Design experts pick the products that set the tone for 2015

Objects of desire

Nicky Haslam

British interior designer

My favourite objects at the moment are the battery-operated candles by [electrical store] Ryness. I don't mean the church-like, stumpy ones or those ubiquitous tea lights but long, slender candles - strongly reminiscent of [candlemaker] Price's self-fitting real-wax ones - with a flickering "flame" that you just ping down for on and off. They mean worries of a sudden gust putting out your candle while dining al fresco are at an end.

And indoors, it means one doesn't need to hurtle downstairs at 3am after forgetting to douse them at bedtime. In addition, they look ravishing in even the most banal silver candelabra.

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Francesca Molteni

Italian curator

I'm in love with Gio Ponti - I curated an exhibition about his private homes, Vivere alla Ponti (Living Ponti style), in 2012 - and with his sense of light.

As my object for 2015, I would choose the Sole ceiling lamp, which has a partially diffused light, because it's a gentle object with a strong personality.

The idea that the outdoors - the sun - is coming into our interiors with this lamp is a very contemporary one.

Ponti's design concept is strongly connected to our Italian style, to our strong tradition of having both sun-filled and Mediterranean homes - full of life and with a highly optimistic outlook.

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Lyndon Neri and Rossana Hu

Chinese interior designers

Our Zisha tea cup is a nice shape and feels earthy (it is actually made from the earth).

Just touching the material the cup is created from makes holding hot tea a sensual experience.

The collection is offered in five different natural colours, which gives drinkers a visual treat.

The Zisha (literally, "purple sand") substance, which was discovered in the region around Lake Tai in China's Jiangsu province, is renowned for its capacity to retain heat and prevent oxidation. This, therefore, preserves the delicate flavour of the tea for a longer period.

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Sir Terence Conran

British designer and retailer

Sebastian Cox is a gifted young craftsman and the piece he created for The New Craftsmen's Mayfair store - a scorched version of his Shake sideboard - optimises his ability to combine traditional furniture-making techniques with innovative, contemporary methods.

It is made from sustainable chestnut and ash, and the way each Shake is cleft before being hand-scorched creates a very textural, architectural feel to the finished piece.

It is a great object for 2015, combining contemporary craft with ancient arts. I think this will prove to be a superb year for a very talented designer.

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Holly Hunt

US interior designer

I have picked a piece by Colombian artist, Olga de Amaral, who I discovered at Agnes Monplaisir's gallery in Paris.

The colour and leather-like texture woven into the tapestry of her wall hangings create a fine object of art.

I view it as universal cosmology, craft and art intertwined. I chose a piece that hangs in my bedroom, so I see it when I wake up, giving me positive energy.

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Nigel Coates

British designer

Martino Gamper's eloquent bentwood Cirque stool for Gebruder Thonet is awash with elegance.

Although firmly rooted in the spirit of manufacturing, Cirque embodies Gamper's artistic and artisanal spirit.

This is just one contributor to a soft revolution that has been taking place at Gebruder Thonet, which is one of the oldest and most recognisable furniture brands in the world.

A couple of years ago, a strategy was devised to refresh the line with the help of contemporary designers whose new interpretations could sit nicely alongside the cafe classics.

Pieces launched at last year's Salone Internazionale del Mobile included some witty reworking of "Thonet language" from the Swedish female collective, Front, and my own first-ever bentwood lounge chair, the Lehnstuhl. At this year's Salone, the invention will continue with the Cirque stool.

Playing with the rings that are utilised as structural stabilisers in many Thonet chairs, this piece breaks out into a flurry ofacrobatic performance. With its quirky "instability", it's certain to be a crowd-pleaser.

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Yael Mer and Shay Alkalay

Israeli designers, Raw Edges Design Studio

It was actually quite a challenge to choose a product, because we have been so busy with our own projects that we have hardly looked around us to see what has been done in the design arena.

But we really enjoyed the challenge and one of the designs we really like is the Trotter chair. We love wheels and, even more than that, we love common objects with wheels attached to them. It is like a trick that always works - you take an ordinary design, add a wheel to it and something quirky and magical transpires.

So when we saw this children's chair for Magis by Rogier Martens we could straight away imagine ourselves, and particularly our daughter, having it at home, sitting and travelling with it all around the house.

We think that the use of the Bertoia-style bended metal rod technique, combined with the orange solid-plastic wheel, makes it a beautiful scaled-up Playmobil piece of furniture.

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Oki Sato

Japanese designer

The boundary between the office and the home is being eroded year by year, and now the furniture we design for offices creates a warmer effect: pieces are made in rich colours and materials, rather than grey steel, and more textiles and wood are being used.

The Hack table, shown at the Orgatec office furniture fair in Cologne, Germany, is leading this trend.

It is functional but also foldable, allowing for flexibility in the office space. The desk uses plywood, which users can customise by painting.

Designer Konstantin Grcic said that he drew inspiration from the working styles of IT companies on the West Coast of the US - that makes sense to me.

Moreover, it has been possible to reduce distribution costs: while the metal connection parts are supplied by furniture design company Vitra, which is based in Switzerland, plywood can easily be sourced in the local area.

In my opinion, this is the ideal way to design - incorporating a trend, the needs of users, function and cost.

Serena Tarling is a commissioning editor on House & Home

Slideshow photographs: Alessio; Simon Upton; Eduardo Perez

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