Mention “orthotics” and most will hobble away quickly to avoid the Grandma-shoe stigma. But NYC-based start-up SOLS is simplifying the process with a non-invasive digital fitting that results in corrective insoles customized to your needs. The……
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The myriad of innovations within BMW’s all-new flagship model—the 7-series—is apparent from the moment someone hands you a display key. Yes, display key. The small device features a color touch screen that can be used to answer those ubiquitous nagging……
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Nothing can keep you from your tunes quite like an annoying headphone tangle! The Self-Folding Wire solves this problem with an innovative spring-loaded system that organizes the wire into layers that won’t intertwine or bunch. Better yet, you can reduce the amount of dangling slack to make things more comfortable during wear by simply folding the extra cord.
Designers: Zhang Qinfu, Nan Fang, Wang Zhanfu, Zhong Hai
It infuriates me that people dirty the beach just expecting the tide to come in and clean the mess up. It’s a really sick way to behave. The Beach Cleaner is just a very handy tool to make the lives of the people who clean these huge coastlines clean.
Simply a dustpan with a perforated surface, it makes for easier cleaning, letting the sand pass throughand leaving the garbage behind. No nonsense, just smart design.
Designers: Cui Weijian, Gao Xiang, Wang Yanwen & Li Yu Wei.
Juarez Rodrigues et Vicky Jacob-Ebbinghaus sont deux publicitaires ayant développé le projet déjanté Eating for Two, un livre de recettes en ligne qui répertorie des plats farfelus cuisinés et dégustés par des femmes enceintes. Si les recettes paraissent indigestes, la composition des mets dans l’assiette est cependant très esthétique et pourrait bien en faire saliver quelques-uns. Les recettes sont à découvrir ici.
Medley of Soaps.
Mashed Potato with Caramel Sauce.
Choc-Olive Cake.
Burnt Matches.
Buttered Watermelon.
Toothpaste Oreo.
Steak with Ice-Cream.
Gherkin Cocktail.
Bacon Mars Bar Burger.
Sausage and Jam.
Coal.
Bean & Cream Dream.
Ice-Cream and Chili Sauce.
Orange Sushi with Tomato Glaze.
Le designer Zelf Koelman a imaginé une horloge digitale un peu particulière. Baptisée Ferrolic, sa création utilise la manipulation d’un liquide magnétique pour afficher l’heure. L’horloge peut également être personnalisée. Les utilisateurs peuvent choisir d’afficher du texte ou des formes via une application.
Raised terraces cantilever out from both sides of this Alpine retreat by architects Christine Arnhard and Markus Eck, allowing occupants to extend their dining room into the garden (+ slideshow).
Named Holzhaus am Auerbach, the house is located in a small village in Upper Bavaria, Germany. Arnhard and Eck built it as their own vacation home, but they also rent it out for holiday lets.
They describe it as “a place for us and our guests to get away from the stress of everyday life, to find a special privacy, to return to real life again, and just to enjoy time, nature, reading and eating.”
The house is two storeys high, but inside the floors are actually divided into five different levels, as well as a basement. This allowed the architects to divide the plan without adding too many partition walls.
The kitchen and dining space occupy one of the ground-floor levels at the rear of the site. Raised terraces extend out from both sides, allowing residents to catch the sun at different times of the day.
Both of these openings are glazed, and these windows zigzag back and forth, allowing the breeze to flow right through the building. The terraces themselves are framed by steel beams.
“As we are both architects, the intention of our work was to show that the quality of a building is designed by its proportions, materials and structures, not only by size,” said Arnhard and Eck.
“The kitchen and dining room can be extended into the garden in summer. Through this vast glass area, one is sitting more or less in nature.”
Aside from these cantilevered platforms, externally the house looks like a traditional Alpine building. It has a pitched roof with overhanging eaves, a tall chimney, and timber-clad walls.
On the sides of the building these walls are stained black, while the two ends reveal the natural grey tones of the wood. There are also an assortment of different size square windows, all with thick black frames.
Internally, adobe clay bricks were used to create the necessary degree of insulation. These were then plastered over and painted dark grey.
A staircase in the centre of the building leads down from the dining area to a lower-ground-floor garage and the basement. The next level up is a dining room, followed by the master bedroom and a loft bathroom.
“The sitting room is heaven for listening to music, watching films, reading, and enjoying the fire and the mountains,” said the architects. “The wood-burning stove radiates its warmth and the aroma of wood fills the whole house.”
“One level up, the bed looks straight out onto the Auerbach and can enjoy the late afternoon sun,” they added. “And the small gallery above the living room is the freestanding bathtub with a view of the heavens.”
Underfloor heating is integrated throughout the house. A mechanical ventilation system is also installed, and there is a charging point for an electric car.
Holzhaus am Auerbach is available for rent through Urlaubs Architektur. Other properties the site offers include an angular structure in the Italian Dolomites by Plasma Studio and a converted 16th-century house in Girona by Anna Noguera.
Photography is by Florian Holzherr.
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COS and Hay have worked with Spanish designer Tomas Alonso to produce a pair of tables, as part of a wider collaboration between the two brands.
Both known for their minimal aesthetic, London-based fashion brand COS and Danish design company Hay have teamed up to present a range of products next month.
As part of the collaboration, they enlisted Alonso to design two folding wooden tables: a tall, slim version and a shorter, wider model.
