Hasta La Ideas

…And here’s the second most awesome thing I’ve seen all week: The guys over at Audi UK came up with a fantastic way to test out the RS 4 Avant, using methods that have no applicability whatsoever to real-world driving. I’m a little disappointed that the guns don’t swivel, and the ergonomic placement of the triggers seems poor, but I did enjoy the secondary/tertiary/quatenary paint-delivering devices. I won’t spoil the surprise(s) for you:

You’re likely wondering how they captured some of those aerial shots, as having a floor-mounted crane amidst those drifting cars doesn’t seem feasible. The answer is: Drones to the rescue!

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Flights of stairs in odd places (above), a flat-pack concert hall by Renzo Piano and a hotel in a former prison all feature in this week’s Dezeen Mail, along with all the latest news, jobs, competitions and reader comments from Dezeen.

Read Dezeen Mail issue 141 | Subscribe to Dezeen Mail

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Massiccia scultura di carta costruita dagli spagnoli di Less Industries per il progetto Show us your type in cui hanno ben rappresentato il mood della città brasiliana Rio.

Our friends at Vimeo announced their latest new feature today, Enhancer. This full-bodied, browser-based tool gives users the ability to visually augment their videos right on the Vimeo site. The Enhancer is powered by Vivoom, which uses the same high-end technology that goes into post production for film and…

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This is the second article in a series examining the potential of resilient design to improve the way the world works. Join designers, brand strategists, architects, futurists, experts and entrepreneurs at Compostmodern13 to delve more deeply into strategies of sustainablity and design.

We’ve all been there: it’s another late night in the studio, and you’ve got hours of pixel-pushing and deck-polishing ahead. Your social life, if it exists, is under duress. The cramp in your mousing hand makes you wonder if it really is time to see that doctor.

Meanwhile your mind wanders from the task at hand to what you can do—what you can change about your “situation”—to close the gap between the seeming pointlessness of how you earn your living and the realization that your time and energy could be better spent doing something (anything!) more meaningful.

Like your brother who joined the Peace Corps in India. Or the industrial designer you read about who designed a new clean water system for a village in Tanzania. The architect who took a 6-month leave of absence from his job to build relief housing in Haiti.

It could be mere escapism to indulge such humanitarian fantasies but I think there’s more to it, especially for designers. It’s in our professional DNA to do stuff, to make things—and if we were trained well—to solve problems and have real impact on people’s lives. Our hands feel tied when we’re not putting them to good use.

Human need is everywhere
Humanitarian work shouldn’t require quitting your job, uprooting your life and moving to another community. The eye of the storm for social injustice isn’t always half way across the world—it’s often right under your nose in the form of an urban food desert, children stuck in a cycle of poverty, a family who lives in your back alley.

Over the last 5-7 years, we’ve witnessed an explosion of programs dedicated to applying design methods to humanitarian issues in the developing world. Some have spun off as nonprofits; others are embedded in top design firms, universities or government. Philanthropic foundations are expanding their grant portfolios by underwriting innovative, designer-led initiatives that meet their programmatic interests. Both the design and mainstream media have caught on, helping to fuel more attention to the value of designers working in the developing world—amounting to more funding, more programs, and more opportunities.

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