L’artiste Shamekh Bluwi dessine des croquis et illustrations de mode, publiés quotidiennement sur son Instagram. Parfois, il découpe l’intérieur des patrons de vêtements et juxtapose ses dessins sur le paysage, des textures ou des graphismes architecturaux, faisant apparaître les motifs des tenues.
Graduate shows 2015: a toaster that needs hugging and an alarm clock that buzzes until raised above the head are among Royal College of Art graduate Ted Wiles’ collection of interactive household objects (+ movie).
Wiles‘ Involuntary Pleasures products require users to interact with them in ways that promote happiness and wellbeing.
“They are normal consumer electronics, but the physical interactions create chemical changes within the user’s brain to engender feelings of delight and happiness,” said Wiles.
His elongated red felt-covered Hugging Toaster only works when squeezed against the body. The device is activated when pressure is applied to sensors within the object, which must be sustained for the duration of the cooking time.
“It is a very needy toaster,” the designer told Dezeen. “It feels warm when you hug it – that’s why it’s red, for feelings of warmth, love and comfort.”
Hugging increases levels of dopamine and serotonin chemicals in the user’s brain, while reducing heart rate, resulting in feelings of comfort and happiness.
His range also includes the box-like bright yellow Victory Alarm Clock, which features two batons in the top that must be removed and held above the user’s head in a V shape to stop the alarm.
Accelerometers within the hand-held batons communicate their position to the base via Bluetooth, deactivating the alarm after two minutes.
Related story: ECAL students design interactive products that address “lack of humanness” in electronics
The so-called “victory position” has been shown to increase testosterone and reduce cortisol levels, making the user feel more confident and less stressed, according to the designer.
The Smile Telephone is a contemporary version of a traditional wall-mounted telephone, with a mirror attached.
A camera in the top the reflective surface uses facial-recognition software to determine the caller’s facial expression, and only allows calls to be made and received when they smile at their reflection.
“The telephone forces the user to engage with a positive self image of themselves and causes an increase in levels of serotonin in the brain,” explained Wiles. “If you don’t smile every ten seconds, it puts you on hold and reminds you to smile.”
The Reflective Mirror creates an amplified and distorted reflection in response to user moving their right hand in front of it.
A Microsoft Kinect sensor detects the position of the hand, which computer software translates to an actuator that pushes out the surface of the stretchy mirrored material. It is designed to offer a moment of “meditative contemplation”.
“It is a moment to consider one’s self-projected image,” said Wiles. “It allows you to distort reality and reminds you that everything we experience is from a subjective perspective.”
Wiles, who studied on the RCA’s Design Products course, presented the project at the institution’s annual graduate exhibition earlier this summer. Show RCA 2015 took place from 25 June to 5 July, and also featured a staircase that straps to tree trunks and a personal tattoo machine.
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Le travail du plasticien américain James Turrell a récemment fait l’objet d’une immense retrospective à la Galerie Nationale d’Australie située à Canberra. D’une manière très caractéristique, il immerge des espaces vides de lumières leds aux couleurs vives ou feutrées, plongeant le visiteur dans une atmosphère relative aux rêves.
Flower beds and vegetable gardens cover the rooftops of this mixed-use property in Halifax, Canada, designed by architect Susan Fitzgerald as a space for her to live and work in (+ slideshow).
The King Street Live/Work/Grow project is located in a northern district of the city and provides Fitzgerald and her family with three separate units – a main residence, a studio flat, and an office for the architecture and development companies she and her partner run.
The eclectic neighbourhood is home to a range of building types, including early-20th-century housing, a car dealership and repair shop, and a recycling depot.
Fitzgerald aimed to strengthen this diversity by combining spaces for living and working.
“Within the 7.6 metre by 30.5 metre lot, this project contributes to the rich character of a community where the converging conditions of affordable land, rapid growth and light industry suggest an uncertain future,” said Fitzgerald in a statement.
“Advocating ways to maintain and enrich the diversity in the neighbourhood, this project increases density, community and liveability.”
The accommodation units are perched on top of the offices. A courtyard featuring a long narrow planting bed stands in between, while the rooftops of the buildings are covered in boxes filled with flowers and vegetables.
“Landscaped spaces are integrated throughout the whole project to offer respite within the city and support the cultivation of vegetables and flowers,” said Fitzgerald.