Each features a circular top and is supported by three legs, one of which takes the form of a thin coloured pole – available in pale blue-green or white.
The rod slots through horizontal braces that branch from the other two legs, and a hole it the tabletop, to steady and complete each design. When the poles are removed, the tables fold down flat for easy storage and transportation.
The tables are updated versions of designs that Alonso created for Japanese furniture bran Karimoku New Standard in 2012.
COS has used Hay furniture in its stores for many years, including the recently revamped flagship on London’s Regent Street.
“We have always admired what Hay do and share many values,” said Martin Andersson, COS head of menswear design. “Our customers have a keen interest in interior design and we felt it was the right time to offer alternative products that complimented our clothing collections.”
Related story: Till Wiedeck designs multi-level display stands for COS
Andersson and head of womenswear design, Karin Gustaffson, have now selected a number of items from Hay’s range to display and sell in COS stores.
The objects will be available from outlets on London’s High Street Kensington, Vienna’s Neubaugasse and in Gothenburg from September 2015, with an edited collection available online.
“Over many years we have been very happy to work with COS on so many different levels and projects,” said Hay co-founders, Mette and Rolf Hay. “At Hay we see ourselves in between fashion and architecture and in working with COS we feel like we have found a perfect home.”
Related content: see more stories about COS
COS has long aimed to align itself with the architecture and design worlds. In an interview with Dezeen, managing director Marie Honda said that both fields have been “a key influence” for the brand.
Previously, COS has worked with Snarkitecture to create a warren of textile ribbons at Milan design week 2015, and brought in Nendo to create an installation celebrating its white shirt in the same space the year before.
It is also the sponsor for the annual talks programme at London’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion – a major architecture commission – and has launched limited-edition bags and shoes to coincide with past events.
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La photographe italienne Federica Dall’Orso, basée à New York, a constitué une magnifique série de portraits de danseuses au coeur de New York, appelée Street Stage. A travers cette collection de clichés, elle dresse un nouveau visage de la Grosse Pomme, en créant un contraste unique entre l’urbanité de la ville et la poésie et la beauté des danseuses et de leur art.
British inventor Dominic Wilcox has designed a series of playfully absurd breakfast accessories for Kellogg’s to encourage children to eat in the mornings (+ movie).
Wilcox‘s Re-imagining Breakfast inventions for American food manufacturer Kellogg’s include a tummy-rumble amplifier and a breakfast-serving drone.
The set of seven items also features a soggy-o-meter, an energy-detecting spoon, a wireless talking pillow, a head-mounted crane that serves cereal, and a Snap, Crackle and Pop speaker.
Intended to catch out anyone that has skipped breakfast, the Hungry Tummy Rumbler has a built-in microphone that attaches to children’s waists and connects to a giant amplifying orange brass horn.
“My first sketch was just a little person with some huge horns attached,” Wilcox told Dezeen. “With my drawings I’m trying to explain the idea in the simplest and most direct way possible. I tried to make these objects so that you could understand them visually before you even use them.”
The oversized nature of the design is similar to Wilcox’s giant pair of audio binoculars that let users “listen” to places around Newcastle.
“I’m a fan of doing horned objects,” he added. “What I like about them is they communicate sound visually. If it was an inbuilt speaker in a minimalist design it wouldn’t visually communicate, and your brain would have to think about what it is.”
The Soggy-O-Meter bowl – which Wilcox designed to look like “a fairground attraction” – keeps track of the breakfast eater’s cereal, with a light-up dial and alarm to warn when it’s reached peak saturation.
Although the bowl has a lot of functions, Wilcox purposefully disguised the technology behind it. “I like technology which is hidden and adds a bit of magic,” the inventor said. “Technology on its own is really boring, but it’s what you do with it to enable a bit of surprise. I like hiding it away behind the scenes.”
“You don’t need to be minimal and sophisticated like we adults love to pretend to be, so it was about making vibrant coloured objects for a start. In terms of the design a lot of it is about function, and the forms following the function.”
For less energetic breakfasters, the Breakfast Is Served pillow allows families to communicate wirelessly from room to room using a built-in speaker.
Cereal can be transported from box to bowl with the Crane Head Cereal Serving Device, which incorporates a hydraulic milk dispenser and is worn on the head of the wearer controlling it.
Breakfast can also be served by the Robowl – a quadrocopter drone controlled by a watch, which can deliver breakfast and also help pack school bags with its robotic hand extension.
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The Get Enough spoon uses a light-up indicator to show the amount of cereal that’s been eaten. A pair of eyes at the top of the spoon open and close, depending on how much “energy” the spoon has gained.
The utensil is a rare example of Wilcox’s use of 3D-printing, a process that he’s expressed his concerns about in the past. In 2012 he battled a 3D printer in a competition to build the fastest and most accurate model of the Duomo cathedral in Milan.
“I’ve resisted, or not found a need, for 3D printing much at all, in everything I’ve done, but that was an example of something I decided needed to be 3D-printed, because that was so precise and everything needed to fit perfectly,” he said.
The purposefully absurd yet useful nature of the objects is typical of Wilcox, who in the past has designed a nose-mounted phone stylus, a driverless stained-glass car, and a reverse-listening device.
“In every piece of work I’m trying to communicate ideas in the clearest way possible, so there’s nothing really on the objects that’s not functional,” he said. “There’s not a great deal of decoration, they’re very clear objects.”
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