Photo by Cemal Okten
We posted a quick snap of Sam Hecht’s “Branca Chair” when it was selected for the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year, and now here’s an in-depth look at how the tree-inspired “Branca” is made. Like some of our favorite manufacturing vids, it shows humans and machines working together in perfect harmony.
The audio’s a bit muddy and uneven, but the vid itself is great:
Milan 2011: Bozen based designer Simone Simonelli has designed this folding chair from timber rods.
Called Mossa, the chair is constructed from 14 timber poles with a curved timber seat.
The chair won the Honorable Mention Prize at Promosedia 2010, the awards for which were presented in Milan earlier this month.
More about Milan 2011 on Dezeen »
More chairs on Dezeen »
The following is from the designer:
Mossa Chair wins Honorable Mention at Promosedia International Award 2010
Words from the jury:
“A fresh spin on a classic concept, a new interpretation and style in a contemporary sense: this is Mossa, an agile, accessible and functional seat – thanks to the evergreen versatility of folding chairs – which at the same time expresses its young and lively character thanks to its wide range of colours.”
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| Piana by David Chipperfield | Flux by Jerszy Seymour | Impossible Wood by Doshi Levien |
solidThinking is pleased to announce their eponymous solidThinking Design Competition 2011, honoring the best design concepts created completely using solidThinking 8.5 software. Any student over the age of 18 can enter any original design: consumer goods, electronics, furniture, jewelry, fashion, medical products, packaging, toys, transportation, etc.
“Through the solidThinking Design Competition 2011, we want to give an opportunity to young designers to express their creativity while learning our 3D software, with the additional benefits of gaining exposure for their talents, being evaluated by global design thought leaders and—why not—winning nice prizes,” said Alex Mazzardo, solidThinking’s vice president of product strategy and marketing. “solidThinking tools are inspired by and used by some of the world’s most creative product designers, and we are certainly eager for up-and-coming designers to apply their talents and techniques to our concept-creation software.”
An international jury of high-profile designers, academics and writers—including Core77’s own Stuart Constantine—will judge the entries on aesthetic qualities and form innovation, function innovation and feasibility and presentation techniques (see the full breakdown on the competition page).
Cash prizes will be awarded to the top three submissions—$5,000 and a solidThinking 8.5 Inspired commercial license for first place— while all entries published on the solidThinking.com website will receive a 24-month solidThinking Inspired educational license.
This is such an awesome concept and no, I have no idea how it would actually work. Moscow-based designer Igor Lobanov’s Sprout pen concept reveals the ink within its clear body in the form of a plant-like sprout. As you use the pen, over time the ink diminishes and the sprout shrinks as if dying.
Too depressing?
Masterpieces of Ralph Lauren’s legendary car collection on display in Paris
Starting today seventeen of the world’s finest classic sports cars from Ralph Lauren’s legendary personal collection will be on show at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. “The Art of the Automobile” features select cars from the designer’s prolific stockpiles, one of the most extensive in the world.
Acting as a visual timeline of the evolution of European automobile design through the 20th Century, the cars on display—among them Bugatti, Alfa Romeo, Bentley, Mercedes-Benz, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Porsche and Ferrari—are among the most exceptional in the world and have been infrequently shown to the public. Each one, all created between the 1930s and the 1990s, stands as a masterpiece of both technological innovation and impeccable design.
The result is a show of some of the rarest and most beautiful cars by the greatest names in automobiles, including four (a ’31 Alfa Romeo Monza 8C 2300; a
Jaguar XKSS from 1956/1958; a ’60 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Scaglietti and a ’64 Ferrari 250 LM) that have never been exhibited before.
To commemorate the exhibition, a limited run book features each car, its historical and technical significance and an explanation by Lauren himself on what guides his passion for car collection. The book will also showcase many of the same images seen here, all exceptionally shot by renowned automobile photographer Michael Furman.
The show runs through 28 August 2011 and is open to the public for a small fee of €9.
Hubert Schlafly, one of the inventors of the original Teleprompter, died last week at the age of 91. In the late ’40s or early ’50s (accounts conflict), Schlafly was working as a technical expert for 20th Century Fox. During his tenure, soap opera actor Fred Barton requested lines of dialogue be printed large and hung in various locations around the set, as the pace of shooting often outpaced the actors’ ability to memorize new dialogue. Barton, Schlafly and Fox manager Irving Berlin Kahn subsequently collaborated to produce the world’s first Teleprompter, a hand-cranked scroll printed with dialogue that folded up into a suitcase, albeit one that weighed 40 pounds.
The Teleprompter has since evolved into the one-way glass projection device we see politicians speaking into. Schlafly got out of the business in the 1960s and soon invented the cable box. An article on Schlafly in Notre Dame Magazine (presumably his alma mater) contains his interesting take on inventions, which could easily be applied to product design:
[Schlafly’s] fond of saying there are three phases to all inventions:“One is the wild-eyed guy who has an idea, sees a need and has the technical background two address it.
“Two is finding sufficient financial backing to create something that might be marketable.
“And three is when everybody looks at it and says, ‘Anybody could have done that.'”
This blog is no stranger to wooden or, indeed, bamboo bicycles. The “Splinter Bike” by English craftsman Michael Thompson, however, is a very different animal. Barring a touch of glue and lick of paint, this beast is made entirely from wooden parts—not a nail, screw, nut or bolt in sight…not even a chain or rubber tyres.
Years ago at the New York Auto Show I wandered into now-defunct Mercury’s exhibit area, where their Mercury Marauder concept car was on display. I thought the name was weird, given Mercury’s blue-haired client base; my then-girlfriend quipped they might as well have called it the Mercury Violator.
Product names often have little to do with their intended purpose, but that hasn’t stopped Philippe Starck from naming his latest chair the Lou Read. It’s partly a play on words—Starck met musician Lou Reed at Paris’ Royal Monceau Hotel years ago, and the rooms of that hotel will now feature the chair—and partly wistful aspirations of how the chair will be used: Says Starck, “This project is a reminder that it is far better to spend time in conversation or reading activities than in front of the TV or computer.”
Austin Center for Design has just completed its first year of classes, and student teams have created progressive entrepreneurial models for affecting positive change in the world around them. After spending 24 weeks immersed in the problem of homelessness, the following businesses have emerged:
Patient Nudge
After observing the limited time and resources case workers have to manage an increasingly large at-risk population, Ryan Hubbard and Christina Tran developed an online compliance and persistence tool. This tool—Patient Nudge—allows a care provider to automatically check in with a large population via SMS, aggregate results into compelling visualizations, and identify outliers in the data.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
