experts think it costs apple $200 to build iphone 6.
experts think it costs apple $200 to build iphone 6. cheap memory means high margins. via forbes [RK]
2015 jeep renegade final design.
Jeep showed off the final design of its Renegade model small SUV. Mark Allen, head of Jeep design. said the vehicle was designed in Detroit and rides the same underpinnings as the Fiat 500L, the long Fiat. It will be built in Italy.
All admitted that the face of the vehicle was “a little bit cute” but cute, he said, like a puppy dog beside the mature dog. There are lots of numerous playful details as well, such as the X-shaped taillights that echo a jerry can for holding gasoline.
100 years later the fire hydrant gets first redesign.
Fire hydrants have provided de facto city sprinklers for kids in city neighborhoods for generation. But water pressure for fire fighting and tap pressure can suffer if too many well meaning citizens open hydrants in their neighborhoods. That’s why the Spartan hydrant was invented.
http://designapplause.com/wp-content/xG58hlz9/2014/06/patton-hydrant2.png
The Sigelock Spartan looks like the water hydrant of the future. Its practical advantage is that it cannot be opened except with a special wrench and therefore not by an individual on the street.
The Spartan has been installed in the town of Long Beach Island, near New York. The town folk seem to like it—but what do the dogs say?
harley-davidson electric motorcycle: livewire.
A new Harley-Davidson electric motorcycle was unveiled Tuesday at an exclusive preview on a closed runway at the former Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine. The name is LiveWire.
LiveWire weighs 460 pounds and is capable of zero to 60 in under four seconds. Harley isn’t saying much about the drivetrain beyond saying the bike uses a lithium-ion battery with a range of 53 miles. It charges in 3.5 hours at 220 volts.
“As a company, we have always been about strength and freedom and power,” Matthew Levatich, Harley-Davidson’s president and chief operating officer, said on the former El Toro airstrip. “So it’s really a question of ‘why not?’ instead of ‘why?’ This isn’t some sort of ploy for us. This is real.”
It’s a pretty big bet by the 110-year-old company who’s built a reputation on power and rebel attitude because this bike is not loud, but quiet. It doesn’t sound like the prototypical Harley—or a “fighter jet landing on an aircraft carrier” as Harley puts it. But the whirring noise of Harley’s electric is in special jarring contrast to the well-known sound of its engines — They won a well-publicized legal action protecting the “potato potato” sound of its Vtwin engine as a design feature and brand element.
Electric technology in the motorcycle world has not kept up with automobiles for several reasons. Motorcycle manufacturers are not required by federal agencies, as carmakers are, to produce a certain number of electric vehicles or to maintain an increasingly low average miles per gallon rate. Also, a motorcycle frame cannot accommodate massive battery packs as easily as a car chassis.
There are well-regarded electric bikes on the road now. Ashland, Oregon-based Brammo has leading-edge electrics, but it’s not gaining market share.
Electric motorcycle industry leader, Santa Cruz-based Zero Motorcycles, produces and sells only a few thousand units a year of its S and SR street bikes.
San Francisco’s Mission Motor Co. bikes can go zero to 60 in three seconds with a top speed of 140 mph-plus. They’re pricey starting at $32K.
An electric motorcycle made by Lightning set a new record at last year’s Pikes Peak mountain race, beating records set by gas-powered superbikes.
BMW is the only major that has an electric two-wheeler in production, a scooter called C Evolution, but not yet available in the U.S.
The big four Japanese bike makers, Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and Suzuki — are believed to be deep into research and development. Electricity might be something every motorcycle manufacturer will have to investigate –just like every automobile manufacturer.
What’s a little interesting is how the company plans to expose LiveWire and see if it will be accepted. They’ve made a number of prototypes to be released around the world starting with New York City Monday, 23 June.
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anne. ross lovegrove goes democratic for bernhardt design 125th.
In honor of the 125th anniversary of the Bernhardt furniture company, several designers have produced new chairs. Ross Lovegrove’s Anne chair, named for the company founder, is a real surprise. Lovegrove produced his iconic Go stacking chair, of magnesium/aluminum, for Bernhardt This walnut chair is radically different. It’s based on the American courthouse chair—a perhaps surprising inspiration for the Welsh born Lovegrove but a solid, democratic form based on the Windsor chair. The courthouse chair is to be found in many classic films think the spirit of Gregory Peck in To Kill a Mockingbird.
windsor chair | 1940s
Lovegrove’s take on it is a smart exploration of traditional wood, from someone who has spend more time with plywood, polycarbonate or magnesium. The chair is built by both traditional craft work and seven axis CNC machines, he said. For the leather seat, he thought of a pair of jeans bought pre-aged: he wanted the leather to seem sat in and crushed down already. It looks more like a flopped cushion than attached seat. Lovegrove shrewdly observed that many new things are sharp and off-putting, but things that we use and feel familiar to us have been softened by use. If you know the rest of his work, the bio futuristic side if you will, then the Anne chair is witty—a comment. It suggests a mellower Lovegrove? But it also suggests Art Nouveau. [ ross lovegrove ] [ bernhardt design ]
imported from detroit: chrysler 200.
