This final 3daysofdesign post isn’t a roundup or a review.
It’s something softer. A short coda, composed in hindsight, gathering a few of the craft-led design brands and objects that have lingered in my mind long after the fair was over, from smaller studios and thoughtful makers.
NIKO JUNE
The first thing I noticed at Other Circle was a chair. Or rather, a small flock of them, slightly off-kilter, quietly defiant. Niko June’s Sommerfugl chairs felt familiar but strange, like school chairs with new intentions. Scratched legs, crooked screws, a shift in posture; transformed through minimal interference rather than total reinvention. The name means butterfly. A gentle nod to evolution, not nostalgia.
Later, scrolling through Niko June’s Instagram, I fell headlong into their world. Based in Copenhagen, Niko June is part studio, part workshop, part living experiment in how objects shape us and how we, in turn, shape them. Their work feels less like product design and more like an ongoing study in material memory. What they call good objects aren’t precious or pristine. They’re humble things, touched by use, reimagined and made to endure.
The Sommerfugl collection began with old school chairs, lifted from classrooms, reworked in their workshop and reassembled with the lightest of interference. That same sensibility runs through the rest of their offering. The Kantine collection of borosilicate glassware echoes service stations and school canteens: stackable, durable, softened by colour. Pink, amber, yellow, clear—tones that tint the ordinary with something slightly cinematic. The espresso cups come in chalky glazes that feel like they belong in a Wes Anderson film, without ever trying too hard.
Then there’s the Pick Up Line: a curated cabinet of curious objects that Niko June didn’t design, but recontextualised. Steel cutlery. Plates. Readymade pieces plucked from obscurity and given a second life. This is where the brand’s wit comes through; design as flirtation, not just function.
What draws me in most is their refusal to over-explain. Their world is built through feeling; editorial images that speak in texture and tone. A quiet cabinet of objects that live well, feel good in the hand, and speak softly—but surely—of care. Their approach to craft-led design feels instinctive rather than strategic, shaped by memory as much as material.
RYE
At Home from Home, it was the quiet presence of a low bed that drew me in: clean lines, softened edges and the grounding weight of wood. I later learned it was by Rye, a Danish brand creating bedroom furniture that feels as restful as it looks. Anchored in natural materials and a slower pace of production, their pieces help shape the mood of a room.
After the show, I found myself returning to their collection online, drawn especially to the Hem bed frame designed by Nikolaj Lorentz Mentze of Studio 0405. Sculpted from solid red oak, its stacked architecture allows the material to speak for itself, grain patterns flowing like quiet topography across each surface. The Ejer and Alken frames echo a similar restraint: pared back, low slung, refined to essentials.
RYE describes its work as “a humble act of mediation”, and it’s easy to see why. The designs are minimal but not cold, rooted in a respect for material and process, made slowly and locally in the Danish Lake Highlands. This is craft-led design in its purest form: considered, local, lasting. Each piece is built to order, allowing time for craft and care. In a world of overproduction, I always find something profoundly calming about a made-to-order practice. To me, these are beds that understand the value of rest. Not just sleep, but stillness. Space to retreat, to read, to be. The kind of design that becomes invisible in the best way, by quietly supporting the rhythms of everyday life.
The Wren
I spotted The Wren’s Arbor blanket casually draped across the Rye bed at Home from Home like it belonged there.
Handwoven from mohair and wool, it had that unmistakable mix of softness and weight, the kind of texture that makes you instinctively reach out and touch it. It looked right at home in the setting, promising warmth, ease and a sense of stillness.
Later, scrolling through the brand’s Instagram, I felt that same atmosphere. Quiet, natural, unfussy. Just beautifully made pieces that speak for themselves. There’s no over-styling, no clever captions—just the gentle tactility of wool, light falling across folded blankets and the suggestion of cooler months ahead.
