Minimalism vs. just in case

One rainy Friday before a long weekend, we laundered our bed sheets. After washing them, we discovered our dryer was broken. It did not heat. We were not prepared to pay for appliance servicing during a long weekend so we hung our wet sheets in the basement with a fan blowing on them. They were still not dry by nightfall. Fortunately, I had a second set of sheets stored in the linen closet.

As much as I strive to be a minimalist, I was glad I had the extra set of sheets “just in case.” Some minimalists argue that you need only one set of sheets per bed — you simply wash the set and put it back on the bed immediately. If I had followed that suggestion, we would have been sleeping in wet sheets!

Storing and maintaining an extra set of sheets took almost no effort and it saved us having to run out to a laundromat on a Friday evening. Mr. Justin Case saved us!

Balancing minimalism with “just in case” isn’t always easy. You have to calculate the probability that you will actually urgently need the item with the expense of owning (storage and maintenance) the item. You might also want to factor in the original purchase price and the cost and hassle of renting or replacing the item.

There are plenty of things I have been thankful I have kept “just in case” including spare batteries for the smoke detectors, light bulbs, an extra set of headphones, and an extra dog leash and collar.

On the other hand, we don’t own a table saw “just in case.” For our family, a table saw is used in a planned project and can be easily borrowed or rented. However, my friends who live on a horse farm own a table saw just in case they need to repair a stall a horse has kicked through — which happens more frequently than one would think.

How are you balancing minimalism with just in case? What items can you honestly let go of?

Post written by Jacki Hollywood Brown

How to Make a Simple Kayak

How to Make a Simple Kayak..(Read…)

Designing the Perfect Airport Runway

Designing the Perfect Airport Runway..(Read…)

Drone Delivery of the Future

gamaru_smart_cargo_01

Gamaru is a smart cargo solution that aims to take the middleman out of the equation. Drones get your package from the warehouse, you get your package from the drones. It’s that simple!

The system relies on tracking containers in the shape of barrels that house and protect packages of varying size as they make their way from the warehouse to consumer. The barrels are loaded on wheeled robotic platforms that can move autonomously throughout cities and neighborhoods. Users can track the location of their packages and visit a robot-drone to access it using their smartphone (as you would with Amazon locker) or wait for it to be delivered to their home. For security and to help with navigation, a flying drone accompanies and monitors each rover. Now, if only you could get it to toss packages over the fence too!

Designer: Edgar Andrés Sarmiento García

gamaru_smart_cargo_02

gamaru_smart_cargo_03

gamaru_smart_cargo_04

gamaru_smart_cargo_05

gamaru_smart_cargo_06

gamaru_smart_cargo_07

gamaru_smart_cargo_08

gamaru_smart_cargo_09

gamaru_smart_cargo_10

gamaru_smart_cargo_11

Rustic Cooking Gets a Modern Redesign!

The cast iron skillet is probably one of cooking’s most essential tools. It imparts a certain flavor to the food, often enriching it with iron too (which is incredibly good for you), and the metal itself has certain properties that helps cook foods like steaks and pizzas faster and better. The cast iron skillet has been around for centuries, and frankly put, looks centuries old too.

Since most cooks focus on its cooking benefits, the skillet hasn’t really seen a redesign. Its shape has become almost an icon, and Strand Design is here to modernize it, making a cast iron skillet that’s fit for the 21st century. Titled Ironwood, the skillet gets a sleek makeover, and even comes with a wooden spatula that fits perfectly on the top of its handle, as well as a wooden trivet, allowing you to place the hot skillet on tables.

Ironwood takes the age-old skillet design and introduces modern details. Made from thinner walls, the Ironwood looks less clunky and more contemporary, with a lighter + sleeker build. The cooking surface is machine-finished and comes pre-seasoned with a polymerized cottonseed oil coating, giving it a natural, non-stick surface. A longer, sleeker handle gives you a better grip, allowing you to hold the skillet farther from the heat—or with two hands if you prefer—thanks to its curved, easy-to-grip design. Ironwood’s accessories come crafted from solid, unfinished beech wood that works well under high temperatures and even develops a patina over time, giving your cookware a personalized touch.

Crafted from a high-carbon alloy, the Ironwood skillet heats up uniformly and faster too, allowing for a much more efficient cooking experience. Adding a modern touch, not just with design but also with material, to the century-old skillet, Ironwood wants to further the healthy tradition of cooking on iron surfaces… but believes that age-old traditions don’t need to look age-old!

