TapIt: a water bottle refilling network

tapit2.jpg

TapIt has partnered with hundreds of cafes in New York City to help on-the-go urbanites find places to refill their water bottle for free. These spots can be located visually (all partners display a TapIt sticker on their window), online, or with their handy iPhone app. And, if you’re a cafe in the New York City area and want to help with this intiative, become a partner today!

The TapIt website, designed by Tom Klinkowstein and Christie Shin of Media A, won a Communicator Award of Excellence in the Green Eco-Friendly category.

(more…)

Skin is In! Charming Snakeskin Accessories To Slither Into This Summer

imageSnakeskin prints have slithered their way into stores! At the spring runway shows, they were on everything– dresses, skirts, hats, bags, shoes, belts… and dyed in every color! It’s all about adding texture to your look with skins. Look for color-rich reptile accessories; they’re a great way to dabble in the trend without looking like a walking (well, slithering) reptile. Real snakeskin and python can be quite expensive, but there are plenty of faux embossed options that will keep you from having buyer’s remorse when this trend slithers away. Try a sexy snakeskin sandal with a basic ensemble to pump up a look. A bright colored python belt works perfectly to cinch this season’s slouchy boyfriend jeans and khakis. Don’t be afraid to mix and match your snakeskin- just keep one neutral and the other colorful for a coordinating but not overly calculated look. Check out the slideshow to see some ssssssuper sssnake accessories that are sure to charm you!

view slideshow

Core77 Forum Topic: Green Design

Featured Forum Topic of the Day:
Green Design
by onion24 in general design discussion

Hi, anyone got any great/good/bad websites about Green Design mainly focus on Product Design, rather than how to be Green? 😀

>>Read and Reply

(more…)

Merce Cunningham

Revolutionary American choreographer Merce Cunningham passed away yesterday at the age of 90. Internationally celebrated for his innovative movement studies as well as his creative collaborations with other artists including: minimalist composer (and his long-term partner) John Cage, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, Cunningham will long be remembered as a singular 20th century visionary artist.

Our dance critic, Andrea Jenkins, will be including a special profile of Cunningham’s contribution to the world of modern dance in a tribute piece featured in the Fall issue of UPPERCASE magazine.

Click here to watch a glimpse of Cunningham’s most recent production, ‘Nearly Ninety’ with musical accompaniement by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin and Sonic Youth.

Infernoptix Digital Pyrotechnic Display

feat16.jpg

Lending new meaning to the phrase “playing with fire,” Infernoptix’s Pyrotechnic Matrix allows users to program a display that uses small flame throwers to create shapes and patterns. Consisting of 12 x 7 controlled bursts of fire, even with its relatively low resolution it boasts an impressive variety of pre-programmed and live messages.

feat3.jpg

Inventor and designer Neal Ormand created the 2006 versions one and two in his backyard and recently emailed me to hint at a new iteration. He wouldn’t give details, but he said he is currently working on another one at least 25 times as large for a specific client.

feat6.jpg

In the meantime, enjoy these images and videos and imagine what this kind of experience could bring to a hotel pool area at night…or better yet, as a new scoreboard for the Miami Heat!

Thanks, Neal.

SEE THE SPACE STATION TONIGHT

international-space-station

According to NASA the space station will be visible above New York City tonight! Keep your eyes peeled around 8:42 p.m. tonight

New Transmaterial Website

transmaterial.jpg

Transmaterial, the online companion to Blaine Brownell’s similarly titled book series, has just been relaunched as a highly searchable database of the latest in “materials that redefine our physical environment”, designed to better facilitate access to critical developments in the field. For some choice tidbits, check out the Bubble Screen and Super Cilia Skin.

(more…)

2009 Open Architecture Challenge finalists announced

0hillsideclass-copy.jpg

Architecture for Humanity has announced the finalists for their 2009 Open Architecture Challenge, which invited entrants to design schools for underserved areas around the globe.

Shown up top is Feilden Clegg Bradley Studios & AfH UK’s “Adaptable Hillside Classroom: A multi-functional classroom in rural Uganda,” a design that uses the angles of the local topography to create an amphitheater effect while reducing the need for earthmoving equipment in its construction. In addition:

[The community] wants an assembly, dining and gathering space that can be used for community events and rented out during holidays to provide income. To economise on space and resources, it is proposed that a block of 3 classrooms can open up and combine into a larger, multi-use space. The classrooms are angled round in plan and the outer walls open onto a covered external space that they all face in towards, creating a natural gathering space. Acoustic problems with opening walls between classrooms are also avoided. The site for the new building is towards the bottom of the school, near the road, which gives the school a presence on the main road and provides easy public access when necessary.

Check out the rest of the finalists here.

(more…)

Interview with the Designers of the Sony W-Series Walkman

0sonyintvwwwalk.jpg

Sure, Sony Insider’s “Interview with the Designers of…” section could be seen as a shill for their products, but I don’t mind being shilled to if a) it’s honest and b) I get to read about the product design process and hear from industrial designers who otherwise have no public voice.

In the very first paragraph of “Interview With The Designers Of The Sony W-Series Walkman,” Sony readily admits to flaws in the first generation of that product before launching into an in-depth talk with the five-person design & development team. The unique problem of how to design an essentially invisible interface (the wearable Walkman has no screen, after all) is covered in great detail, with the team eventually settling on an interface designed for automobiles. Then they get into the nitty gritty:

[Senior Designer Atsushi] Komiyama: With our user interface discussions underway, I finally got to work on industrial design. From the start, we sought a light, secure-fitting player, integrated in headphones connected by a spiral neckband. But it seemed as if something was missing, or we were taking development the wrong way. I couldn’t quell these nagging doubts. If we continued along these lines, I doubted the player would be anything more than a set of headphones, no matter how stylish it looked….

I was also concerned that it might be unclear how to wear the headphones, because of the spiral neckband. If it’s true to the Walkman tradition, anyone should intuitively know how to wear it correctly.

One day, a designer’s offhand comment led me in the right direction. Walkman players are clusters of various shapes, he said. And that’s accurate. Models to date have been simple conglomerations of flat and cylindrical parts. This observation inspired the flat surface you see when the left and right earpieces are magnetically linked.

When stored, the Walkman W maintains this classic, composite appearance. When worn, the two earpieces are split apart. This action of separating them has the strange effect of revealing to new users how to wear the player. And when the earpieces are joined, a magnetic sensor automatically pauses or stops playback. It makes sense, this chain of events from separating the earpieces to listen, wearing them, and joining them again when you’re finished. It’s not just a matter of styling; we orchestrated the way you use the device itself, the series of events from beginning to end.

The entire interview’s pretty interesting. Check it out here.

(more…)

LOST Season 6 Promos

Remember the end of Lost’s season-five finale when Juliet fell down a well and detonated a hydrogen bomb in hopes that it would send everyone back in time, thereby undoing all the events of the past 103 episodes? Well it worked, probably! At Comic-Con on Saturday, Lost creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof showed a pair of promos that strongly implied season six will take place in a reality in which Flight 815 never crashed.

Read more here