Marble Homes is marble run game designed to teach kids about how rolling marbles can interact with basic shapes.

Kids can choose which house they want the marble to go home to, and then create a path out of basic shapes to get the marble home. Kids learn about how each shape can uniquely manipulate the path of a marble.

The different house designs expose kids early to the diverse range of homes and environments where people live.

Marble Homes is made from laser cut basswood held together with wood glue.

View the full project here

If you were to imagine the construction site of the future, your vision would likely be filled with robots operating other robots, with almost no humans in sight. However, what if designers instead imagined a construction site where robots and high-tech interconnected tool systems worked together support the efforts of humans, rather than take over their tasks entirely? Western Washington University (in partnership with Anvil Studios and Milwaukee Tool) recently took ten weeks to develop a proposal for a construction site tool ecosystem along these lines. The design of this ecosystem enhances job site communication and facilitates time and cost efficiency.

The goal for this project was to develop a connected tool system to improve key aspects of the commercial construction processes. In order to accomplish this mission, thirteen students began working as individuals and later as teams to explore how interconnected tool systems can generate value.

Tools that interact with each other can benefit both the workers who operate them and the managers who keep track of them within the jobsite. Connected security, mobility and communication tools can improve safety, communication and efficiency on commercial construction sites.

To begin exploring the future of interconnected construction tools, the design teams had to first understand end user needs and the goals of organizational stakeholders.

In the commercial construction industry, laborers, inspectors and managers work together to ensure safe, steady progress. This can only be achieved through the effective implementation of comprehensive security protocols, transportation infrastructures and communication systems. 

The designers conducted research in the field and identified key pressure points in commercial construction settings. These insights led to informed design solutions meant to enhance the commercial construction process for laborers and management alike.
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From security to movement to visualization, each tool system works to uphold the other while occupying an individual niche within the construction process.

Many job sites remain bright throughout the night. The security team proposed that the integration of a more seamless security lighting system within sites would provide enhanced surveillance opportunities to management. This lighting system works on the perimeter of the site as well as the interior, acting as an egress point for workers in the event of an onsite emergency. To compliment this, laborers can press and hold a hazard tag mounted under the brim of their hardhats to notify management of potential emergencies and, if necessary, request medical help. By providing constant contact between managers and workers, the jobsite can become safer. This hazard tag also provides management with GPS tracking capabilities. Allowing managers to know where their employees are can facilitate improvements to emergency response protocols and just-in-time material deliveries.

In the construction site of the future, workers will be able to catalyze productivity through the use of drone technology, so the movement team worked to realize this vision. Drones can surpass the capabilities of humans in efficient tool delivery, jobsite surveillance, and material tracking. With increasing global interest in autonomous tools, the technology has evolved to streamline processes and enhance connectivity in hazardous environments. The design team developed a construction drone to deliver tools and materials between workers. In addition, the drones can transport other connected Milwaukee tools across the construction site. The device also catalogs progress on the jobsite and relays information to upper management teams. At night, the drone responds to any relevant security alerts produced by the perimeter lighting device.

To ensure close communication between construction project stakeholders, the visualization team conceptualized a jobsite collaboration station intended to streamline interactions between workers and managers. The station provides separate modes for both workers and management, ensuring that only the most pertinent information is available for access by a given worker. Laborers have access to task lists and schedules. They can send and receive messages with management and other workers. For management, the station’s features include GPS personnel tracking, along with the capability to interface with security and movement services. Additionally, the system provides management teams with updated progress reports and daily worker feedback. 

Commercial construction work is time intensive and costly. Ultimately, the job is stressful for both day laborers and the managers who organize their work. Providing intuitive user experiences while tools are in operation is vital to the success of the construction program.The connected tools are intended to operate in a way that does not distract from commercial jobsite hazards, allowing those across the construction hierarchy to execute safe, efficient work. When construction is finished, these tool systems will have coordinated to produce a comprehensive history of the entire project. Managers can then use this timeline to improve future processes.
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The full team (including a 2017 Core77 Design Awards poster in the back!)

The designers worked as three teams to craft a family of Milwaukee tools concerning jobsite security, material movement and data visualization services. With the direction of Anvil Studios and Milwaukee Tool, each team explored concepts that provided services to the whole construction site, rather than for one specific function for a single particular user. In addition, the designers analyzed Milwaukee product lines and adhered to the branding andCMF that Milwaukee has successfully implemented for nearly a century.

Each of these tools becomes a service for the other to extend the capabilities of the entire tool ecosystem. Together, they work to improve safety, communication and efficiency of workers and management on commercial job sites. This system can save money and lead to stronger, safer construction progress from start to finish.

This interview is part of a series featuring the presenters participating in this year’s Core77 Conference, “Now What? Launching & Growing Your Creative Business” , a one-day event aimed to equip attendees with tangible skills and toolkits to help produce and promote their products or services.