Designer: Ted Burdett of Strand Design

Click here to Buy Now: $60.00 $110.00 (45% off). Hurry, less than 5 days left!

ironwood_cookware_layout

The Ironwood Skillet by Strand Design is a modern, high-performance, cast iron cookware. It is thinner and lighter than most, machined smooth, pre-seasoned, and features a longer handle for a two-handed grip.

ironwood_cookware_01

Ironwood Skillet was designed with the home chef in mind. Strand Design knows that you love to entertain and that you want every meal that you create for your friends and family to look as delicious as it tastes. That is why Ironwood cookware is designed to transfer seamlessly from the stove to table.

ironwood_cookware_00

Each skillet comes with its own solid wood trivet and serving spoon, making it the perfect centerpiece. The trivet and skillet nest with one another for stability and heat protection, and the wooden serving spoon nestles into the form of the skillet handle.

ironwood_cookware_02

While ironware can be expected to last for centuries, there is no reason that it should be constrained to a centuries-old aesthetic. The Ironwood mission is to create beautiful cookware for the modern home that is designed for both performance, and presentation.

ironwood_cookware_03

The goal is to help home chefs make beautiful food at home. Strand Design believe that cookware can be serveware, and that the ability to bring a meal directly from the kitchen to the table helps everyone enjoy the process of a home-cooked meal a little bit more.

ironwood_cookware_04

Smooth, light, comfortable. Making thin iron castings is not easy. Strand Design went on a global sourcing mission to find a manufacturing partner with the equipment and expertise to produce the smooth, thin castings they were after. Ironwood is produced on high-precision, automated machinery in a foundry that is dedicated to making only cookware.

Seasoning (the polymerized cooking-oil coating that makes cast iron non-stick) works better when applied to flat, semi-smooth surfaces. They machine the cooking surface of Ironwood pans to create a flat area with enough texture to bond with our cottonseed oil seasoning.

ironwood_cookware_06

Their wooden accessories are made from solid unfinished beech wood and will develop a beautiful patina over time. The skillet’s heat ring fits into a grove on the top of the trivet for stability and the spoon nestles into the base of the handle.

ironwood_cookware_05

Most cast iron pans have very short handles. Strand Design decided to buck tradition and make our handle a bit longer to facilitate a two-handed grip. This makes handling the pan far easier, especially for chefs with petite hands.

Click here to Buy Now: $60.00 $110.00 (45% off). Hurry, less than 5 days left!

Inside the Most Beautiful Libraries in the World

Massimo Listri, évoqué précédemment dans l’un de nos articles, parcourt le globe à la recherche des plus beaux intérieurs. Qu’il s’agisse de musées, palaces, intérieurs en construction ou encore librairies, le photographe a le talent de dénicher les merveilles architecturales les plus impressionnantes du monde.

Véritables temples de la connaissance, ces bibliothèques ont toutes un point commun : Celui d’émerveiller quiconque y pénètre, de par leur architecture complexe. Tous les styles ou presque y sont représentés : Du classique au Rococo, en passant par le Baroque. Les photographies de Massimo Litri ont d’ailleurs été compilées dans un recueil publié par Taschen, offrant au lecteur un voyage historique au pays du savoir.












Amazing Wood Benches by Matthias Pliessnig

Matthias Pliesnig est un talentueux ébéniste et designer de meubles basé à Brooklyn. Il s’intéresse au départ au travail du bois dans le domaine de la construction navale, puis décide d’appliquer ces techniques pour créer du mobilier, assisté par un logiciel de modélisation 3D.

Il conçoit notamment « Amada », l’un de ses bancs, pour un client lui ayant demandé un grand banc « coulant » au travers de la pièce. Il le réalise grâce à une technique où une bande de bois est placée dans la vapeur, devenant ainsi malléable pendant trente secondes, avant de retrouver sa dureté initiale sous huit heures. Entre art, artisanat et design, l’artiste crée ainsi des pièces uniques aux formes incroyables, alliant à la fois techniques anciennes et formes contemporaines.








 

Design Job: Work & Co Is Seeking a Designer to Create Great Digital Projects for Big Name Clients

Work & Co (work.co) defines and launches the world’s most successful digital products and services. In just five years, we’ve become the go-to partner for Apple, Target, Marriott, Lyft, Etsy, American Express, LVMH, Planned Parenthood and more. As Fast Company noted, our engineering and design teams are “routinely entrusted with

View the full design job here

Reebok Announces Sneakers with a Corn-Based Sole

This morning, the Reebok Future team launched the NPC UK Cotton sneakers, the first product from their “Cotton + Corn” sustainable products initiative, which was announced last year. The Cotton + Corn program aims to produce footwear with “things that grow”instead of materials like petroleum and synthetic rubber. The NPC UK Cotton sneakers feature an upper made of 100% cotton, a corn-based sole, insoles that are derived from castor bean oil and 100% recycled packaging.

