Hasta La Ideas

The brief was to create a collection of fine spices presented in a classy hi-end packaging. Today an increasing number of people are cooking as a hobb..

Donald Norman concludes his recent piece for core77 by saying “But beware: We must not lose the wonderful, delightful components of design. The artistic side of design is critical: to provides [sic] objects, interactions and services that delight as well as inform, that are joyful. Designers do need to know more about science and engineering, but without becoming scientists or engineers. We must not lose the special talents of designers to make our lives more pleasurable.” What he might not realize is that we are already losing that creative bent. Our desire to speak the languages of marketing, engineering, and rigorous research have left us neglecting our native tongue, design.

I argue that many young men and women are magnetically pulled toward physical (industrial) design because they have a creative passion to reshape the things around them. We live in an age of magnificent and wonderfully magical experiences. Physical design has a talismanic relationship to those experiences and must fulfill the promise or run the risk of seeming anemic.

We must remember that design is not an academic act and this reminded me of three artists at the polar opposite of much of design thought leadership, but who did much to influence physical design: Umberto Boccioni, Constantin Brancusi, and Isamu Noguchi.

Boccioni (1882-1916) was an artist, sculptor, and a futurist theoretician. Along with F.T. Martinetti he shaped the Futurist manifestos which were ground breaking in their acceptance, celebration, and exaltation of modern life. Working before WWI at the peak of the industrial revolution, the Futurists were fascinated with the new speed of the world around them. They sought to represent what they called Dynamism in their work as exemplified in Boccioni’s famed “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”, 1913 (above), capturing movement, emotion, meaning and essence in form. Boccioni, as with many of the Futurists, died young during WWI, but their work and ideas went on to influence the future generations they anticipated. See also the architecture of Antonio Sant’Elia which hauntingly predicts the century of architecture that followed his death.

That is not a Philippe Starck tooth brush, it is “Bird in Space” by Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957). From a pure form standpoint, few artists have influenced as many famous designers of the physical world as Brancusi. His fascination with getting form right lead to more than 30 variations of “Bird in Space” done over a 20 year period, mostly in marble or bronze. Of his own work he said, “There are those idiots who define my work as abstract; yet what they call abstract is what is most realistic. What is real is not the appearance, but the idea, the essence of things.”

Of the three, only Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988) played with mass produced product, from the famous Noguchi Table to tea cups and radios. The magic is in the pure and beautiful forms of his sculpture. Though only briefly an apprentice of Brancusi, a similar sensitivity and resolution to form can be felt. Be sure to check out the Noguchi Museum on Long Island if you are able. Noguchi’s work spanned a wide breadth from the design of the gardens in the IBM headquarters in Armonk, NY commissioned by Elliot Noyes to the chrome plated portrait of his good friend Buckminster Fuller.

Their long relationship, both as a friendship and a collaborative force, is a case study examining the power of art combined with science examined in Shoji Sadao’s book, “Buckminster Fuller and Isamu Noguchi: Best of Friends”. Their individual depth is a reminder that breadth is important, but not at the sacrifice of being able to do something really really well! Or as Brancusi said it, “Work like a slave; command like a king; create like a god.”

Ellen Dissanayake, author of book “Homo Aestheticus” put it well, “each one of us should feel permission and justification for taking the trouble to live our life with care and thought for its quality rather than being helplessly caught up in the reductive and alienating pragmatic imperatives of consumer and efficiency-oriented and “entertain-me” society.” As designers, we need to be at the forefront of that effort.

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This algae-producing tower designed by Sir Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham of London studio CRAB came second in the recent Taiwan Tower Conceptual International Competition.

The project, a conceptual design for Taichung in Taiwan, features a tower with a series of steel cages attached that will be covered in algae to produce biofuel.

The competition was won by this design featuring floating observation decks attached to giant helium balloons.