“Wood decks, soffits and stairs unfold throughout the building, creating planters on the roof and flower beds at grade.”
Each of the three units has an entrance at ground floor level. The way they connect means they can expand or contract into one another, in response to changing circumstances within the businesses or the family.
At the front of the building, one entrance leads to a staircase ascending to the main apartment.
Another opens directly into the front office space, which is flanked by a glazed wall looking onto the street, while the second office is located at the rear, beyond a shared driveway.
The two offices are linked by a corridor lined with glass on the side facing the courtyard. Its other wall incorporates hinged doors that open onto children’s bedrooms described by the architects as “compact private cubbies”.
Above the office at the front of the building, a living and dining area cantilevers out slightly over the entrance.
On the top floor is the master bedroom suite, which is set back slightly to create a double-height space looking down on the dining area and the courtyard below.
Board-formed concrete was chosen as the main construction material. This was combined with corrugated metal to give the building’s exterior an industrial aesthetic that complements the sheds and other working spaces in the neighbourhood.
By arranging the different units in a line so they look out onto the courtyard, Fitzgerald was able to meet building code regulations stipulating minimal glazing on the building’s sides, while ensuring plenty of daylight reaches the interior.
“On a macro level, this project re-imagines the limiting site conditions typically found in Halifax – namely, long and narrow Victorian lots – and creates a new mixed-use urban typology based on a modern rendition of the side hall plan,” the architect added.
Photography is by Greg Richardson, unless stated otherwise.
The post Susan Fitzgerald’s live-work space in Halifax features a rooftop vegetable garden appeared first on Dezeen.
“In the near future, breathable air is nonexistent. Virtually all of humanity has disappeared and those chosen to reestablish society reside in a controlled state of suspended animation. Two engineers (Norman Reedus and Djimon Hounsou) tasked with guarding the last hope for mankind struggle to preserve their own sanity and lives while administering to their vital task at hand. “(Read…)
Des designers reconnus ont revu et imaginé un nouveau packaging pour la mythique bouteille de Coca Cola, à l’occasion de son 100ème anniversaire, comme cela avait été fait précédemment avec la création de posters. Des modèles futuristes, d’autres plus pragmatiques ou qui demandent de l’interprétation.
Design by David Rockwell.
Design by Dana D’Amico.
Design by Amina Horozic
Design by Frederick McSwain.
Design by Gregory Buntain and Ian Collings.
Design by Joe Doucet.
Design by Leon Ransmeier.
Design by Liz Daily.
Design by Marc Thorpe.
German design student May Kukula has created a Moroccan-inspired pot and a set of tools that enable users to “cook” their own bespoke scents.
To create smells using Kukula‘s Aroma set, a mixture of ingredients is boiled in a porcelain bowl shaped like a tagine – an earthenware pot used in North African cooking.
Simmered over a candle flame, the concoction evaporates through a hole in the lid and emits a scent for fragrancing a room.
“The project invites one to experiment with spices, herbs and oils to create a unique scent,” Kukula told Dezeen. “The name of the game is to improvise. However as a starting point, a few recipes and basic information about the ingredients are given to the user.”
The round porcelain bowl and its lid rest on a brass stand and tray, and come with a large stirring spoon.
Kukula chose porcelain and brass to create the components after researching the history of materials used to make alchemy tools and vessels.
“I started working with porcelain long time ago and got to love this material,” Kukula told Deezen. “For an object which uses heat to create scent, porcelain is a great material as it keeps heat and has a neutral odour, and brass adds to the elegance of the cool and clean porcelain.”
While testing her method, Kukula managed to spark curiosity in the people outside her room, which was ultimately her goal.
“In an advanced stage of experimenting of steaming spices, people started coming into the room to find out where this smell comes from,” Kukula told Dezeen. “This was a sign for me that my idea works the way I intended it to be.”
The Aroma set was one of 10 designs that won this year’s Ikea Design Foundation award. Winners of the annual prize receive a fully funded semester abroad at the Ingvar Kamprad Design Centre at Lund University and retain all the rights of ownership for their products.
Kukula is currently finishing her bachelor degree at the Berlin University of Arts, but has plans to expand on her work with scents.
“I’ve already thought about the possibilities of extending the Aroma set further with tools such as a pestle and mortar,” Kukula told Dezeen. “I love to involve elements of nature and well being in my concepts due to my curiosity and fascination about them.”
