Foldable bathtub. Sylwia ulica rivera.
Here’s a clever concept. A collapsible bathtub made of elastic foam rubber. A water saver too as the tub has variable sizes depending on needs. Think sink thru soaking tub.
designer: sylwia ulica rivera
Bicycle wine rack.
i’ve been thinking about this product for two weeks. my first impression was “good idea.” but is it really? who travels with just a bottle of wine unless you’re on your way to meet someone at a byob or someone’s home and they’re providing everything? ok, that’s not so unusual. in chicago, if you’re walking on the sidewalk with a bottle of wine you need the brown paper bag. is it different when cruising the bike lane? but what if you have to park your bike one block away and have to walk down the sidewalk?
the video is cute until the frisbee comes out. and of course you realize, this only works with a good bottle of wine. [ more info on this bicycle wine rack ]
Redesign. Smart car kits.
smorche
smart car
smaaart
smendy
smobra
Cardboard bicycle helmet. Kranium.
If you notice, more cyclists and inline skaters are wearing helmets. It’s taken awhile to get to this point. And with this increased usage we will probably see more safety testing and innovation to create a better helmet. Here’s one, Kranium, a bike helmet that is made from the same cardboard used for the boxes you find at the supermarket. The concept by design student Anirudha Surabhi was presented in October 2010 in London. The design has already been licensed to major manufacturers and may be available to buy soon.
Apple's mother ship. Steve jobs and mystic shapes.
“It’s s a little like a spaceship landed,” said Steve Jobs, introducing sketches of his planned new wheel shaped Apple headquarters to the city council of Cupertino, California.
The huge four story mother ship, to be designed by Norman Foster, will ” about 12,000 people and may be open as soon as 2015.
It embodies both the best and worst of Apple culture and, if you will, the Apple cult.
Its environmental credentials seem unimpeachable. The design replaces the scattered buildings on the site formerly occupied by Hewlett Packard and replaces them with below ground parking and a central garden court with plantings. Pavement and building signature is reduced by thirty per cent. Some 6,000 trees are planned for the site. There are already several hundred apricot trees, recalling the earlier use of much of the land in the area for plum, apricot and other fruit orchards.
Spaceship or donut, the shape also recalls a castle. It is self contained, for one thing, able to stand a siege. Jobs said the building will generate its own clean energy with nature gas and use the wider power grid only as backup.
Like so many Apple products, its shape does not allow for expansion or accessorizing. Jobs’ ring is as grandiose as Wagner’s Ring, as fantastic as Tolkien’s. It recalls the torus shaped space station of Wernher Von Braun and Chesley Bonestell’s visions for Disney circa 1955, as reproduced in 2001 A Space Odyssey, slowly rotating to the accompaniment of classical music. It is also a symbol of the bonding offered by the Apple culture: you are either inside the ring or outside, you enjoy bonding with the Apple or you regard it as a bit of a cult.
The Apple ring also resembles the “spy donut” of the Government Communications Headquarters in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, housing the British organization roughly equivalent to the U.S. National Security Agency. That structure, designed by Gensler, has internal courtyards and one way glass.
The record of circular buildings is not good. They tend to be disorienting, difficult places to find your way around in. Consider the Hirshhorn Museum on the National Mall in Washington or all of those John Portman hotels and towers or circular airport terminals where you wander searching for gate 17.
Symbolically, the ring reflects everything that is good and bad about Apple: the boldness and elegance of design on one hand, the limits to functionality and interaction on the other.
Jobs feels he knows already that “there won’t be a straight piece of glass in it” without learning whether that esthetic effect makes practical sense.
Conway’s Law holds that all organizations, especially those that create programs, turn out products that are models of their organizational structure. Apple’s happy feudalist ring contrasts with Microsoft’s giant state university like “campus,” sprawling but semi-permeable. ”
The two old light bulb jokes reflect the extremes of the two cultures: How many Microsofters does it take to change a light bulb? “None. They just declare darkness an industry standard.” For the Apple joke the answer is: ”One, to hold the bulb: the world turns around Apple.” The ring building is a structure that arrays the world around Apple.
