Highsnobiety
Your Highsnobiety privacy settings have blocked this JW Player video.

From the desk of Highsnobiety Editor-in-Chief Thom Bettridge, The Materialist is an editor’s letter in the form of a treasure hunt for the objects that change the way we perceive our world. This week, Thom makes the case for replacing your coffee table with a spin bike.

Fact: Quarantine has forever changed the way we view our homes.

Fact: Quarantine has forever changed the way we view our bodies.

Fact: When you combine two good ideas, you usually get an even better idea.

The urban reality of many young people is that we live in apartments the size of large terrariums. And, when the public gyms where we normally break a sweat became biohazards, many of us were forced to grapple with the idea of what a live-work-workout home design scheme can look like. If done wrong, this tight rope walk can have one living in a protein powder-stained Bowflex dungeon. But if executed with ingenuity and bravery, it can be the best thing that ever happened.

My first a-ha moment about the design value of workout gear came when I began weight lifting in the gym-slash-studio of artist and fitness expert Nik Kosmas. Located in a converted industrial space in Berlin-Kreuzberg, and littered with cross fit gear, 3D-printed sculptural models, DJ equipment, and colorful mats, Nik’s old workspace looked a bit like a kindergarten gymnastics party mixed with a secret sub-basement of Berghain. Without question, it was accidentally one of the most stylish rooms I’ve seen.

The beauty of exercise gear is that it actually mirrors the hyper-functional aesthetic of the best modernist design. If you squint at Marcel Breuer’s famous Wassily Chair, what really sets it apart from being a mutated workout bench? And what expresses the ergonometric ideals of gym life better than a molded Eames chair?

Not convinced yet? Allow me to take you on a journey.

The Beginner Model

Image on Highsnobiety
HumanscaleBallo - Multipurpose Office Stool
$240
Buy at amazon

For those who still want to have stuff designed by real furniture designers in their home, the functional Ballo chair is the best place to start. You might not know him by name, but the Ballo’s designer Don Chadwick is the man behind the Aeron, perhaps one of the world’s most groundbreaking desk chair designs and a permanent symbol of Silicon Valley C-Suite realness. The Ballo was Chadwick’s attempt at designing an office chair for a post-sitting world, and has a delightful form that can easily exist on its own as a design object. If a normal yoga ball is more your speed, the ones TechnoGym makes, which look like a normal yoga ball wearing a bullet-proof vest, are pretty fabulous as well.

The Statement Piece

Image on Highsnobiety
Concept2SkiErg with PM5
$815
Buy at amazon

So why do you need a training machine for cross-country skiing in your apartment? Because it’s a great work out. Because it has a very small footprint when mounted to a wall. And because it looks like a high-design totem straight out of an Ettore Sottsass auction catalog.

The New Carpet

Image on Highsnobiety
GeniquaGymnastics Mat
$90
Buy at amazon

Believe it or not, I’ve actually just ordered an even larger, nearly wall-to-wall, version of this kind of gymnastics tumbling mat for my home. Having places to lie down in your space — and stretch and roll rather than slouch on a sofa — is great for one’s health. And to make matters even more interesting, these kinds of mats fold in a way that allows them to double as a weird kind of bench and/or coffee table when guests come over.

The Blue-Chip Essential

Image on Highsnobiety
VariisSoulCycle At-Home Bike
$2500
Buy at Variis

With many cardio-seekers cooped in the great indoors, interactive spin bikes have become the grail of grails. Bikes from Peloton have become so hot that they actually have a waitlist, but I prefer the inspirational, arena-rock energy of the content that comes with Variis’ Soul Cycle bike. Some might struggle with how large it is, but I believe in leaning in and treating it as a Futurist-style monument to speed in a visible location.

A Small, and Very Heavy, Sculpture

Image on Highsnobiety
PowertCoated Steel Competition Kettlebell 35LB
$93
Buy at ebay

Weight lifting is one of those activities that has tons of benefits, but lots of barriers to entry: it looks dangerous, it feels aggro, and the stuff one does it with is so ugly. Enter the kettlebell, the all-in-one strength training object that also has strange, Memphis Design charm. I find competition-grade kettlebells, with their shiny finishes, rotund shape, and color-coded brightness to be particularly handsome.

We Recommend
  • Girard-Perregaux's Laureato Chronograph Just Got a Sexy New Titanium Body
    • Style
  • A New Scent From the World's Most Mysterious Fragrance Brand Can't Be Bought, Only Experienced (EXCLUSIVE)
    • Beauty
  • Forget Dior's New Look — Meet Dior's New Smell
    • Beauty
  • A New Spring Fragrance Is the Ultimate Flex
    • Beauty
  • A Definitive Guide On The Intersection Of Fashion And Football
    • Style
What To Read Next
  • Veja's New Running Shoe Is a Surprisingly Slick Crossover Sneaker
    • Sneakers
  • The Trader Joes Tote Bag Is No Stanley Cup
    • Style
  • Ghettotech, Bootytech, Sextech, meet the Detroit trio HiTech
    • Culture
  • Kendall Jenner in Business Bottega Is Best-Dressed Material
    • Style
  • 2024, the Year of the Beautiful Celeb Couple
    • Culture
  • A Love Letter to Ferrari's IYKYK Super Car
    • Culture
*If you submitted your e-mail address and placed an order, we may use your e-mail address to inform you regularly about similar products without prior explicit consent. You can object to the use of your e-mail address for this purpose at any time without incurring any costs other than the transmission costs according to the basic tariffs. Each newsletter contains an unsubscribe link. Alternatively, you can object to receiving the newsletter at any time by sending an e-mail to info@highsnobiety.com

Web Accessibility Statement

Titel Media GmbH (Highsnobiety), is committed to facilitating and improving the accessibility and usability of its Website, www.highsnobiety.com. Titel Media GmbH strives to ensure that its Website services and content are accessible to persons with disabilities including users of screen reader technology. To accomplish this, Titel Media GmbH tests, remediates and maintains the Website in-line with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which also bring the Website into conformance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.

Disclaimer

Please be aware that our efforts to maintain accessibility and usability are ongoing. While we strive to make the Website as accessible as possible some issues can be encountered by different assistive technology as the range of assistive technology is wide and varied.

Contact Us

If, at any time, you have specific questions or concerns about the accessibility of any particular webpage on this Website, please contact us at accessibility@highsnobiety.com, +49 (0)30 235 908 500. If you do encounter an accessibility issue, please be sure to specify the web page and nature of the issue in your email and/or phone call, and we will make all reasonable efforts to make that page or the information contained therein accessible for you.