Hasta La Ideas

Of course, with the world of designers looking to integrate voice assistants into everything and anything around us -there are other designers out there trying to make a difference in our daily physical interactions. One of which is Chifen Cheng, who took a very holistic design approach when designing the Knife Reinvented for Maison Milan – a walnut knife with a twist of incorporating Asian culinary tools.

As Chifen Cheng put it, the Knife Reinvented is a salad knife that does more than just cut. Utilizing the hand as a pestle, this salad knife is not only hyper-functional, it’s aesthetically gorgeous due to the material contrast. The use of a wooden blade prevents the oxidation reaction with lettuce, usually caused by a stainless-steel blade, ensuring the lettuce doesn’t start browning straight away. The sizably dominant blade itself makes transporting the ingredients an effortless breeze. Not to mention the fact this knife can stand on its own due to the weight of the pestle, standing elegantly, awaiting its master to put it to good use. An intelligent design, the Knife Reinvented is a pleasingly simple innovation that just screams out to be held.

Designer: Chifen Cheng

Whether or not you believe in the merits of burning sage or palo santo wood for their more mystical attributes, there’s something soothing about both scents—and a ritual-like repetition of use. J Southern Studio has assembled a kit with these and many……

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Following the death of IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad this week, here’s a look at some of the company’s biggest design milestones, from the birth of flat-pack furniture to the launch of augmented-reality shopping.

Kickstarting a flat-pack furniture revolution

According to legend, flat-pack furniture was invented by IKEA designer Gillis Lundgren when he sawed the legs off a product – the Lövet side table – to fit into his car.

After that the company moved its focus towards self-assembly products. By outsourcing the effort to the customer, the company was able to keep the costs of products down.

Changing the way people shop

Once the majority of IKEA furniture was being sold flat-packed, the design of the shops could be completely rethought.

This heralded the birth of warehouse-style stores in out-of-town locations. Shoppers would follow a designated route around a showroom, ensuring they saw the entire collection, then simply collect the items from the warehouse and take them home.

Encouraging Brits to “chuck out the chintz”

IKEA’s 1996 advertising campaign, telling British shoppers to “chuck out their chitnz”, transformed attitudes to design.

According to Naresh Ramchandani, who wrote the slogan, the campaign ushered in a new era of contemporary design to the average British household. “It was proper piece of propaganda,” he said.

Creating desirable and affordable furniture for young city dwellers

The last decade has seen IKEA launch a series of capsule collections, including the ever-popular PS ranges.

Aimed at young city dwellers, the PS collections offer designs that are ideally suited for homes with limited space. They often feature designs by well-known names, from Ilse Crawford to Form Us With Love, and tap into a variety of current trends – ensuring they are snapped up fast.

Offering refugees an alternative to tents

In 2013, IKEA’s charitable foundation announced plans to launch refugee shelters – offering an alternative to the unlockable tents that are more commonly used to house victims of displacement.

Despite some setbacks, including concerns about the product’s vulnerability to fire, the project won the Design of the Year prize in 2017.

Launching a research lab exploring the future of lifestyles and wellbeing

IKEA’s Space 10 innovation lab in Copenhagen is investigating ways of boosting the health and wellbeing of the company’s consumers.

Projects revealed so far include research into what the next 20 years of food design might hold for the meatball and an exploration of the potential of algae as a sustainable super crop of the future.

Offering products made from recycled materials

Demonstrating its commitment to sustainability, IKEA launched a kitchen made from recycled plastic bottles and reclaimed wood in 2017.

It followed this up by creating a range of “no waste” products for its PS 2017 collection.

Moving on from the Allen key to offer furniture that snaps together

IKEA has recently developed a new type of joint, called a wedge dowel, that makes it much quicker and simpler to assemble wooden products. This does away with the need for screws, bolts, screwdrivers and allen keys.

Offering an augmented-reality shopping experience

IKEA added an augmented-reality feature to its catalogue in 2014, allowing customers to see what products would look like in their homes.

Since then, the brand has teamed up with Apple to create an AR-based shopping app, which is expected to play a key role in the launch of new product lines.

Creating products for the smart homes of the future

With the Internet of Things becoming an ever-present part of daily life, IKEA has launched a range of smart lighting products, controlled using a remote or app.

The products form part of the IKEA Home Smart programme, which also includes wireless charging devices, and is set to grow in the future.

The post 10 game-changing ideas and innovations from IKEA appeared first on Dezeen.

A reader who identified herself as elrj sent us this question:

“My husband and I live in a charming one bedroom apartment in a converted historic townhouse. At first, it was a squeeze because the place doesn’t have much storage/closet space at all. But, with some re-arranging and advice from blogs like this, we have massaged our little home into a wonderfully live-able and entertain-able space. Then I bought a bike. Combined with his, they take up the entire hallway, and when you add the golf clubs (previously stored in the trunk of our car) we’ve got quite the sports-themed house. We have no yard/outside to chain them to, and we use them regularly. What do you do with such things in an efficiency?”

Storing sporting equipment in an efficiency can be a headache. When my husband and I first moved in together in our 850 sq. foot one bedroom, our lack of space was almost enough to convince me drop sports all together. I know your pain and understand it.

As far as your bikes are concerned, we’ve already published a couple posts on this topic on the site. The posts themselves have some strong ideas, but be sure to read the comments where many of our readers offer up terrific alternatives: Single hook bike solution and Bike storage solutions.

We’ve never discussed golf clubs on the site, though, so I want to spend the remainder of this post addressing that topic.

The first thing you’ll want to consider when looking to save space is getting new golf bags. My husband and I downsized from our behemoth traditional staff/cart style bags to new feather-weight backpack styles (similar to these: Mine, His) and have never looked back. My empty bag weighs less than four pounds and is about half of the footprint as my old bag. All of my clubs and materials fit easily in the bag, and it has the added bonus of being able to be hung up on a strong, wooden hanger in my closet. (I bungee cord the straps together to make certain they don’t slip off the hanger.)

Another idea is to contact the course where you play most often and see if they have on-site storage lockers. You’ll have to shell out a little money per month, but it gets your bags out of your house and you don’t have to worry about transporting your bag from home to course should you decide to ride your bike. If you don’t play golf more than a few times a year, though, this suggestion won’t be practical for you.

In fact, if you only play golf two or three times a year, I suggest that you get rid of the clubs. Renting a set of clubs for the few times you do play will be less stressful in the long run. With the money you get from selling your clubs, you can pay for three or four rentals. Again, I’m only making this suggestion if you rarely play and are just holding onto the clubs because of a sunk-cost fallacy.

If you do play often, can’t rent space at your course, and don’t have space in your closets to hang your clubs, you may want to consider: A wall-mounted golf bag and shoe organizer (pictured above) or a freestanding wood bag organizer. The wall-mounted system could turn your golf bags into a piece of interesting art, and the standing organizer could at least provide a permanent home for your bags.

I hope one of these ideas is helpful. Good luck!

This post has been updated since its original publication in 2008.

Post written by Erin Doland

This video highlights the difference between the food environment of America and Japan. America’s obesity rate is about 30% (biggest state is 37.7%, smallest 22.3%) whereas Japan’s obesity rate is 3.5%..(Read…)