Chrysler’s “imported from Detroit” car, the 200, has been redesigned. Parts were inspired by the American design of Charles Eames lounger and Airstream, according to the designers, Brandon Faurote/Head of Chrysler Brand Design and Jon Gaudreau/Design Manager, Chrysler Interiors. The common idea: use bare material as structure, not decoration.
2014 cadillac elr offers a better design.
Cadillac’s electric car, the ELR, is not as spectacular a performer as the Tesla Model S but it is arguably a better design. The Caddy could have ended up as mundane as the Chevrolet Volt, whose basic mechanism it shares. Instead, the so-called extended range electric, which includes batteries but also a supplementary gasoline engine, has been given a very cleverly shaped body. Outside, the wedge shaped body plays all sorts of visual tricks to make a chunky shape dynamic. Inside, overlapping layers of materials, including a suede texture, carbon fiber, leather and wood frame a high tech instrument panel.
an artist, architect, engineer create: sky Reflector-Net.
Sky Reflector-Net (2013) | an integrated artwork, is an artist, architect, engineer collaboration with James Carpenter Design Associates, Grimshaw Architects, and Arup, commissioned by MTA Arts for Transit and Urban Design and MTA Capital Construction Company (MTACC) | photo> (c)David Sundberg, ESTO
You might call it a skylight or oculus, more technically. But Jamie Carpenter’s piece called Sky Reflector-Net is also a sculptural work commissioned by New York’ Metropolitan transit Authority Arts for Transit and Urban Design.
It will open next year in New York’s Fulton Street transit facility near the World Trade Center. The work of a decade in collaboration with Grimshaw architects and engineering firm Arup, the piece is formally known as a “tensioned cable-net structure clad in perforated optical-aluminum panels,”It folds the image of the sky down into this new transit center atrium, enhancing travelers’ daily commute with a remarkably expansive sense of the dynamic change in light over the course of the seasons.”
Marmaray project: world first tunnel between asia and europe.
first test train through the marmaray tunnel
A railway tunnel underneath the Bosphorus Strait has been opened (29 October 2013) in Turkey, creating a new link between the Asian and European shores of Istanbul. The Marmaray tunnel is the world’s first connecting two continents. It was inaugurated on the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Turkey. [ story ]
fatih sultan mehmet bridge looking from asian side to europe. tunnel crossing near this landmark
over 40,000 artifacts discovered during excavation
Work began in 2004, but archaeological excavations delayed construction. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has long championed the undersea project, first conceived by an Ottoman sultan in 1860. The underwater section runs for 0.8 miles (1.4 km), but in total the tunnel is 8.5 miles (13.6 km) long and and is designed to withstand earthquakes. [ 40,000 artifacts ]
installing tunnel into bosphorus seemingly easiest phase of project
Parsons Brinckerhoff, who’s role was design/construction supervision and D-B contract administration provides an enlightening video of lowering the tunnel into the Bosphorus. [ video ]
Most recent videos below…
An interview with mike & maaike about windowseat. Neocon 2013.
San Francisco designers Mike & Maaike have designed Windowseat utilizing an interesting juxtaposition of furniture and architectural elements. The chair is being introduce at Neocon 2013 by Haworth.
[DesignApplause] Mike and Maaike, what brings you here?
[Mike Simonian] We’re debuting the Windowseat chair we’ve been collaborating with Hayworth for the past two years. It’s a lounge chair designed to provide an escape from the open office environment and give you a bit of personal space and break from the noise and hustle and bustle of a busy office, lobby or airport.
[DA] The ‘escape’ and concept is trending now and maybe you are the trendsetters. Did Haworth seek you out with this concept?
[Mike] The original concept was actually many years ago that we developed independently. About 2007. It was at that time more of an experiment. Not really intended for production. I think maybe it was ahead of the acceptability level at the time. Now, technology has changed and people are working a lot more on hand-held devices than ever expected. Now these furniture pieces are a core part of work. Anyway, we presented it to Haworth and they decided they wanted to include it in their line. Haworth is very excited about solutions of this type and they thought it would be a great fit.
