Hasta La Ideas

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/07/poultry-project1.jpg” width=”468″ height=”278″ alt=”poultry-project1.jpg”//div

p”It is just as desirable to build a chicken house as it is to build a cathedral.” mdash;Frank Lloyd Wright/p

pSo opens the Poultry Project’s 2010 Chicken Coop Design Competition, a call to farmers, designers, architects, artists, and locavores to design a chicken coop for use in urban and suburban backyards. The ideal coop should integrate “aesthetics with utility,” helping chickens thrive so they can lay some eggs./p

pThe winners will receive two cash prizes of $500 and $250, and the winning designs will be modified for use in Uganda, where the Poultry Project and TASO, a Ugandan organization) help AIDS orphans start small poultry businesses where they can earn money selling eggs. /p

pThe requirements of the coop are well detailed on the Poultry Project’s competition site, including nesting zones, perches, and a light source. For more detailed guidelines and an entry form, click a href=”http://www.poultryproject.com/news-events/events”here/a./p

pYou shouldn’t need to look much farther for inspiration than the venerable Silkie Bantam chicken, pictured below (he’s like a Muppet, my dream hen). /p

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/07/bantam.jpg” width=”468″ height=”408″ alt=”bantam.jpg”//diva href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/competition/the_poultry_projects_chicken_coop_design_competition__17037.asp”(more…)/a
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London designer Roger Arquer’s Skeleton project allows several shirts to be held on the same clothes hanger.

“Cities are becoming more populated, flats smaller and consequently wardrobes,” says Arquer. “It is a reflection how our everyday lives can be alternated and adapted due to globalisation.”

More about Roger Arquer on Dezeen:

Dramprom light (July 2009)
Non-lethal mousetraps (October 2007)
Fish bowls (August 2007)

Here’s some more information from Arquer:

Skeleton (2010) is a cloth hanger. Inspired by the need to save space in our wardrobes, we propose a friendly and practical solution to hang different cloth using the same hanger.

Skeleton addresses a common issue with no compromises: shirts or blouses are still properly hanged while it’s easy to go through the different items –adding and removing them from the hanger.

This project is inspired from the observation of an everyday behaviour. Shirts and blouses are often piled up on the same hanger. This is due of the amount of space in our homes has reduced, and the amount of purchased clothing has increased. These facts are clearly based on the way we our society has change on the past decade. This coat hanger adapts to an existing situation and encourages embracing it.

Also, Skeleton’s aesthetics adds a charming and pleasant note to an object we use on a daily bases.

Dimensions: 33x 40x 0.5 cm

See also:

.

Hanger Chair by Philippe Malouin	Ingibjörg Hanna at DesignMarch	Axis by Ramei Keum

pimg alt=”MD-totem.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/MD-totem.jpg” width=”468″ height=”260″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pRecord label a href=”http://ghostly.com/”Ghostly/a will debut it’s new label release format, the Totem, with the release of Matthew Dear’s upcoming album a href=”http://www.matthewdear.com/blackcity/”emBlack City/em/a. More than a symbol or souvenir, these totems are an experiment in digital music delivery. providing a physical key to virtual content. Each one will be embossed with a unique four-character suffix that will allow visitors to access a private page on the internet, from where they can stream the album in entirety or download it. The Black City Totem was designed by the Boym Partners, who have created an abstract, indecipherable object emblematic of the album’s sensibility. A video of totem production set to a Matthew Dear track can be seen below./p

pobject width=”468″ height=”263″param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /param name=”movie” value=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13665842amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=0amp;show_byline=0amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=ffffffamp;fullscreen=1″ /embed src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13665842amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=0amp;show_byline=0amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=ffffffamp;fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”468″ height=”263″/embed/object/p

pFrom Ghostly:/p

blockquote The MDBC Totem is both a sculptural representation of the themes explored in Black City and a symbolic conduit to the music itself. Vaguely reminiscent of one of the soot-blackened skyscrapers that might populate Dear’s creeping, nameless city, the stacks upon the totem also call to mind the many shaped prongs of a universal power adaptor. In this sense, the totem is not simply a miniature building, but an abstract key to an unknown door. The branding of the totem has been purposefully reduced to its bare essentialsmdash;only the letters MDBC and unique three-digit suffixes are includedmdash;so that the totem’s meaning remains discernible only to its beholder./blockquote

pWe love the idea of a small village (or large city) of totems on a shelf or table, each one holding a digital key to a different piece of music. Already can’t wait to see the next ones. /p

pThe totems come in a limited edition of 100 (and an exclusive track). The objects will be available from August 3rd until they run out at a href=”http://theghostlystore.com/”The Ghostly Store/a. /p

pemThanks, Craighton!/em/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/ghostly_and_boym_partners_devise_a_new_way_to_deliver_digital_music__17035.asp”(more…)/a
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pstronga href=”http://www.coroflot.com/public/job_details.asp?job_id=27491referral=C77blogpost”Industrial Designer/a
brLEGO/strongbr /Billund, Denmark/p

pYou will: have a high level of general creativity and the ability to communicate these through hand and computer illustration; have a general passion for toys and developing characters/ boys action figures; be able to confidently articulate your designs to various stakeholders at all levels; have the ability to think beyond the 3D product, to the entire consumer experience; be familiar with using customer insights and research methodologies; and more. /p

pa href=”http://www.coroflot.com/public/job_details.asp?job_id=27491referral=C77blogpost”raquo; view/a/p

pemThe best design jobs and portfolios hang out at a href=”http://coroflot.com”Coroflot/a./em/p
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Our video with Ford’s voice recognition engineer reveals sweeping improvements to their MyFord interface

The latest news from Ford furthers the impressive progress they’re making both outside and inside of their cars. We wrote in-depth about the clever MyTouch in-car interface when it was unveiled in January 2010. But when Ford recently announced a major evolution to the way the MyTouch system handles voice recognition, we were fortunate enough to get a hands-on demo with Brigitte Richardson, Ford’s lead engineer for voice control technology and speech systems, and Vlad Sejnoha, the chief scientist at Nuance, whose voice technology powers the SYNC-powered MyTouch system.

The system’s benefit remains the same—it easily controls the car’s climate, entertainment, navigation and phone systems without having to take your hands off of the steering wheel or eyes off of the road. This evolution achieves two important goals that improve how voice recognition works. Though the system’s voice still sounds like a computer, it makes a huge leap towards more natural speech and tone. Secondly, the system’s vocabulary has grown exponentially from 100 to 10,000 first level commands, which makes talking to the interface more natural too. Changing the temperature, for example, can now be achieved by any number of phrases, such as “increase temperature,” “temp warmer” or “make hotter.”

Learn more in our video above with Brigitte as she demonstrates some of the features in a production model of the 2011 Ford Edge.