The project follows a trend for scent in design at this year’s Milan design week.
Dutch brand Moooi, British designer Tom Dixon and Italian firm Kartell have all dipped their toes into the scent market with an array of candles, soaps and diffusers.
Additionally, designers from Design Academy Eindhoven and Lund University presented innovative ways of using scent in design.
Kulula believes that embracing smell within design will have positive consequences.
“Today there is a tendency to design objects or spaces which deal with our sensual perception,” Kulula told Dezeen. “So it is great to see this growing consciousness of this approach as it opens a whole new interesting world of possibilities and making.”
The post May Kukula’s Aroma set produces homemade room fragrances appeared first on Dezeen.
Graduate shows 2015: Royal College of Art graduate Ammo Liao has created pairs of shoes with 3D-printed soles and uppers made entirely from a recyclable knitted material (+ movie).
Liao‘s Bio-Knit trainers are formed using a 3D-knitting process, which enables different material properties across a single surface.
Polymer yarns are fed into automated machines, which can be programmed to weave various patterns that enable flexibility and rigidity in the desired areas of the shoe. The section around the ankle is more flexible to allow the wearer to insert and remove their foot, while the toe, heel and bridge are rigid for support.
Different colours and motifs can also be incorporated into the weave.
Knitted flat, the material is sewn together into slipper-like shoes that are fitted into 3D-printed soles.
Before assembly, the toe and heel are heat-pressed in a mould for added rigidity, while laser engraving enables smaller areas to be hardened more accurately.
Liao, who studied on the RCA’s Innovation Design Engineering course, wanted to create shoes that are environmentally friendly and easy to recycle.
Rather that using the multitude of man-made plastic composites that go into current trainer production, which makes them difficult and expensive to recycle, his design takes its cues from nature.
“Nature uses only a few polymers for everything in our living environment, because it changes the material’s identity, structures and textures,” he said.
The result is his Bio-Knit fabric, which is made from a single polymer and can therefore be recycled as a whole.
“This multi-functional single material can efficiently boost our recycling industry without relying on a separation process,” Liao told Dezeen.
He believes this could lead to the conservation of natural resources, improvements to the sustainability of landfill, reductions in energy and greenhouse gases, and reduced costs of recycling.
Liao’s project was presented at this year’s Show RCA 2015 graduate exhibition in London earlier this summer, along with a series of stools made using waste nylon powder from 3D printing, and a new material formed from plant fibres and naturally fermented cellulose.
Sportswear giants Nike and Adidas also use knitting technology to create footwear. Nike’s Flyknit has been used to create running trainers, football boots and basketball shoes, and swiftly launched a soccer boot after Adidas claimed to be the first to produce one with an upper knitted entirely from yarn.
Adidas also recently added to its eco-credentials by unveiling a pair of trainers made from recycled ocean plastic.
The post Ammo Liao’s recyclable Bio-Knit trainers have uppers knitted from a single material appeared first on Dezeen.
New Jersey Star-Ledger columnist Stephen Witty first interviewed actor Norman Lloyd (pictured) in 2007. Ahead of Trainwreck, in which Lloyd co-stars, he has logged another chat with the 100-year-old Hollywood wonder.
When Lloyd worked with Alfred Hitchcock, every shot and line was meticulously planned. Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer’s Trainwreck is the opposite. It was Lloyd’s first experience with improvised film dialogue and the Jersey City native says it’s ultimately part of what keeps him going:
“I have my whiskey every day, and wine with dinner. No special diet. It’s just attitude, I think. For example, I’ve been in this business over 80 years, but working on Trainwreck, working improvisationally – I had never experienced that before. And as a consequence I found it very creative in its way. It was a new and in the end a very delightful experience – and so, if there is a secret to living a long and happy life, I think that’s it. Do your work. Be curious. Stay interested.”
That’s pretty much what another performer who lived to be 100, the late George Burns, used to preach: you’ll live long if you are able to do what you love. Most 100-year-olds would also note that improv has the benefit of not requiring the memorization of lines. But not Lloyd. The ageless performer also shared some interesting with Whitty thoughts on why it never quite worked out for in Tinseltown for boy wonder Orson Welles.
Previously on FishbowlNY:
Peter Bart Pays Norman Lloyd the Highest Compliment
[Photo of Lloyd at March 2015 The Sound of Music 50th anniversary event: Helga Esteb/Shutterstock.com]
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