Apr 30
Lamborghini Aventador by Sehsucht
Posted in: Uncategorized
Apr 30
ICFF 2011
Posted in: UncategorizedNorth America’s premier showcase for contemporary design, the ICFF
annually lures those in determined pursuit of design’s timely truths ..
Apr 30
2011 Dodge Charger "Future of Driving" commercial: a cautionary tale
Posted in: UncategorizedAs designers, we often engage in many of what we call “future of…” programs, for both clients as well as for ourselves. These projects often remove some of the constraints that exist in our current product developments cycle to focus on larger macro trends in human behavior and technology to try to look forward into the future. Cynically this is sometimes called crystal ball gazing, but it often it can reveal insights that can help us to course correct more production oriented programs. Hollywood has picked up on how amazing these kinds of future explorations can be in many movies over the past 50 years, such as the way HMI is portrayed in Minority Report (UI which is already looking old) and Iron Man (CAD interface).
These types of explorations have been going on for a long time in R&D departments, the pages of magazines, and as part of promotions. Sometimes they were amazingly close, and sometimes they are hilariously off. They are our best educated guess of what comes next after next. For a look at the history of such predictions, check out one of my favorite blogs Paleofuture.com
In these kinds of projects we often abstract existing behaviors to manifest a vision of where we think technology can take us. I LOVE this new Dodge commercial shows how that abstraction can quickly become irrelevance, annoyance, and even cause an outright backlash.
There are a lot of things that technology could do for us, but the question is, what do we WANT it to do for us and HOW. As software becomes ever more advanced, will it manifest itself in ways that feel genuinely mechanical? A nice example of this are the fly-by-wire systems in commercial aircraft that work hard to reproduce the feedback of mechanical linkages to pilots. Another example are tunnel mounted stick shifts in automatic cars. The gear selection in an automatic car could be a dial, a switch, or a touch screen, but we seem to prefer the large mechanical lever that emulates the mechanical shifter on a sports car. Is this longing for the more understandable what is behind retro styling and Steam Punk? Is the embrace of mechanical interfaces merely a transitional affordance or is it how human’s prefer to interface?
I don’t have the answers to any of those questions, but continue reading to see the bonus “Slippery Slope” commercial that pokes fun at Google’s attempt to drive your car.
Apr 30
Après la précédente présentation de Vapor Superfly, la marque Nike a voulu mettre en avant dans ce spot, sa nouvelle paire de chaussures de football Nike Mercurial Vapor Superfly III. Une réalisation réussie par Jean-Paul Frenay, qui permet de dévoiler le modèle avec dynamisme.
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Apr 30
Growing Vases by Nendo for Lasvit
Posted in: Milan 2011
Milan 2011: Japanese designers Nendo have designed these hand-blown glass lights with the blowers pipe still attached, for Czech lighting company Lasvit, exhibited in Milan earlier this month.
Called ‘Growing Vases’ the lights were shown as part of an exhibition, titled ‘Cocoon’, directed by designer Fabio Novembre in Milan.
The design is based on the shape of a flower bulb.
More Lighting on Dezeen »
More by Nendo on Dezeen »
All Photos by Daici Ano
The following is from Nendo:
Growing Vases by Nendo for Lasvit:
We exhibited a glass object “growing vases” for a Czech glass and lighting company “Lasvit” in collaboration with Fabio Novembre.
Design Concept
During this year’s Salone, an exhibition of three designs by three designers including Mathieu Lehanneur and Nendo under the art direction of designer Fabio Novembre showcased the artistry of venerable Czech Bohemian glass maker Lasvit’s glassblowers.
We were assigned the abstract theme ‘cocoon’, and asked to create work that would directly convey the quixotic appeal of glass as something that is impractical and incomplete, but provides a breath of fresh air, opening up new possibilities.
We decided to take the brief in a playful direction, and to suggest both breathing and the incomplete by displaying the metal pipes used by glassblowers, still attached to the glass objects that they were used to make. By turning the pipes into flowers and branches and the glass into a vase, we literally turned convention on its head, making flowers blooming in vases into vases blooming from flowers to represent the flower bulbs that draw nutrients from plants through photosynthesis and store new life.
See also:
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| Loom by Benjamin Hubert | Sprig by Victor Vetterlein | Bird by Zhili Liu |
Apr 30
This house in a mountain region outside of Tokyo by Koji Tsutsui Architect & Associates is composed of five connected cottages.
Each of the larch-clad cottages of Inbetween House varies in size and has a different single roof pitch, with overhangs that overlap one another to create connections internally.
The buildings have a fan arrangement on site that adds further variation to the shape of the interior spaces, from which there are wide views of the surrounding landscape.
