Hasta La Ideas

Earlier this week we posted some of our favorite designer-friendly yachts from Wally Yachts. This post is for Core77’s burgeoning Somali pirate readership. Fellas, have we got some exciting design news for you: A UK-based company called Yacht Island Design is working on a host of enticing concepts for gorgeous, innovative and most importantly slow-moving pleasure craft.

Their Streets of Monaco yacht concept lets you stroll the byways of the fabled principality like a lucky gambler, sidestepping go-karts buzzing around the actual on-board racetrack. You’ve heard of the Grand Prix, and once you take this boat, you can try it!

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Reader Oh My (I’m thinking that’s not a real name) submitted the following to Ask Unclutterer:

I believe that the biggest obstacle to decluttering my life is the fear of regret. I have so much junk that I’m afraid to get rid of because I think it will be useful or valuable, and I am sure that once it’s gone I will immediately think of a use for it, or — in the case of collectible items that can be resold — discover I could have gotten more money out of it if I’d sold it someplace else. (As I’m between jobs right now, any loss of potential income really bothers me.)

My question is, how do I deal with regret? Most people seem able to accept that what’s done is done and move on with their lives, but mistakes I’ve made in the past haunt me for years and I don’t know how to get over them. Do you have any advice?

The best advice I’ve been given about regret is to ask myself the following questions before getting rid of an item:

• What is the worst that can happen?
• How would I behave if I were not afraid?
• Would I buy it again if my home burned down?

The first question allows you to play through every possible horrible scenario. Nine times out of 10, the worst that can happen isn’t actually horrible. A common response is that you might have to borrow a similar item from a friend, which is a little inconvenient but not horrible. Obviously, if your life might be at risk if you got rid of something (like heart medication or a cane that helps you walk), don’t get rid of that item.

The second question gets you thinking about how you will respond to even the horrible scenarios. You can figure out how you would deal with these events if you weren’t afraid of regret or making a mistake. Once you know how Fearless You would behave, Fearful You can feel comfortable behaving in the same way.

The third question keeps your perspective in check. If you wouldn’t pay money for the item now, you likely wouldn’t regret getting rid of something. However, if you would spend money to repurchase the handmade quilt your grandmother made you, it’s probably best not to get rid of that quilt. I’d certainly pay money to repurchase my laptop, so it’s not something I would purge. However, I wouldn’t buy an empty yogurt tub if it didn’t have yogurt in it, so into the recycling bin that yogurt tub will go when I’m finished eating the yogurt in it.

Once you know the answers to these questions, you can feel comfortable getting rid of an item if that is the right course of action for that item.

A good rule of thumb is to take care of the things that matter to you (the possessions that you’re using and/or that you treasure, like that handmade quilt) and to get rid of the things that don’t matter to you. Owning things require space for storage, as well as money and time to maintain and manage those items. The fewer things you own, the fewer things you have to clean and store and keep track of and worry about protecting.

If these three questions aren’t helpful for you and fear continues to paralyze you from taking action, I recommend talking with a licensed medical professional about your anxiety. Getting rid of clutter should feel liberating, not debilitating, and a psychologist can help you if there is more going on than just dealing with your stuff.

Thank you, Oh My, for submitting your question for our Ask Unclutterer column. Be sure to check the comments for even more advice from our readers.

Do you have a question relating to organizing, cleaning, home and office projects, productivity, or any problems you think the Unclutterer team could help you solve? To submit your questions to Ask Unclutterer, go to our contact page and type your question in the content field. Please list the subject of your e-mail as “Ask Unclutterer.” If you feel comfortable sharing images of the spaces that trouble you, let us know about them. The more information we have about your specific issue, the better.

Like this site? Buy Erin Rooney Doland’s Unclutter Your Life in One Week from Amazon.com today.

Here’s our regular Friday round-up of great new work to help inspire you at the end of the working week. First up we have an old-fashioned but brilliant TV ad for Weetabix from BBH, which sees a family competing with each other over who has the biggest day ahead. Creative directors: Dominic Goldman, David Kolbusz. Creatives: Ed Cole, Lewis Mooney. Production company: Smuggler. Director: Guy Shelmerdine.

From the traditional to the modern now: next up is The Inside Experience, an online campaign for Toshiba by Pereira O’Dell San Francisco and digital production company B-Reel, described as a ‘social film project’. Consisting of episodes (the first two are shown above), the campaign tells the story of Christina, a young girl who has been kidnapped and held at a mystery location with only her Toshiba laptop to communicate with the world, and to help her work out where she is being held. Viewers are invited to engage with her via Twitter and Facebook and can even audition to make a cameo appearance in the story. See theinsideexperience.com to join in the fun.

