Hasta La Ideas

Educational video on how to light-paint a skeleton through use of long-exposure photography.(Read…)

Graduate shows 2015: Royal College of Art graduate Cameron Bowen has developed a tape measure that enables tailors to generate digital fabric patterns while retaining the intimacy of the fitting process.

Bowen created the Parametric Tape Measure while studying on the RCA‘s Design Products course as part of an investigation into the intersection of fashion and technology.

“I really wanted to investigate the dialogue between digital fabrication and traditional craftsmanship,” Bowen told Dezeen.

His aim was to maintain the relationship between the tailor and customer while being measured for a suit, but bring the process up to date using digital technology for better efficiency.

“I took a trip to Paris and was measured for a pair of trousers in the basement of a tailoring shop by two Iranian refugees,” Bowen said. “It was really weird but really nice and one of the strangest things – the sort of moment that I wanted to capture in this project.”

Instead of using a technique like 3D scanning – which could be used to capture all of the body measurements without any physical interaction – the tape measure allows the tailor to work in the manner they are accustomed to.

However, the user doesn’t have to pause to write down each number, as the device wirelessly sends the measurements to parametric modelling software – a type of computer program that alters shapes in response to changing numerical values. This software then builds the shape of the pattern bit by bit.

“I’ve created an interaction that allows for tailors to take customer measurements and simultaneously have those measurements translated as patterns in front of the customer,” said Bowen.

The device incorporates a sensor that counts the rotations of the tape as it is pulled away from its source, and translates the figures into linear distances. The measurements have to be taken in a specific order, similar to how they are obtained in standard tailoring practices.

The distances are then translated by an algorithm that draws the patterns within a computer aided design (CAD) environment, which can be displayed on a screen while the process takes place.

Once the patterns are generated, they can be printed out to the correct scale and laid on the fabric to be cut around.

A variety of different technologies are being proposed and utilised to create customised clothing and accessories, including 3D scanning to produce bespoke dresses and augmented modelling tools for designing wearable 3D-printed pieces.

However, Bowen believes that these high-tech processes pose a threat to centuries-old tailoring traditions and the human interaction that comes with them.

“This level of intimacy becomes endangered as technology progresses,” he said. Similar tools that link digital modelling and traditional craft include Unfold’s set of instruments that measure physical objects and transfer the dimensions to a digital model.

The Parametric Tape Measure is on display at the Show RCA graduate exhibition in London until 5 July, along with a “power glove” for carving hard materials by hand and a tactile interface for navigating CAD environments.

The post Cameron Bowen merges digital tools and traditional tailoring with Parametric Tape Measure appeared first on Dezeen.

Seoul studio Chae-Pereira Architects has added a greenhouse-like educational facility clad in translucent plastic panels to an arts centre in the South Korean city of Gwangmyeong (+ slideshow).

The Gwangmyeong Upcycle Art Center is a facility operated by the Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, which supports artists in the suburb south of Seoul.

Chae-Pereira Architects was asked to oversee the renovation of an abandoned building into a space housing a gallery, a small theatre, artists residences and a restaurant, as well as constructing a new educational facility nearby.

The site for the arts centre is part of a power plant complex where waste is incinerated to produce electricity, and is adjacent to a former gold and silver mine that closed in the 1970s.

The architects borrowed from the industrial aesthetic of the surrounding infrastructure when developing their plans for the buildings, which aim to promote interaction between resident artists and the public.

“Both renovation and extension are conceived to allow informal interaction between visitors, artists and students, through the use of an open diffuse spatiality and lightweight translucent materials,” explained architect Laurent Pereira, whose previous projects include a knot-shaped museum building.

Renovations to the existing building focused on making the open internal concrete floor slabs better suited to their new function by introducing partitions made from glass and extruded polycarbonate sheets.

The steel frame and ducting were left exposed and painted in a uniform shade of dark grey to emphasise the building’s industrial heritage.

The new addition to the campus, which is called the Eco Edu Center, provides spaces for the public to attend lectures, meeting and workshops.

Its ground floor houses a multipurpose room, a workshop space and storage, with three classrooms situated on the level above.