Photography is by Iwan Baan
More Japanese houses on Dezeen »
Here are some further details from the architects:
The client chose the sloped site surrounded by Japanese larch trees and located in a mountainous region, an hour away from Tokyo on a bullet train, as their ideal location for their home where they can retreat from their busy work in the city.
The house sits on an artificially leveled area of the site created thirty years ago and left unused. Since the client wanted a house seamlessly blend into the natural surrounding, topography and local culture, we designed this house as a collection of small mountain cottages.
It consists of five single pitched roof cottages that are clad in the local larch wood siding. Rather than using a complex construction technology, it is built in a traditional Japanese wood construction method so that local builders can skillfully craft each structural wood member. Each cottage varies in size to fit its function and set on site at 30 degree increments to best fit the topography and to face unique views.
All cottage roofs have varying slopes and overhangs that touch the overhangs of adjacent cottages, creating gap spaces between these cottages, a simulacrum of alleys in a city. The triangular “connecting” roofs span between these overhangs to capture these gap spaces as a single fluid public interior space, which serves as a living room or a circulation space and feels like being outside looking at mountains in the distance. Since these connecting roofs bend & fold to connect the cottages at multiple angles & heights, the in-between space results in a spatial & structural warpage.
The design intent of this house is not the final architectural form, but rather, establishing a set of design rules of cottage placements and connections, which allows the house to be freely arranged to satisfy any requirements and adoptable to any future changes or additions, prolonging its building life.
Place: Karuizawa, Nagano, Japan
Architect: Koji Tsutsui Architect & Associates, Koji Tsutsui, Satoshi Ohkami
Structural Engineers: ANARCHItects(CG), Hirotsugu Tsuboi
General contractor: Sasazawa Construction, Inc.
Photographer: Iwan Baan
Site Area: 1956.16m2
Floor Area: 178.43m2
Completion Year: 2010
See also:
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| House in Hieidaira by Tato Architects | House in Kobe by Keiichi Sugiyama | House in Fukawa by Suppose Design Office |
Apr 29
Rapid Type : The Mobile Coffee Platform
Posted in: Uncategorized
RAPID TYPE: MOBILE COFFEE PLATFORMAfter months of research into why prefabrication has not been the glowing success everyone claimed it would be, a gr..
Apr 29
Work/Life 2: Renata Liwska
Posted in: Uncategorized
Renata Liwska is going to be one of those children’s book illustrators whose work stands the test of time! Her style is timeless, sweet, soft with just the right touch of mischief. She has two recent books out. The Loud Book is a companion to The Quiet Book, and debuted at #10 on the New York Times list for picture books. Red Wagon is Renata’s second book that she has authored as well as illustrated.
Calgarians can enjoy both books this Saturday when Renata reads at Monkeyshines! She will also will be giving away some mini posters and there will be a draw for a signed print from Red Wagon.
Saturday April 30th, 2pm
Monkeyshines Children’s Books
#113 – 2215 – 33rd Ave SW, Calgary
Renata is featured in Work/Life and Work/Life 2. (As well as the free app!)
Apr 29
An Inside Look at Renny Ramakers’ House
Posted in: Uncategorized
All images and captions from Sight Unseen. The clock on the wall is an antique, from the ’20s.
I have always loved the intimacy of artists and everyday people opening up their unstyled homes and studios to prying eyes. With the popularity of sites like TheSelby and publications like Apartamento this doesnt feel like an especially fresh phenomenon but it never ceases to thrill me when I get a sneak peak into the details of lived-in spaces. The ladies over at Sight Unseen recently published a great look at Renny Ramakers’ (Co-founder and Director of Droog) Amsterdam abode. I love how travel souvenirs and found objects sit side-by-side with icons of design. Check out the jump for some of my favorites and see the rest of the gallery here!
Apr 29
Friday Photo: Carriage for One
Posted in: Uncategorized
An untitled 2008 photo by Liz Craft.
A royal wedding is an excellent excuse to trot out the carriages, and while our garage is lacking in 1902 State Landaus, Ascot Landaus, or Semi-State Landaus (full disclosure: we do not have a garage), we can delight in artist Liz Craft‘s solo approach. In her untitled 2008 photo, a fashionably dressed adult takes a break in “Carriage,” an outsized bronze baby buggy that looks plucked from the forest home of giants. Craft created the sculptural work in 2008, and when not in use, the carriage holds an enormous porcelain egg on a bed of raffia. This image of the eggless carriage out for a urban adventure is among the artworks on offer in an online auction to benefit the Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND), the non-profit public art initiative founded in 2009 by Shamim Momin and Christine Kim, in the run-up to its Thursday bash at Palihouse in West Hollywood. The online auction also includes works by John Baldessari, Barnaby Furnas, Dennis Hopper, Hanna Liden, and Raymond Pettibon. Bidding is open through Wednesday: register here and prepare to get carried away for a good cause.
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