“Most athletic footwear is made using petroleum to create synthetic rubber and foam cushioning systems. With 20 billion pairs of shoes made every year, this is not a sustainable way of making footwear. At Reebok, we thought ‘what if we start with materials that grow, and use plants rather than oil-based materials?’ By using sustainable resources as our foundation, and then through ongoing testing and development, we were able to create a plant-based sneaker that performs and feels like any other shoe.

The NPC UK Cotton + Corn is the only footwear product on the market that has been certified as containing 75% USDA certified biobased content, and this is just the start for us. We are on an ongoing path to create a different type of footwear–so that you can feel good about what you’re wearing and where it came from.” —Bill McInnis, Head of Reebok Future

Compared to the preliminary images of the shoe Reebok released last year, it’s nice to see the design team chose to focus more on the natural textures of cotton and corn, especially with the woven cotton upper.

To develop the NPC UK Cotton + Corn soles, Reebok partnered with DuPont Tate & Lyle Bio Products who have developed Susterra® propanediol, a petroleum-free, non-toxic product that contains 100% USDA certified bio-based content, derived from field corn.

The NPC UK Cotton + Corn are retailing for $95 here: Reebok.com/CottonandCorn

Automated machine by Riccardo Blumer Atelier builds a wall out of soap bubbles

Riccardo Blumer Atelier worked with a team of students to create this machine on show at the Venice Architecture Biennale, which is programmed to build and repair an 11-metre-long bubble wall.

The robotic installation, called Wall, is designed to highlight the limitations of physical boundaries. It is programmed to fulfil one goal: maintain a complete wall-like structure made up of eleven bubble-like segments for as long as possible.

It achieves this by lifting rods dipped in a solution of soap and water up from from the ground, creating a series of transparent bubble-like surfaces that measure one metre wide and two metres high.

These walls are held in place by the rods as they reach their finishing position and barely visible as light is reflected off them.

The project is on show in the Arsenale, one of the two main venues curated by the Venice Architecture Biennale directors for 2018, Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara of Grafton Architects.

It was designed by Academy of Architecture in Mendrisio students Lorela Arapi, Stefano Clerici and Andrea Cappellaro, and produced in collaboration with Riccardo Blumer, the school’s directors.

“It is a work designed by the students and the idea was to work with the limits of the architecture but also with automation,” Blumer told Dezeen.

Unlike some work at the exhibition, Wall was not created specifically for the biennale – Farrell and McNamara saw it on show at the school and asked for it to be recreated in Venice, in line with their theme Free Space.

“The project was part of an exhibition called Seven Automatic Architecture, so there were seven of these machines,” said Blumer.

“Grafton wanted just this machine for the biennale. I think for them it represents the story of Free Space.”

Despite the squeegee-like blades all beginning in sync with each other, they almost immediately become disjointed, granting each of the fragile surfaces a varying lifespan before they pop and the process starts again.

Viewers are also invited to step in close to intervene with the walls, with many opting to poke through and destroy the sheets or blow large air bubbles, affecting their form.

The designers see these interactions as an exploration of the notion of a wall as a boundary, and proof of its fragility as an element of architecture.

“These students have chosen to work on a minimised, almost non-existent version of a wall, whose presence is given only by light and time,” said Blumer.

“It is a presence that is limited because then the wall explodes and the machine tries to redo it.”

Despite any political interpretations that might be made of the concept, the 59-year-old architect is keen to stress that the project was borne from a desire to teach students about the importance of play within their architectural education.

“We are at school, we play. Games help to educate,” he said. “A game is fun but can also be very difficult to make!”

Visitors to this year’s Venice Biennale can also view another project from the Seven Automatic Architecture exhibition, which merges artificial intelligence with dynamic architecture.

Space, by Greek student Georgios Voutsis, is a grid of 81 wooden towers that constantly adjust their height in response to a geometric algorithm, creating an ever-shifting landscape.

Both projects were brought the exhibition with the support of The Martin Architecture and Design Workshop. They will be on show until the biennale ends, on 25 November 2018.

The post Automated machine by Riccardo Blumer Atelier builds a wall out of soap bubbles appeared first on Dezeen.