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With a dizzying number of options to personalize your iPad, iPhone and all of Apple’s other offspring, we’re frankly a little surprised that there aren’t more ways to customize your actual desktop computer. We’re not talking about slapping a bunch of stickers on the back, but about introducing new materials into Microsoft and Apple’s line of lovely yet cold, hard-edged metal clad computers. French entrepreneur and tech trend scouter, Julien Salanave, presaged the move – nay, mass migration – back to the handmade with Oree, a wooden keyboard that marries traditional materials and woodworking techniques with new manufacturing processes.
Salanave said he noticed that “modern technology products look very much alike, are highly impersonal, made out of eco-unfriendly materials and are designed for rapid obsolescence.” To realize his concept for a handmade wooden keyboard he brought on designer Franck Fontana, who has worked extensively with wood products since he graduated from ENSCI, and woodworker Christophe Della Signora, who began apprenticing in the craft when he was just 15-years-old. Using “cutting-edge milling technologies and timeless woodworking techniques passed down through generations of French woodcrafters and cabinetmakers,” each Oree keyboard “is crafted, polished, oil-finished and assembled by hand” in southern France.
Available in Maple and Walnut, the wireless keyboards work not only with Apple products, of course, but with any Bluetooth enabled device. When you include shipping an Oree keyboard costs about $200, but each keyboard is custom made with one of three font options (Fedra, Didot or MrsEaves) or left blank, though we’re not sure why anyone would choose that. You can also personalize your keyboard with up to 45 characters of text or an engraved background.
about perrin drumm
“Chapel” an organically shaped, meditation chamber designed by architect Luis Pons is part of Inventory 02: Soul Does Matter, an exhibition showcasing the work of a provocative group of designers who embrace the concept of limited production manufacturing. The exhibition, which attracted a lot of attention during Art Basel Miami Beach, will be on view in the Buena Vista Building, 189 NE 39 Street #120, in the Miami Design District through 19 December 2011.
“Chapel” offers a relaxed interior for one to four people and is pre-programmed by the facilitator to support the users’ individual needs during daily sessions. Upon entry users experience a period of meditation, during which the chapel’s integrated lighting, sound, and aroma therapeutic scent systems are set to create a calming atmosphere. Meditation is followed by activation of the video-conferencing mode, during which users engage in a two-way communication with an energy expert via the Chapel’s Internet connected state-of-the-art video conferencing system. Sessions close with the Chapel returning once again to a meditation atmosphere for a period of time. When users leave the Chapel low-level lighting gently illuminates the interior until the next session begins.
“In the Chapel we leave the distractions and chatter of the everyday world behind. Here we are able to embrace and enhance our ability to reconnect to the energy source that is within ourselves and always available in the universe,” says Pons. “The chapel’s organic shape is a symbol of life itself. Like a cocoon, it is a source of, and protective space for, birth, rebirth, renewal, and growth.”
The 18’ x 12’ x 9’ structure is fabricated from 69 elliptical panels crafted from translucent white fabric that was custom designed, creating a soft oval interior space. This interior space sits on an oval platform made of acrylic light cast cotton. A custom designed sofa bench offering seating for up to four people inside the Chapel is oriented toward a 42” audio/video LED display with integrated speakers. The audio/visual system includes an Apple Mac mini control processor and computer, an HD web camera with a microphone, and an iPod Touch. A high-performance LED lighting system can be programmed to bathe the interior in various lighting schemes.
[ about the exhibition ]
Curated by Thais Fontenelle, Soul Does Matter is the second exhibition from Inventory and features an array of design objects in a range of mediums and disciplines. The show is presented with the intent to explore themes centered on the interplay between the material and the intangible personality of design objects. The highly disparate limited edition pieces that comprise the show reflect the unique visions and worldviews of their respective designers yet unify around the shared theme.
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