The following information is from the architects:

SIR PETER COOK AND GAVIN ROBOTHAM
WIN 2ND PRIZE IN INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION
FOR TAIWAN TOWER AT TAICHUNG

From a field of 237 entries from 25 countries, London’s Cook Robotham Architecture Bureau will receive the $ 65,000 second prize for a tower that is based upon the growing of algae in layers of droplets.

THE TOWER OF DROPLETS
The entire tower is inspired by the creation of energy. Living energy which must be……… Visible living energy SYMBOLISING THE VISIBLE ENERGY, ENTERPRISE AND INVENTIVE OPTIMISM OF THE TAIWANESE PEOPLE. The droplets are the primary elements of this process. Their activity, presence and form resonate throughout the scheme.

Much of the tower is open to the public to view the processes at close quarters. Even from the lifts, the daily state of vegetable husbandry will be visible. A variety of different arrangements of plantation and localized environment are distributed over its length. The principal purpose of the tower is to CREATE ALGAE.

When watered and filtered the algae create BIOMASS used as food for fish and plants and for making paper and BIOFUEL for powering engines. This process takes CO2 (a known hazard in Taiwan) out of the environment.

In the basic tower we provide 10.888 M2 surface of algae which produces 3,266,400 liters of oil and produces several thousand tons of biomass in a year. The same structure could be further developed – with accumulated Income and more bags to a maximum of double the surface and thus creating 6,532,800 liters of oil.

The structure is a series of steel lattices that wind around the steel elevator cores. The droplets are steel cages with membrane skinning. There are 3 observation levels:

TOP OBSERVATION LEVEL : overlooks the mountains
MID OBSERVATION LEVEL : contains areas of hydroponic vegetation growth : enabling PUBLIC VIEWING of plants and processes
LOWER OBSERVATION LEVELS : contain aviaries and aquaria

There are 3 office zones, all are used by the City development Authority. THE MUSEUM at the base of the tower contains 5 floors On its top are viewable algae systems. At middle levels are exhibition zones based of techniques developed by the authors at the Kunsthaus Graz (Austria) and the War Museum of the North.

Tower team : Jenna Al-Ali, Nuria Blanco, Lorene Faure, Selma Johannson
Consulting Engineer : Miike Kaverne of Buro Happold

See also:

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Hydrogenase by Vincent Callebaut	Eco-pods by Howeler + Yoon & Squared Design Lab	More green sustainable on Dezeen

On my side of our family, we don’t celebrate the holidays the way other people do. We usually end up buying presents for each other when needs arise, instead of waiting for the calendar to turn a specific date.

For example, when my mother’s computer bit the dust this summer, we celebrated Christmas in July by chipping in part of the purchase price for her to get a new laptop then. When the holiday catches up on the calendar, she’ll have an additional stocking stuffer gift to open, and will have been enjoying the big gift she really wanted for six extra months.

This doesn’t work extremely well with children, especially younger children who don’t yet have a full understanding of time. However, young children aren’t usually quiet about the things they want. Whether they’re writing letters to Santa Claus or screaming it at the top of their lungs, it’s not much of a secret. It’s easy to buy kids one or two things they want since you know exactly what those items are.

Figuring out what adults want, though, might be more complicated. So, I recommend doing what we do in our family and simply ask the person what they want or need. You may not choose to do this for everyone — surprises can be fun — but if you’re buying a large gift, it’s nice to get someone what they want or need.

On my husband’s side of the family, everyone keeps an Amazon Wish List. We’ve all installed the Universal Wish List Button, so we can include items on the Wish Lists from any online retailer, including individual sellers like those on Etsy. These lists are especially helpful when buying for the younger cousins who were into video games last year, but are all about football this year. There aren’t any questions about sizes or team preferences or if the gift will be appreciated. No one expects you to buy from their list, but it’s a great resource for ideas when you’re the gift giver.

As part of the Practical Presents theme of this year’s Gift Giving Guide, we believe buying people what they want or need meets every definition of practicality.

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