At 3 Days of Design, designers focused on the small stuff

At 3 Days of Design 2026 last week, there was something refreshing about the way designers approached everyday objects. Unapologetically mundane, some of the week’s standout projects, collections and exhibitions didn’t reinvent the wheel, they didn’t offer a creative grand gesture. Instead, what we take away from a week of inspiring design is the fact that designers are increasingly addressing the mundanity of everyday objects with care and creativity.

The best thing? Everyday doesn't necessarily mean minimalist.

Designing the small stuff at 3 Days of Design 2026

At Hay (perhaps the reigning Danish queen of the useful, everyday object), one of the standout objects was a diminutive, essential desk lamp by French designer Claire Lavabre: the ‘Posto’ table lamp features a cast aluminium shape and answers the question, ‘What is a lamp, stripped back to nothing but itself?’ (Elsewhere at Hay’s canal-side presentation were excellent experiments in folding and self-assembly chairs, courtesy of, respectively, Gudmundur Ludvik and Jasper Morrison).

Georg Jensen took a more whimsical approach to objects this year, with a play-based presentation that invited people to interact with the house’s silver like never before. Among the collection’s highlights is a compact whistle: it’s rare that such a simple, almost banal tool gets a fresh perspective, and we are all over the snail-inspired forms of this new sterling silver interpretation, led by the house’s creative director Paula Gerbase. Other pieces from the ‘At Play’ collection are currently available online.

Elsewhere, LA design gallery Marta collaborated with Dung Ngo (who spent a great deal of time collecting, categorising and curating cutlery for an exhibition at Denver Art Museum and an accompanying book) to curate a series of 3D-printed cutlery sets by some of today’s most inventive creatives. From the minimalist to the botanical, the series includes contributions from Nifemi Marcus-Bello, Jacqueline Rabun, Minjae Kim, Marcin Rusak and many more.

'Cutlery is an intimate part of daily life: a universal touchpoint that transcends culture and generations,' says Ngo. 'Flatware has evolved far beyond utility; it embodies how design, technology, and culture reflect and shape our everyday experiences.'

Among fireside specialists Eldvarm’s offering is ‘Niche’, a new piece by Norwegian angular genius Daniel Rybakken. ‘A shelf referencing the architectural element,’ the folded aluminium object is defines a small shrine-like space that offer a variety of uses, from holding to elevating.

We have had our eye on Finnish design disruptor Vaarnii since it debuted in 2021, and its ‘Small Things Matter’ collection that relaunched at 3 Days of Design is a riff on popular archetypes that proves you don’t need to reinvent the wheel, just tastefully tweak it. Within the collection, Philippe Malouin’s ‘Koppa Crate’ is based on the dimensions of vinyl LPs, but practical elsewhere in the home.

Over at its showroom, Kvadrat presented an installation that captured the possibilities of the humble curtain. Except, there was nothing humble about Isa Glink's ‘Three’ range, with its multidimensional approach to textiles and a display that offered inspiration on how to incorporate movement and rhythm into an often overlooked (well, certainly not by Kvadrat) typology.

For Bread and Butter (an exhibition celebrating perfect pairing, where mundanity is built into the title itself), designers were invited to offer their take on everyday bathing rituals. The results range from John Tree’s bucket/stool (guided by a memory of his parents helping him in the bath by sitting on a stool and pouring water from a plastic bucket, a tradition he carried on with his children) to Studio Word's two-tone soaps, made with natural oils and ingredients including cacao shell, green tea and charcoal powder.