The elegant and minimalist furniture by Belgian designer Casimir is not only beautiful: by stripping his designs to their core, the designer often reveals thought-provoking questions and also a hint of subversion.

A cool space often looks best in a calm, orderly interior design scheme. A good example is this sleek villa on the outskirts of Kiev, designed by architect Denis Rakaev, which uses a restrained colour palette and carefully selected design elements.

Ettore Sottsass, father of the Memphis movement, is well known for his outlandish and colourful designs.  Trained as an architect, Sottsass also designed numerous buildings, seven of which are private residences.  One of these rare gems is now on the market. 

The Design Academy in Eindhoven has a well-earned reputation for nurturing future design stars.  It should therefore come as no surprise that their graduation show is full of delightful and thought-provoking design ideas. 

Architect Stephane Malka's passion is to renew urban life by making clever use of under-utilised spaces in cities.  This remarkable house in the Boulogne Billancourt area of Paris is a great example.

When asked to modernise a charming but dilapidated art-deco house in Melbourne, the team at C. Kairouz Architects created an uplifting modern space which sits in delightful contrast with the original building.

Miist is a new furniture brand founded by designer Alex Baser featuring sleek, minimalist lines with a dash of design flair, imbuing the products with a sense of refinement and warmth.

The archetypal loft apartment might have been born in New York, but this apartment shows that when it comes to effortless cool the West coast is hard to beat.

 From the outside, this handsome villa in Helsingborg, Sweden is a textbook example of classic restraint. Inside, the ground floor apartment is a surprisingly elegant combination of old and new. 

Lisbon-based design brand Dooq has steered away from traditional Portuguese furniture design by creating a collection of furniture that thrives on unexpected contrasts in styles, shapes and materials.

Those of a certain age, swept up in a nostalgic wave for the 1980s and 1990s, would do well to collect the remarkable ceramic objects created by Osaka-based Toshiya Masuda.