Hasta La Ideas

London interior designers Studio Toogood have installed a pile of boxes decorated with multi-coloured electrical tape at the Comme des Garcons Aoyama flagship store in Tokyo.

The project is Studio Toogood’s second for the fashion label, following their Sneaker department at Dover Street Market in London last year (see our earlier story).

Here’s some more information from Studio Toogood:

COMME DES GARCONS
AOYAMA TOKYO

After the success of the Shoe department at Dover Street Market in 2009, Rei Kawakubo asked the Studio to design an installation for the Aoyama flagship store in Tokyo.

Inspired by the deconstructed plaids found in the Spring Summer 2010 menswear collection, a decorative, broken pattern was marked out on the surfaces of the stacked white cubes using rolls of ubiquitous coloured electrical tape.

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Utility exhibition stand by Studio Toogood	Tom Dixon Shop by Studio Toogood	Corn Craft by Studio Toogood

pimg alt=”0pigeontail1.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0pigeontail1.jpg” width=”468″ height=”640″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pJust yesterday I was writing about A HREF=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/what_would_you_put_in_a_2010_guide_to_easier_living_17014.asp” how our modern lifestyles ought bring about changes in our houses/A, and here’s a shining example of this being brought into practice: Pigeontail’s A HREF=”http://www.pigeontail.com/pigeontail/Papervore_H.html” Papercore Coffee Table/A. /p

pIt’s funny to think a modern crime like identity theft would actually shape furniture design, but there are tons of us that own paper shredders and use them to fastidiously destroy every credit card offer that comes in the mail. Brooklyn-based A HREF=”http://www.pigeontail.com/pigeontail/About_H.html” Pigeontail Design/A embraces this reality and brings us a coffee table with a slot and hand-crank, making this the only piece of furniture that could prevent you from paying for someone else’s overseas jet-ski purchase./p

pobject width=”468″ height=”351″param name=”allowfullscreen” value=”true” /param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always” /param name=”movie” value=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12297021amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=00ADEFamp;fullscreen=1″ /embed src=”http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=12297021amp;server=vimeo.comamp;show_title=1amp;show_byline=1amp;show_portrait=0amp;color=00ADEFamp;fullscreen=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowfullscreen=”true” allowscriptaccess=”always” width=”468″ height=”351″/embed/objectpa href=”http://vimeo.com/12297021″The Papervore/a from a href=”http://vimeo.com/user3958986″Pigeontail Design/a on a href=”http://vimeo.com”Vimeo/a./p/p

pvia A HREF=”http://3rings.designerpages.com/2010/07/26/pigeontail-and-voos-want-you-to-feed-papervore/” 3 rings/Abr /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/furniture_that_addresses_modern_needs_pigeontails_bill-shredding_coffee_table_17019.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”0agriplaswheat.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/0agriplaswheat.jpg” width=”468″ height=”312″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pOhio-based plastics and resins company A. Schulman will be exhibiting a range of “design-enabling polymer materials” at the A HREF=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/2010_idsa_national_conference_-_see_you_there_16818.asp” upcoming IDSA conference/A in August. Among the engineered plastics will be A HREF=”http://www.aschulman.com/Americas/Engineered-Plastics/Products/40/4129/AGRIPLAS.aspx” Agriplas/A, a wheat-straw bio-filler that is already in use in the Ford Flex and will soon appear in everything from small engine covers to lawn mower housings./p

pTechnically called “Wheat Straw Fiber Filled Injection Molded Polypropylene,” Agriplas is essentially filler that is added to regular polpropylene, so the end product uses less of the petroleum-based stuff; this reduces the carbon footprint of your average Agriplas-filled part by about 40% while giving you a weight savings of about 10%, and it can still be manufactured in standard injection-molding equipment. Best of all it comes from wheat straw fiber, not the part we eat, so there’s no competition for the stuff between industries and all the messy politics that involves.br /
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Following up on last week’s most exciting museum story, the blooming of “Lois” the Corpse Flower at the Houston Museum of Natural Science finally took place over the weekend, releasing its terrible stench upon the excited visitors and staff who had been waiting for the moment for the past three weeks. But as quickly as it bloomed, it has already begun its slow, exhausted decline. While the museum’s big burst of enthusiasm (and likely a nice burst of extra revenue) is now over, the Houston Chronicle reports that they plan to leave Lois on display for a while before she’s put in more stable, quiet keeping:

She’ll eventually be unearthed, weighed and dusted with powdered sulfur to prevent damage. When Lois dries off, she’ll be repotted in fresh soil and kept dry until next spring, at which time experts hope she will produce a leaf.

It could take years for Lois to recuperate enough mass to bloom again, experts said, adding that they hope the next time her tuber is bigger and that she’ll be able to produce fruit.

The paper also hints that another rush of publicity with news that “The museum has another corpse flower in the greenhouse that could flower sometime in the future.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

London designer Tithi Kutchamuch has added new pieces to her Secret Friend collection of jewellery, including this wooden necklace with a deer-shaped base to keep it on. 

Called Secret Friend Family, the collection also features bracelets cast from rings of toy animals, a necklace with parrot entrails as charms (see our earlier story) and smaller jewellery pieces with animal-shaped bases (see our earlier story here).

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Dezeen’s top ten: jewellery
Dezeen’s top ten: animals

Photos are by Petr Krejci.

Here’s a tiny bit of text from Kutchamuch:

Secret Friend family

Jewellery as part of home that you can bring with you.

Keep them safe, and then take back to complete your forever friend at home.

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Companion Parrot by Tithi Kutchamuch	A Secret Friend by Tithi Kutchamuch	Dezeen’s top ten: jewellery