The furnaces glow constantly, day and night. The only time that they are allowed to cool down is for four weeks in the month of August, when the fifty glass blowers employed here enjoy their annual leave. And once the holiday period is over, it takes nearly seven days for the molten glass to return to its working temperature of 1,400 degrees Celsius. In the summer months leading up to the break, the temperatures outside are already sweltering, and inside, the glassmakers work stripped down to their underwear. Clearly, no woman is likely to enter this exclusively male realm.

Originally, the table and floor lamps created by the designer Marco Morosini were used to round off the Maserati product presentation at international trade shows and events.

But the company's customers displayed so much interest in the design that the Italian sports car manufacturer has now begun to officially market these exclusive lamps, made in the workshops of Lumina in Italy.

The eye-catching design is unique with its soft, harmonious form language and organic curves. The front decorative glass panel and side panels in elegant black are also consistent with the typical wodtke line of this fireplace: calm linearity and reduction to essentials.

Or How Room Design Influences Living and Working Styles

"First we shape our buildings and afterwards they shape us," Winston Churchill's remark already highlighted the reciprocal relations between people and their design environment. Homo sapiens is represented as an instinctively terrestrial being, who is also engaged in permanent and unconscious dialogue with his universe.

The white wall, one of the main features of modern architecture is being subjected to a new trend. More and more frequently, architects are working with graphic designers who subtly supplement the often reduced architecture with elaborate and enormous illustrations. The graphic designer develops a concept that has to match the architecture and the client's expectations as to design and content and produces designs that are exclusively adapted to the interior.

You don't necessarily have to start your search for really great presents for children in an overcrowded department store but perhaps instead at your car centre. There you can also buy models that can be driven without a driving licence and that can be parked in your living room without difficulties.

For the nostalgic the Swedish toy company of Playsam is offering us the Saab Roadster for children. Streamlined, high gloss black, in simple elegant design, like most Saab cars.