Hasta La Ideas

This video shows the rulers of European countries, for every year since 400 BC.Music : The Dark Knight Trilogy Ultimate Cut, by matogolf..(Read…)

The Uplift, made to sit on your desk, was designed to occupy little physical space but a lot of attention. Mounted on a magnetically powered axle, this wooden spiral spins continuously in a soothing fashion, in the hopes of pulling your eyes away from screens and displays, and to something that’s more physical and relaxing. The Uplift is the literal embodiment of the phrase “watching this on loop”.

Titled the Uplift, the spiraling wooden structure was made to calm and uplift one’s spirits. Made to move either clockwise or anti-clockwise, the spiral can either rotate upwards or downwards. Designer Tom Lawton says “There isn’t really a wrong or a right way. Steam rises, whirlwinds and smoke flow upwards — molten lava, waterfalls and whirlpools flow down”. Powered by magnets at the base (and with a ‘magnetic wand’ that helps initiate the rotation), the Uplift spins quietly, and for long lengths of time, thanks to its ‘solar engine’- a cleverly designed contact-less rotary drive system that has little to no inertia. The entire sculpture is encased in a glass dome, giving it a personality that feels almost precious and untouched, while making sure external elements like the wind don’t break the Uplift’s hypnotic spinning action!

Designer: Tom Lawton

Has anyone ever thought of the hospital or doctor’s office experience as pleasant, easy and comprehensive? Probably not. Does your doctor’s office or local hospital look anything like this?

Or this?

Or this?

Probably not. 

Let’s face it—medical spaces need a facelift, from furnishings to digital screens to the entire patient experience. This past year, the Cactus team worked closely with Mount Sinai to develop Lab100, a new type of medical environment that focuses on the different ways in which developing technologies can improve how we understand and experience medical attention and healthcare. Through a thorough case study, excerpted below, the team runs through details of their research and design processes: 

“In an era where machine learning, connected devices and AI will make as much of an impact in medical research as clinical trials or lab tests, what does the patient experience look and feel like? And if personal data is fuel for medical progress, how can we encourage thousands of patients to contribute theirs? We were tasked by a group of visionary doctors at New York’s premier hospital to create an experience that was both medically effective and compelling enough to attract patients to participate in bringing this vision of the future to bear.

Over the course of a year, Cactus’ designers and engineers worked in close collaboration with Mount Sinai to design, develop and launch a new type of medical space from the ground up. The space, called Lab100, is a hybrid clinic and research lab leveraging data and technology to redesign the way health is measured and healthcare is delivered. Located at Mount Sinai in Manhattan, Lab100 empowers patients to track their health over time by providing the most comprehensive personal health assessment currently available. As a research center, Lab100 equips scientists with longitudinal multi-scale health data and a testbed environment to develop, validate and deploy new products and services. By closing the feedback loop between discovery science and care delivery, Lab100 creates a virtuous cycle of innovation that radically accelerates the pace at which promising ideas become clinical practice.”

If your doctor’s office looked and felt anything like Lab100, would you be more excited to check up on your health? What about more willing to contribute personal data to be used for medical research?

Read the full case study and take a closer look inside Lab100 here.

Plan a visit to Lab100 here.

Created as part of the current exhibition, Red Bull Arts New York joined forces with director Oscar Boyson and producer Elara Pictures for a wild ride into the world of RAMMELLZEE—an icon, artist, graffiti writer, hip-hop pioneer and so much more……

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Japanese studio Nendo has designed an 18-piece metal furniture collection to mimic the bleeding effect of watercolour paint on paper surfaces.

Comprised of chairs, low tables and high console tables, each piece in the Watercolour collection is designed to look as though it has been cut and folded by hand.

Each furniture piece features various blue, gradiated markings, designed to appear as if they have soaked naturally into the furniture, in the same manner as watercolour permeates paper.

To create the furniture steel frames and surfaces are repeatedly and thoroughly sanded, applied with primer and finished with matte white paint to mimic the appearance of paper.

Painted by hand, the bleeding effect is achieved by gently dabbing a mix of two tones of aqueous inks onto the objects with soft pulp paper.

Through a process of trial and error, each colour bleed was created to specifically suit the object it is painted on, in accordance to its shape and different elements.

“This production process allowed us the opportunity to play with animated colour effects: colour blends where there are meeting points, and stains and colour run down in a waterfall effect on overlapping parts of multi-layered objects,” said Nendo.

The objects are then finished with a protective, clear matte layer that, according to the studio, further accentuates their flat, paper-like appearance.

Some designs see sheets of steel folded in half to create chairs and seats and, while others see multiple-layered tables connected by their legs, which pass through “strategically placed” holes in the metal surfaces – described by Nendo as an “intersection of ellipses.”

Each two millimetre-thick surface is supported by thin, delicate 20 millimetre steel rods in a bid to create an “ethereal and transcendent” effect, and an “airy” appearance.

“This combination of function and a seemingly handcrafted technique has brought about eighteen new shapes that also offer new ways of use,” said Nendo founder Oki Sato.

“A single object has a single function, but by combining the furniture in different variations, we can create new relationships and interesting stories,” he added.

The new furniture series will be presented by Friedman Benda at Design Miami/Basel – which will be held in Switzerland this year from 11 to 17 June – in an installation created by Sato.

Founded in 2007, Friedman Benda presents the work of established and emerging contemporary designers from around the globe. The New York gallery recently showcased 15 new designs by American artist and designer Misha Kahn featuring colourful jewels, shiny metal and sea shells.

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