known as the Fishhook Barrel Cactus, or Ferocactus wislizeni, also called Arizona Barrel Cactus, candy barrel cactus, and Southwestern barrel cactus, gave Italian designers at OMC Design Studios the inspiration for their ceramic Cactus Stool.

Desert Lights

Designed for Slamp by Adriano Rachele, this Cactus Lamp is part of a collection of floor and table lamps with stainless steel bases and gold Opalflex® shades.

Oh For the Love of Cacti!

Artist Xiang Yun’s cactus chair and ottoman, above, for the China Chair Project expresses her “lifelong love of cacti.”

Cactus Baskets From Garden Hoses

More irony since cactus requires little water: Artist Brian Jewitt creates these cool baskets from garden hoses, cable ties, and valve handles.