Next up Reggie Watts introduces Nando’s Noise… a witty little number about Peri-Peri Chicken. Viewers can sing along and upload their own Nando’s mixes to nandosnoise.com. Agency: Farm. Production company: Academy Films. Director: Lee Ford.

This new spot for Heineken Light from Wieden + Kennedy New York debates the pros and cons of the handlebar moustache. Creative directors: Stuart Jennings, Brandon Henderson. Production company: Biscuit Filmworks. Director: Noam Murro.

Director Vicky Mather has shot this short animation to advertise Lulu Guinness’ first luggage collection. Production company: White Lodge/Blinkink.

Now for some music videos. Director Isaiah Seret has shot this promo for new track Go Outside by Cults. Clearly inspired by the band’s name, Seret has somewhat controversially inserted footage of the musicians into archival footage of Jim Jones’ religious cult, the People’s Temple (which eventually ended in tragedy with the Jonestown Massacre in 1978). The video includes previously unseen home video footage from the People’s Temple. “For this music video we didn’t want to put a spin on the footage or the people’s lives,” says the director, “instead we wanted to re-tell and humanise their story. In order to achieve this we used a combination of stock footage, visual effects and other tricks to embed the band into the historical footage.” The video was previewed to some survivors of the Jonestown Massacre before release.  

Graphic designer Ben Drury has turned music video director for this promo for Bluku Bluku by D Double E (featuring Dizzee Rascal). The promo, which was directed and edited by Drury alongside Tim & Barry, features a neat digital effect by Aaron Chan that may just leave you wondering if there is something up with your computer.

To finish this round-up we give you a sweet promo from illustrator and animator Lesley Barnes, for Belle & Sebastian’s new track I Didn’t See It Coming (Richard X version), which was released last week.

CR in Print

Don’t miss out – there’s nothing like CR in print. Our August Summer Reading issue contains our pick of some of our favourite writing on advertising, illustration and graphic design as well as a profile of Marion Deuchars plus pieces on the Vorticists, Total Design, LA Noire and much more.

If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine and get Monograph.

London studio VW+BS have designed an office building for Singapore that resembles a giant periscope.

Tacked onto the rear of a listed 19th century shophouse, The Periscope will have a dramatically cantilevered top floor that will oversail the existing roof.

This cantilever will contain a top-floor restaurant above four storeys of offices.

The building is to be constructed of reinforced concrete, infilled with perforated aluminium panels on the front and rear facades.

A two metre-wide gap will separate the extension from the shophouse, which will be refurbished to provide offices on the first and second floors.

The project is currently awaiting approval from the local planning authority.

Shophouses, usually composed of a shop with flats stacked above, are common in the urban areas of south-east Asia – check out our earlier story about shophouses converted into a live-work unit and a photography story from last year about shophouses in Thailand.

Other bizarre cantilevers from the Dezeen archive include a balancing house with a swing below and a freestanding ski jump – see all our stories about cantilevers here.

More information is provided by the architects:

The Periscope

The Periscope is an office building located in the Upper Circular Road conservation area in Singapore. Made up of warehouses and shophouses that serviced the commercial activity around the nearby Singapore River until the latter half of the 20th century, the area has recently undergone regeneration and the restored buildings now accommodate offices, hotels, restaurants and shops.

Our site comprises a listed 19th century shophouse which was remodelled in the 1930s. It has road access along the front via a covered public walkway and pedestrian service access along the rear of the building. There are traces of both the 19th century and 1930s interventions and our addition is positioned so that it reads as a distinct layer in addition to the historic ones.

The Singaporean conservation rules allowed us to redevelop the site behind the first 7.5 metres. Our strategy is therefore to retain the original features and character of the front portion of the building as much as possible and create our insertion to the rear of and above it, thereby keeping it as a distinct entity. The extension comprises a service core with office spaces to its rear which ascends four storeys before cantilevering on the top floor over the historic roofline. The cantilever lies behind this conservation boundary and together with the vertical portion of the extension acts as a visual frame to the listed building.

A two metre deep airwell separates the extension from the existing building. It ensures that light and ventilation is maintained throughout the deep building, a device borrowed from traditional shophouses in this region.

Planning rules also dictated that we keep the side walls blank to allow future adjacent development. In the meantime we propose roughcast side walls made of reinforced concrete that act to accommodate the cantilever structurally.

The front and rear facades in contrast are in lightweight perforated aluminium panels to act as sunscreens for these facades.

See also:

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NHow Hotel Berlin by NPS Tchoban Voss	Hamburger Hof by NPS Tchoban Voss	BLC Headquarters by Atelier Hapsitus

and you thought was crazy about shoes!