Hasta La Ideas

Ci sarà pure un motivo perchè questo daypack targato White Mountaineering costa 500 bombe? Chiedetelo ai ragazzi di Haven.

Lisbon Architecture Triennale: these prototypical structures by London studio Cohen Van Balen are designed to sustain genetically modified plants that could prevent wolves from contracting rabies (+ movie).

Entitled And Nowhere a Shadow, the structures were installed by Cohen Van Balen in the woodland district of Future Perfect – an exhibition of a futuristic city on show as part of the Lisbon Architecture Triennale 2013.

“We were inspired by the idea of symbiosis, the relationships between plants and animals, and the beautifully complex systems in nature where an animal and a plant keep each other alive” Revital Cohen told Dezeen. “We wanted to design a plant to keep a wolf alive from extinction.”

The metal structures would feed biologically engineered nutrients to the blueberry plants, while metal prongs at the base would stimulate the wolves’ as they brush past, encouraging them to stop and eat the fruits.

“Wolves in the wild, can only touch each other at one point,” Tuur Van Balen explained. “As a human being, you can grab the wolf at two points. So we added these massagers that touch the animal at two points and the wolves really like it.”

The movement of the wolves would also generate electricity for the devices, powering surveillance cameras that stream footage of the animals across the internet.

“Maybe a way for the animal to keep itself from extinction is to become a form of entertainment,” said Cohen. “If there were cameras in the forest, maybe there would be people willing to watch and pay to watch it.”

Although the technology to embed anti-rabies vaccine in plants is not yet developed, the designers say it could be done with five years of research.

To test the concept, they attached regular blueberry plants to the structures and allowed a wolf to explore the exhibition, capturing the results on film.

“Many Native Americans believe that men and wolves were brothers, but then western culture invented these mythologies of the big bad wolf as symbolising everything’s thats wild and dangerous in nature,” Van Balen told Dezeen.

“But it is only when the wolf has rabies that it becomes the big bad wolf from the stories. It’s the only time when it becomes dangerous to humans and violent,” he added.

The Future Perfect exhibition was curated by architect Liam Young as an exploration into how technology will shape the cities of the future. The show also includes sculptural dresses made by dunking people into wax.

The Lisbon Architecture Triennale continues until 15 December. Follow Dezeen’s coverage of the event »

Here’s a project description from the exhibition organisers:

The Wilds – And Nowhere a Shadow There is no nature anymore. We are wandering a new kind of wilderness, where the line between biology and technology is becoming increasingly indistinguishable. Through genetic modification, engineered meat, cosmetic surgery and geo-engineering we are remaking our world from the scale of cells to the scale of continents.

The woods, wild and mysteri­ous from afar, appear as a stage on which every element is considered. Genetically engineered plants, artificially sustained, are hanging from the trees, embedded in the ecology yet detached from it. Their scaffolding systems of gleaming steel and neon light sway in the wind, waiting.

Grey wolves approach the struc­tures during the night to scratch their body on the steel branches. In an intri­cate arrangement of devised symbio­sis, the contraption takes on the role of host organism. The wolf’s move­ments generate electricity for the system, while the blueberries are engineered to contain rabies vaccine in its fruit to protect the animal from self-destruction. Cameras transmit footage of the wolf’s presence around the globe, adorned in invisible garlands of elec­tric display, to be enjoyed by those whose passion for the spectacle of wilderness sustains its survival.

The post And Nowhere a Shadow by Cohen Van Balen
at Future Perfect appeared first on Dezeen.

This is the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. We’ll be posting a new interview every other Tuesday.

Name: Piet Hein Eek

Occupation: Designer, producer, distributor, architect. I don’t like doing only one thing, and I like processes in general very much. I’m always very keen on the whole process, from the idea to the consumer.

Location: Eindhoven, the Netherlands

Current projects: We’re always doing different projects, either for customers or for ourselves—for the collection or for “free work,” as we call it. It’s work that’s not specifically commercial but more intellectually challenging and so on.

Right now we’re working on the Waste Project, with tables and chairs and other things that we make from waste material left over from our own production. This project started in 2000, but we’re still working on it on many different levels. One of the new things is a Waste Waste 40×40 series—so it’s made of the waste of the Waste Project. Instead of the leftovers determining the size and the image of the product, we cut everything down to 40-by-40-millimeter blocks. It’s a totally different approaching to using the leftovers, and we’re using almost everything because it’s a very small size. And that provides beautiful new objects.

Mission: I always try to make the world a little bit better—but I always feel a little incompetent saying that. Because if you’re a designer, you create products to be consumed. And one of the biggest issues in the world, of course, is our senseless way of consuming. So I try to communicate that the way we design, produce, consume, et cetera might be much more clever.

Above and below: an armchair and table from Eek’s new Waste Waste 40×40 collection

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? Well, as a child I was always building things, especially outside—huts and cabins and things in the trees. So the fact that I became a designer, and specifically one who is producing his own products, that was from childhood.