[Maaike Evers] It’s a combination of that liberation of not having to be at a desk anymore. But also, the fact that this new generation of young people are going to come in the workplace. The workplace is going to be more dense and open and collaborative so that movement requires the counter balance to happen at the same time. Where are people going to have time to reflect or think?
[DA] 2007! You’re the genesis of what’s going on right now. If you’re a thinker and you wish to get away, the Windowseat lyrically opens a window. Have you seen the Massaud chair he’s done for Coalesse? He would love your chair.
[Mike] Yes, we’ve seen each others chairs. That chair is really interesting because it creates a complete cocoon in a way so you’re completely in a private space. The Windowseat is more about controlling your perspective yet still connected to the outside.
[DA] I sat ‘in’ Windowseat Thursday night and it’s an interesting experience, much more of an enclosure sitting in it than I expected. I liked the way swivel seat centers itself when you get up, ready for the next person.
[Mike] We wanted to create this room within a room. To make furniture do what normally architecture would have to do, providing the wall and the ceiling. In this case, furniture can do that as well. By letting it do some of that work, you’re able to deploy this private space anywhere in an your environment. We wanted to cut away at the enclosure as much as we could so it doesn’t feel like you’re hiding. We cut most of the back off so it’s open all the way down.
[DA] What’s the fabric? It looks and feels like felt.
[Maaike] It is a wool felt, but it’s a woven wool felt called Divina. This is the fabric we really like on this piece because it acoustically absorbs sound even more. From a sound perspective, it somehow creates a private bubble.
[DA] It’s interesting how this chair plays a space trick with your mind. It also plays acoustic tricks with the material and wrap-around but also presents a lot of air space.
[Mike] Yes, no one can sneak up behind you. Yes. When you’re sitting here, you notice you’re in enclosed space, but you don’t pick up on the fact that the space is not really there. People acknowledge that a person is there and that they want some privacy.
[Maaike] Yes. When we started thinking about this concept, we talked about playing in boxes as kids. The experience was both fun and good to have your own little vista with the flaps and doors you would use. Our concept started very rectilinear but we massaged it to be comfortably looking.
[DA] Did you present a prototype?
[Mike] Yes. It’s pretty innovative from the manufacturing and materials perspective and we worked very hard with them to achieve a good price point.
[DA] How did you model your concept?
[Maaike] We built the concepts all in 3D CAD to perform what we were after in ergonomic terms in order to understand the size of space. Pretty quickly we created cross section prints and hot gluing laser-cut cardboard to create a structure to see how it felt to sit in it.
[DA] The chair is visually interesting because of the angle of the enclosure. It looks like it’s just balancing on its legs.
[Mike] Part of the reason for the angle is that it’s inviting. And functional as you don’t bump your head when you’re sitting down or getting up.
[DA] Is this your first piece of furniture? Wait, you did a very nice table, Divis?
[Mike] Divis, yes. Though furniture is not our core business, we really enjoy exploring that space. We worked with Watson Furniture in Washington as well as Council in San Francisco. Chairs, room dividers. It’s nice to jump around.
[Maaike] Actually when we started working together, we came from the tech industry in the Bay area, we deliberately decided to break from tech and explore furniture and jewelry. It was a way of working where each space plays off the other. The range of materials and manufacturing is a source of inspiration and keeps our work fresh.
[DA] What drives your process?
[Mike] The CAD is part of the execution but everything starts with a concept for us. It’s usually an abstract concept or question. In this case, the concept was furniture and architecture: where can they blend? Where does one stop and begin?
[Maaike] That’s what happens when you’re a couple and you work together. You have to agree before you start working with each other. It usually has a very strong concept or else we don’t pick up the project.
[DA] How long have you been working together?
[Mike] 18 years. Almost our whole career.
[DA] That’s a wonderful story. In the design world, what’s really hot right now?
[Maaike] I am stunned to see how much soft more texture is coming into the workplace and how that makes for much more casual work environments. Much more inviting. More sense of color, texture. It’s fantastic.
[Mike] Along that line, these pieces by Patricia (Uriquiola) are amazing and to see that in a space that is normally filled with hard office furniture is really showing the office’s evolution.
1/6> windowseat | haworth
7> divis | council
8> mute | council
9> swarm | council
10> baha bbq | design annex
11> ATNMBL | concept
12> 24110 | concept
[ mike&maaike ] [ haworth ]