Hasta La Ideas

Two years ago we read a report on Treehugger about the Massachusetts-based nonprofit Design That Matters’ endeavors to create an infant incubator out of recycled car parts. The thought that dead Toyotas could bring life to some of the nearly 4 million infants that will die of post-birth complications each year was heartening; for remote villages without hospitals, a local dead-car hulk could provide critically useful.

Well, now they’ve done it. The NeoNurture incubator is featured in the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Triennial and has received coverage in Time Magazine, and Design That Matters is working towards full production with the assistance of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology. There are still some hurdles to be overcome, as you can imagine for a machine designed to be cobbled together from whatever auto parts are on hand:

The project traces its roots to a heaping pile of dead Toyota 4Runners. “In the summer of 2007, a few guys just tore one apart,” [DTM CEO Timothy] Prestero said. “They discarded thousands of pieces until they had things that are plentiful in rural areas: headlight assemblies to provide heat, air-intake filters and such, which could be repurposed without much fuss.”

The greatest design challenge for the group has been resisting standardization. “As soon as you say, ‘You can only use a 4Runner’s headlight,’ the value goes out the window,” Mr. Prestero said. This problem might ultimately determine what aspects of NeoNurture’s approach will translate to mass production.

Read all about it in this Times article.

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I stopped pursuing corporate design work years ago, because the lowly rungs I occupied allowed little individual creativity. “If I got hit by a bus tomorrow,” I told friends, “and they replaced me with another designer, the work would come out exactly the same.”

I’ve used and heard the “If I got hit by a bus” metaphor for things all of my life, only recently realizing the phrase was an urbanism; outside New York’s ample opportunities for M16 Crosstown crosswalk calamity, apparently the rest of the U.S. says “If I got hit by a Mack truck.” (For you non-Americans, that’s a brand-name tractor-trailer that crawls our highways, hauling our goods and mowing down unwary pedestrians.)

The Mack truck, like Stockholm, even has its own syndrome. InformationWeek talked to Product Design Manager Christian Feldhake (of Torelli Bicycle) about the “Mack Truck Syndrome,” whereby a small firm can be crippled by the sudden loss of a single member. The solution, as Feldhake sees it, is a system called ERP, or Enterprise Resource Planning. It entails a computer-based “dashboard” filled with relevant data points that anyone, theoretically, can use to step in and resume someone else’s role. It sounds more applicable to business than design. At least that’s what we designers, with our individual creative urges, hope.

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Seoul designers KAMKAM have designed a collection of felt-covered furniture that can be fastened using buttons, belts and zips.

Above: Cham Bench

Called Dressed Up Furniture, the range includes a bench, cabinets and stools, which all have little areas for storage, hidden behind a felt door.

Here’s some more information from the designers:

‘Dressed up furniture series’.
This series is made up of four items, Dressed up stool, Cham, Cham bench and Belt felt.

Dressed up stool
The button on this personified stool is not just a visual effect but a new experience of extended actions such as storing, opening and closing doors.

The upholstery can be locked by the three buttons on the side and also fixed by rolling it up using a magnet when you store something inside.

Above: Belt Felt

The highly elastic soft sponge of upper side guarantees durability of the comfortable seat.

Cham
“Cham” is mingled with clothes in terms of functional and shape.

Above: Dressed Up Stool

Consumers can experience more flexible and higher level of ‘Opening’ and ‘Closing(Locking)’ with this little cabinet which is formed by upholstery method.

It can be fastened by the belt or the inner magnet which fixes the belt-door rolled.

The size of the door can store little sundries.

Above: Cham

The furniture is named after the North Pole monster ‘Cham’, a character of Korean novel.

The shape of the furniture ‘Cham’ has soft appearance that resembled mild and comforts people by the inherent intimacy. This is a reddot design award winning product 2010.

Cham bench

The series of ‘Cham’, mixed of clothes and bench. Using elastic sponge on upper side and finishing the external with Upholstery method, ‘Cham-bench’ will give you durable comfort.

Belt felt
‘Union’, the theme of “Belt Felt,” is structurally applied clothes and furniture.

The clothing concept ‘belt’ blended to furniture has functionality that assigns flexibility to opening and closing doors.

The fabric, which is not woven, but compressed by strong heat and moisture, emphasizes the theme ‘Union.’

This collection is on exhibition in Seoul, Korea

See also:

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An Furniture by KAMKAM	Close to be Open by Agnes Ögren & Valerie Otte	More furniture on Dezeen

Austrian architects Sandra Janser and Elisabeth Koller have painted streets in Graz, Austria to resemble a running track as part of a regeneration project

Called Ready. Steady. Go!, the 750m-long installation on the Jakoministraße and Klosterwiesgasse aims to attract visitors to the area.

The red strip measures at 750 metres and covers the road and pavements, with grey lines dividing it into lanes.

The installation was completed for Design Month Graz 2010 and won the first prize in a design competition.

Here’s a bit more information about the project:

In the course of Design Month Graz 2010 the project „Ready. Steady. Go!“ by architects Sandra Janser and Elisabeth Koller won the first prize in the design competition for the installation of a visual frame in the Jakomini district. The intention of this visual frame is to define the streets Jakoministraße and Klosterwiesgasse in order to mark them as a significant design area with a visible and positive identity. The entrance to the Jakomini district is clearly recognized by the north and south street endings. The streets themselves are revamped leaving them with a fresh inviting look for visitors to explore.

The running track as presented in the project „Ready. Steady. Go!“ was applied in September 2010. It attracts attention to the changes in the quarter and will make people stop and absorb the newly created atmosphere. A total of 750 meters or 4600 square meters along the streets and pavements around the block are coloured in red, the lines separating the tracks are grey.

See also:

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CDSea by Bruce Munro	The Longest Bench by Studio Weave	More installations on Dezeen