Education: Design Academy Eindhoven

First design job: The first design commissions I got were all friends of my mother. And with the third one I got in a little bit of a quarrel, and I promised myself never to work again for friends or relatives. Because you give it everything you have and then in the end they’re still not convinced that they have a good bargain, and they start arguing. So I stopped working for people who are close to me.

Who is your design hero? If I have to choose one, it would be Jean Prouvé. Out of all the designers, I feel the most close to his work. When I look at his work I always think, “If you gave me the same situation, I would love to have made that!” He was like an engineer, and he had his own factory, so in the end he was working with the possibilities he had at that moment, and that’s quite similar to my situation.

The workshop of Eek’s headquarters in Eindhoven, in a converted Philips factory

(more…)

Design Museum exhibition The Future is Here offers a fascinating look at modern technology’s impact on design and features some stunning graphics by studio Lucienne Roberts+. Here, Roberts explains her role in the project and how the graphics were created.

If you haven’t already visited The Future is Here, you should. On until October 29, the Design Museum exhibition considers the possibility of a new industrial revolution, exploring the rise of technologies such as 3D printing, crowd-funding and open-source software and their impact on design and manufacturing.

Studio Lucienne Roberts+ created the graphics for the show and designed and commissioned signage, infographics, laser cut illustrations and large-scale photographs to illustrate its content.

“It was an interesting project to work on as we had a semi-curatorial role,” says Roberts, who has designed graphics for shows at the Wellcome Collection, UCL and Kensington Palace. “When working on exhibitions, you always try to help the story along but this project took that to a whole new level. The show deals with some complicated themes and we wanted to help make it simple, accessible and fun,” she explains.

The studio’s LED title signage uses a strikethrough device and places the word ‘is’ over an unlit ‘was’ to highlight the speed at which modern technology is developing. “We liked the name because it has two meanings: the future is here at the design museum but it’s also here and now and changing all the time,” adds Roberts.

Roberts also commissioned photographer Angela Moore to take a series of photographs of spaces where technology is changing how things are made. The photographs have been blown up and appear on each wall of the exhibition space. The five locations – a school, a greenhouse, a shop, a designer’s space and Roberts’s kitchen – were shot at night and lit using only computer or phone screens.

“The exposure was so long that it doesn’t even pick up Angela and her assistant walking around dropping iPhones into plant pots, or the fox that found its way into the greenhouse. The lighting is quite powerful and helps to unify each image,” she says.

The exhibition makes several connections between today’s digital developments and the industrial revolution that began in the late 1700s. This link is also referenced in a collection of laser-cut silhouettes designed by illustrator Mark Hudson and made out of 10mm black perspex. The silhouettes depict rural and industrial scenes from the 16th century to the present day, tracking the development of British manufacturing.

“Each one is three metres long – the maximum size you can work with when laser cutting – and the fine details really tested the technology,” says Roberts. “We wanted the scenes to be quite playful but historically accurate and informative, and chose black to represent the smog and smoke of the first Industrial Revolution. It was fascinating watching people peering at them and trying to identity the different elements, and we were lucky that Mark has a great knowledge of history so had a good idea of what buildings and landmarks to include,” she says.

The UK’s industrial heritage is also referenced in an excellent infographic (below) explaining regional manufacturing identities through the nicknames assigned to football teams, one of a series created by the studio for the show. Sheffield United was nicknamed the Blades, for example, because of the city’s steel industry, while Arsenal’s alias, the Gunners, refers to military arsenal made in the area.

It’s another impressive project from Roberts’s studio – even more so as it was completed in just a month. While most graphics play a supporting role, Roberts’s work for the Design Museum is a central part of the story.

“It was a great project to work on – we really felt like all of our skills were being used, and it was a really collaborative experience. Before I went to art school, I studied stage management and in a way, putting on exhibition graphics is just like putting on a show. The best exhibitions have a bit of theatre and the graphics build the stage that sets the scene,” she adds.

The Future is Here is open until October 29 at the Design Museum, London SE1 2YD. For visitor info see designmuseum.org. To see more of Lucienne Roberts’s work visit luciennerobertsplus.com.

Credits

2D design: Lucienne Roberts, Dave Shaw, John McGill and James Ward, Lucienne Roberts+

3D design: dRMM

Photography: Angela Moore

Illustration: Mark Hudson

The Ring Clock concept was designed without inhibition as a product that might be able to exist in 10 years or so… but thanks to its futuristic appeal & simple functionality, it might become a reality sooner than you think! 144 ultra-thin mono-color LEDs are contrasted against surgical stainless steel. When you are looking for the time, just spin the ring to activate the blue & orange LEDs. To recharge, simply place it on the wireless clock-dock charger to restore full power that lasts a week! Watch its ice-cool display in action ->

Designer: Szikszai Gusztáv

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(Ring of Time was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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