To keep within the project’s limited budget, the building comprises a basic steel frame infilled with polycarbonate panels.

“The new education building was conceived as a low budget, large green house, which would contain classroom boxes,” said Pereira.

“This lightweight, fast and cheap construction method permitted to add a large space that wouldn’t be functionally fixed to the conventional classrooms and relate to the industrial culture of the city of Gwangmyeong,” he added.

The zigzagging roof profile echoes the angular form of the arts centre and reflects the different widths of the internal spaces. The resulting angular ceilings enhance the spacious feel and allow plenty of natural light to filter into the building.

“For both projects the use of raw construction elements and the blunt simplicity of the steel structure and translucent plastic is not only a way to achieve the building in time and budget, but also related to the idea of a space of cultural production, freedom of education and relations – rather than a place of art consumption and institutional authority,” concluded the architect.

Photography is by Thierry Sauvage.

Project credits:

Architect: Design Chae-Pereira Architects
Architects of record: Ismore Architects, Yudam Architecs
Structural consultant: Elec Mech
Executive director/cultural regeneration project team: Suzy Jin Kang

The post Irregular gables give a jagged roofline to Chae-Pereira’s Gwangmyeong Upcycle Art Center appeared first on Dezeen.

A few months ago, we showed you a Volvo concept where the designers ripped the front passenger seat out and replaced it with a multifunctional cabinet. Li Shufu, the Chinese billionaire who has owned Volvo since 2010, recently reviewed the concept and reportedly “thought about how else the space left by removing a front passenger seat could be used.”

Volvo’s design team had the answer: Dedicated seating for infants that is safer for the child and more ergonomic for the parents. As Tisha Johnson, Chief Designer Interiors at the Volvo Cars Concept and Monitoring Centre explains,

We started by asking ourselves if we could make life easier for parents and safer for their children when it comes to the child seat experience. We focused on three key benefits – making it easier to get the child into and out of the child seat from an ergonomic and comfort perspective, providing the child with a safe rearward facing seating position that enables it to keep eye-contact with either the driver or the rear passenger and of course including enough storage for those vital child accessories, such as diapers, bottles, wipes, and so on.

The result is the Volvo Excellence Child Seat Concept, which makes it much easier for parents to place the child into the seat, yet still manages to hew to Volvo’s infant safety doctrine that “small children should travel rearward facing as long as possible (at least up to the age of 3 or 4). This is primarily due to the lack of muscular strength in the necks of small children and the disproportionate head size and weight.”

This is presumably something that would be installed at the dealer, and replaced with a conventional seat once the child had outgrown infancy. But like the prior seat-replacement concept, there’s no word on whether this will actually be rolled out.

A plethora of intriguing information has been put together by online ticket seller Rukkus.com ahead of this weekend’s Grateful Dead performances at Soldier Field. Everything from how the band stacks up in radio play vs. record sales, to the fluctuating prices of show tickets.

They’ve also graphed which decades were most prevalent during the band’s pair of warm-up shows in Santa Clara. On the first night, per the illustration at right, the group’s 1960s catalog accounted for three-quarters of the night’s offerings. On night two, the ’60s were channeled on stage just 13.3% of the time.

And what about the very last song to be played Sunday night at Soldier Field? From Eric Brown’s blog post:

“Not Fade Away” was a beloved Dead encore for years, but since it’s a cover and not an original, it’s unlikely the final show will end with it. The last Soldier Field show [in 1995] ended with “Box of Rain,” but they might want something more special this time around. Our vote? “Brokedown Palace.” Not only is it the encore from the final Santa Clara show, it contains the lyric, “Fare thee well, fare thee well. I love you more than words can tell.” It’s the perfect final note for the Grateful Dead.

Ahead of the band’s big weekend, there are all sorts of other colorful news items. LiveforLiveMusic has a copy of the flyer being distributed to Soldier Field security personnel in case they encounter concertgoers high on LSD, while the Austin Chronicle has an oral history of the band’s local imprint.

And it’s not just in Chicago or on Periscope and Meerkat that people will be bidding fare thee well to the band Sunday night. All sorts of places across the country are simulcasting the show, including a drive-in in Menton, Ma.