The building echoes the ideas behind the product designs. The elegant simplicity of the best of Apple design long predates today’s regime. It was there in the frogdesign years and years when Bob Brunner was running Apple design. The very first Macintosh, remember, was a refreshingly simple single box at a time where personal computers were made of pieces wired together—keyboard, monitor, CPU, disc drive, printer and so on. But often too functionality is sacrificed to style: the lovely thin Air computers are limited in power and memory, the I Pad lacks a USB port, the iphone won’t deal with Flash and so on. [ there’s more ]
<a href="
about phil patton
Furniture revolution gallery. Neocon 2011.
In keeping with the NeoCon tradition of opening its doors to well-seasoned and fledging designers alike, we are excited to announce the second running of the Furniture Revolution Gallery. The Furniture Revolution Gallery will provide a platform for student design and up-and-coming recent grads.
Antonio Larosa, a highly regarded designer, educator and recognized authority of bthe furniture industry, is the Project Chair of the Furniture Revolution Gallery. [ location: 7-2014 ]
[ sponsored by herman miller ] [ facebook | RFG ]
London 2012 olympic torch. BarberOsgerby.
This morning the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) unveils a prototype of the London 2012 Olympic Torch by designers BarberOsgerby.
Made from a golden aluminum alloy, the triangular torch will be perforated by 8,000 circular holes representing the 8,000 torch-bearers taking part in the Olympic relay and allowing glimpses of the burner system inside.
The 70-day Olympic Torch Relay, presented by Coca-Cola, Lloyds TSB and Samsung will take the Olympic Flame on an 8,000 mile journey across the UK next summer. From the start point of the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay at Land’s End on 19 May 2012 an average of 110 people a day will take center stage by carrying the Olympic Flame on its journey around the UK before it arrives at the Olympic Stadium on 27 July 2012 for the lighting of the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony, signifying the start of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Earlier this year East London based designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby won the competitive tender run by LOCOG and the Design Council that set the brief to design a Torch that reflects the celebratory nature of the Olympic Torch Relay and the Olympic Games. BarberOsgerby will be working in partnership with Basildon based product engineers Tecosim and Coventry based manufacturers The Premier Group.
Sebastian Coe, Chair of LOCOG, said: ‘The Torch that carries the Olympic Flame during the Olympic Torch Relay is one of the most recognizable and significant symbols of an Olympic Games. Members of the public right across the UK are busy nominating inspiring people to be Torchbearers and I am thrilled we have a beautifully designed, engineered and crafted Torch for them to carry.
Hugh Robertson, Minister for Sport and the Olympics, said: ‘This striking British design celebrates the role each of the 8,000 inspirational Torchbearers will play as local heroes in villages, towns and cities across the UK. The Torch is a focal point for every Olympic Games and London 2012 will be no different with the Torch Relay bringing the UK together as excitement builds ahead of the greatest sporting show on earth.’
Nicholas Serota, Director of the Tate and London 2012 Cultural Olympiad Board Member said: ‘Elegant, light and understated, the 2012 Olympic Torch shows the flair and confidence of contemporary British design and manufacture.’
Design: The Torch is made up of four key pieces – an inner and an outer aluminum alloy skin perforated by 8,000 circles that are held in place by a cast top piece and base.
Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, explained: ‘Ever since we were young we have loved the Olympic Games. As designers, this is quite simply the best project going: to design an icon for the Games. We’ve wanted to be involved since July 2005 when we were celebrating winning the bid with the rest of the UK. We have worked hard to develop a Torch that celebrates the Relay, and reflects the passion for London and the Olympic Games. We wanted to make the most of pioneering production technologies and to demonstrate the industrial excellence available in the UK – it’s a Torch for our time. This is our opportunity to represent the UK, in design terms, and we are incredibly proud to be doing so.’