Founded by Virginia Star Busmann and Ellen Nevrokopska, who share a love for materials that feel good and last well, The Wren blankets are made in Spain using Angora fibres from local farms, following traditional hand-weaving techniques passed down through generations. A brand deeply embedded in craft-led design principles, their work feels rooted in both comfort and continuity. The result is something deeply comforting: breathable, crease-resistant, kind to skin and perfect for layering through autumn and beyond.
It’s a brand that doesn’t shout. Instead, it offers a quiet kind of luxury: an invitation to slow down, wrap up and settle in.
Bread and Butter
Across the street from Home from Home, another kind of domesticity was unfolding. Bread and Butter’s first exhibition, in collaboration with Ouri—Kopan’s newest restaurant venture—felt like a quiet study in connection. Twelve designers from Korea, Denmark, and the Netherlands were invited to explore the theme of the Perfect Pair, creating dining objects that speak not only to function but to relationship. Forms that complete one another. Shapes that echo and support. Pieces that rely on something else to become whole.
There was Union by Ae Office: a porcelain fruit bowl, candleholder, and vase, each holding its own purpose but designed to work in dialogue—mapped across an imagined circular grid on the table. On their own they’re sculptural; together, they hum with gentle order.
Or Poom, a delicate cup and saucer by Hun Lee, where the cup cannot stand alone. It only finds balance when held by its base. A quiet metaphor for support, drawn from the Korean word Poomasi, meaning to help one another.
Some pieces were more playful, like Laura Bilde’s stainless steel Ice Cream Cup, a geometric duet of form and function, neither part able to stand without the other. Maria Bruun’s Coaster Carafe and Glass spoke to mutuality too, anchored by a rounded glass bead that links object and user, carafe and cup. Even A Piece of Seating by Kihyun Kim—modular stools that nest into benches—felt less like furniture and more like a meditation on shared space.
What stayed with me wasn’t any single object, but the quiet intelligence of the whole. Each piece offered a poetic expression of craft-led design: made with intention, meant for connection. Thoughtful pairings and functional poetics. A still life of togetherness.
Obstacles
I first encountered Obstacles at Home from Home, where their Sobremesa table anchored the kitchen with a quiet, grounding presence. Designed in collaboration with Charlotte Taylor for The Orb (a new platform for collectable design launching in October 2025), the piece offered more than surface or structure; it became part of the rhythm of the room. A space for meals, meetings and moments in between.
Founded by Sheila Llovet, Obstacles is a Spanish design brand built on the principle of conscious simplification. Their practice is rooted in craft-led design, where form is pared back just enough to let the essential speak. Tables, stands and storage pieces are guided by geometry and softened by use, made in close collaboration with Spanish woodworkers who carry generations of skill. These are pieces you live with; practical, versatile and built to last, right down to the joinery, which forgoes glue in favour of an assembly system that adapts as the wood naturally shifts over time.
I especially loved Tabi, a sculptural stand designed with artist Bruno Ollé. It’s the kind of piece that invites play, part object, part invitation to reimagine how we place and relate to things in a space. Like the Sister table, whose rounded form encourages gathering, or the Ernest desk, which quietly shifts between writing surface, headboard or console, depending on what’s needed. Even the Eileen bedside table reveals hidden potential: two magnetically connected parts that separate, transforming the top into a tray. There’s something deeply thoughtful in these transformations; small shifts that support dynamic living without disrupting it.
While much of Obstacles’ work is defined by architectural precision, the Marina sofa softens the edges. A single, subtle curve along the upholstery offers comfort and gesture, paired with a solid oak frame and removable backrests that let the piece adapt over time. In every piece, there’s a calm clarity. A sense that this is furniture designed to move with you; supportive, tactile, and grounded in the rhythms of daily life.
It’s easy, at a design fair, to be swept up by what everyone’s talking about. But it’s the quiet finds, the under-the-radar names and pieces you stumble upon by chance that often stay with you longest.
These craft-led design encounters reminded me why I travel for design at all. Not just to stay current, but to stay curious. To be surprised. To find the thing I didn’t know I was looking for. And then, to share it—gently, thoughtfully—in the hope it might speak to someone else, too.
All imagery © respective brands