The 8,000 circles run the length of the body of the Torch offering a unique level of transparency and will help ensure heat is quickly dissipated without being conducted down the handle. London 2012 Partner, BMW, have provided the use of their climatic testing facility for the Torch to be tested. More than half of the torchbearers are expected to be young people aged between 12 and 24, and this torch will be one of the lighter Olympic Torches.
Color: The gold color finish embraces the qualities of the Olympic Flame – the brightness and the warmth of the light that it shines. The 8,000 Torches will have a gold-colored finish that delivers an aesthetic beauty whilst having the ability to withstand the temperature of the Olympic Flame.
Height / weight: 800mm / 800g
Shape: The triangular form of the Torch design has been inspired by the identification of multiples of three that are found across the vision and delivery of the Olympic Games:
• The three Olympic values of respect, excellence and friendship;
• The three words that make the Olympic motto – faster, higher, stronger;
• The fact the UK has hosted the Olympic Games three times – in 1908, 1948 and 2012;
• The vision for the London 2012 Olympic Games to combine three strands of work – sport, education and culture.
90% of the 8,000 Torchbearer places will be made available to the public through a number of channels, including the four public nomination campaigns to be run by LOCOG and the three Presenting Partners. The LOCOG ‘Moment to Shine’ public nomination campaign aims to find 2,012 inspirational members of the public to carry the Olympic Flame who have gone beyond their personal best. [ Nominate your Torchbearer ]. There will be further opportunities to get involved via the Presenting Partner programs that launch in June 2011.
Slat chair. Scott henderson. ICFF 2011.
click on photo to enlarge
Scott Henderson, known for his witty and playful designs for table and home such as his salad tools for Wovo and carafe Vin Eau Carafe, showed an equally clever chair at ICFF. Slat Chair is composed of pieces evocative of barrel staves, that provide the structure with both tension and compression.
He explained: “Two semi-circular polished stainless steel rods are interlocked by a tight steam bend on both ends of a molded aircraft grade birch veneer ‘slat’ and held in tension.” The seat, by contrast “is suspended in the negative spaces between the base slats that also form the back support. The end result is a highly sculptural light-weight chair, the concept for which is applicable to other furniture pieces.” Visually, the result suggests ribs or other bones and evokes both Renaissance chairs and Frank Gehry’s hockey stick inspired furniture. [ scott henderson ]
<a href="about phil patton
Small space, big ideas.
Christian Schaller’s Barcelona apartment is only 24 square meters, that’s just under 260 square feet . Most of us wouldn’t be able to make a bed and bathroom out of that amount of space, yet Schaller has managed to fit in all the essentials, and with room to spare. They key is that everything – his kitchen, dining, closets and bed – is hidden away behind sleek wooden pull-out drawers and a wall of spring-loaded cabinets. Of course, it takes a certain type of person to live here. Schaller admits that he’s not “homey.” You see none of the adornments people acquire in a space over time – books, photos, vases, art. And of course a living space like this demands utter cleanliness and organization, but with such a small area to clean it really doesn’t seem that bad.
Amazing upcycle: old furniture into planters.
Milan design week may be over and done with, but so many incredible ideas made their debut on the vast showroom floor that the event still has us buzzing.
Take this deceptively simple idea from Italian designer Peter Bottazzi and Denish Bonapace that turns used up and useless old furniture into artfully rendered homes for plants. Called Da Morto A Orto, or from redundant to abundant, Bottazzi and Bonapace took various pieces of furniture and combined them into hybrids – rolling desk chair with a wooden dresser drawer and an aluminum lamp or a plush armchair with metal pots sprouting out its back. The combinations are endless and these pictures are the ultimate inspiration for DIY-ers.
Of course, Da Morto A Orto isn’t just horticultural eye-candy or a collection of one-off pieces. It’s “a critical, ironic reinterpretation of everyday objects that we no longer recognize or that are on their last legs.” Objects and furniture around the house that are destined to be discarded or destroyed are given a new life and purpose. What was once trash is now a thing of beauty.