Within the first few minutes of talking with self-proclaimed ‘brutally honest’ design consultant Emily Cohen, it becomes clear she means business. Emily’s knack for giving productive, actionable feedback, paired with her natural writing abilities, previous design experience and writing skills has made her an invaluable resource for creative businesses looking to figure out their next steps. Through the launch of her new book, aptly titled Brutally Honest: No Bullshit Strategies To Evolve Your Creative Business, Emily aims to make getting a look inside her brain more accessible to design entrepreneurs everywhere.

Emily will be bringing some of the knowledge from Brutally Honest to the 2018 Core77 Conference, where she’ll be leading a workshop called “Best Practices Any Design Firm Should Know”. Ahead of her workshop, we sat down with Emily to learn more about her career path, from designer to consultant, and to better understand how her clients’ needs have shifted over the years:

You started out working as a designer. Was there any particular moment that made you decide you wanted to become a design business consultant instead?

When I was working as a designer at a pretty well-known design firm right out of college, I realized pretty quickly that there were these amazing people who were much more talented than me. I thought to myself, “Wait, that’s a problem. I don’t think I have the passion that other people have.” I realized I just didn’t have it in me to be a designer, so I had a crisis. It was a really big moment in my life. I went to design school and I loved design, but this wasn’t going to be the career path I wanted. 

So, I asked everybody I knew—my clients, the people that I was working with, my friends and teachers, everybody. “What should I do? What do you think I’m good at?” Everybody consistently said that I’m good at kicking people’s asses. “You’re good at organizing, managing, writing, and you’re a good people person. You should do something like that.” 

I didn’t know what that meant at the time, but soon after, I realized there was the possibility to apply those skills to design and be something like a Studio Manager at a design studio. I’m older than most people (I’m in my fifties), and when I started my career, there really wasn’t anybody doing the business of design within a design studio. There wasn’t a studio manager or project manager at the time. There was just the account manager in the agencies. In design firms, it was pretty much designers and artists just doing what they could. There were very few, if any, people with the title Project Manager. So, I sort of invented that idea. I contacted about seven studios that I admired within a week. Pretty much all of them offered me a job.

It wasn’t because I was amazing and cool, though I like to think I am. It was more because nobody was doing that at the time, and I had the skills as a designer. I took the highest paid salary, because I’m very ambitious, and managed a studio. When I joined, there was about five people, and when I left after seven years there were about 40 people. I basically created the job for them. They initially thought I was going to be a receptionist, but then I created the job, and I became Executive Vice President within two weeks. The reason why I got that title was pretty funny. It’s because the clients weren’t respecting me. There was a lot of sexism back then—a tremendous amount, more than now. So, I just changed my title. I told my boss, “I’m just going to call myself this. You don’t have to give me a raise.” Sometimes you can’t change people’s perceptions until you give them that comfort level.

Did entrepreneurship come naturally to you?

My father was a bookseller in Manhattan. He owned two bookstores on Wall Street. So I came from entrepreneurial parents, and I learned everything about being an entrepreneur from my dad.

My consulting business actually happened very naturally. Pretty quickly, within a few weeks of working as the Executive Vice President at the design firm, the word spread among the AIGA folks that there’s this woman who likes writing proposals. It was mostly through this woman who was the editorial director at Milton Glaser studio. She was really well connected and would recommend me to all these Milton Glaser friends who were big name designers at the time. I ended up having this freelance business, writing proposals and advising about business on the side.

Then my husband’s told me, “You know, you’re working 60 hour weeks, 40 hours at a full-time job and another 20 hours doing consulting. That’s a business—you should do that.” I agreed, so I quit my job and started my consulting business. It grew like crazy. I started off with pretty well-known designers as clients, which gave me some more credibility in the industry. So it just sort of blossomed from there. Now, I have about 30 or 40 clients on retainer. I also have a lot of one-time clients that hire me for business retreats, and most of them turn into retainer clients after that. And I also travel and do a lot of speaking. 

You went to design school, which notoriously doesn’t really teach you that many business or writing skills. So for you, where did all of this knowledge come from?

I’ve always been a great writer, because I grew up with my father teaching me how to talk to people and handle customer service. I instinctively had those skills and had no fear. I’m a risk taker—I have no problem quickly leaping into something new without any experience. So I had writing, I had organizational skills, and I had people skills. That’s really all you need.

Then I just did it, and the more I did it, the more I got better at it. I also learned from all the people I was working with. I was very nosy. When I was a designer—this was before most things were digital—I would dig through the garbage or look at proposals. I’d always try to be in client meetings. I tried to push myself to learn those kinds of things. I learned on the job, essentially. But I had some basic core skills already. I don’t think you could be doing what I do without those writing, organizational and people skills. 

Since you were on the forefront of design consultants, how did you frame your new business to other people so that it was appealing to them?

It was a pretty easy sell to be honest because I think designers naturally understood the position. All I had to say was, “I understand design, I like to talk to clients, I like pricing, and I like negotiating.” Once I told them all those silly things I liked, that they hated, it was a pretty easy sell. Millennials are so smart and so business savvy that they have different needs, but back then, people just wanted to be doing cool design. They didn’t have a lot of business skills, so once I said I could do all of these logistical things for them like teach them how to manage projects, clients and problem solving, it was usually a yes.

I was also working with some big names, and big names did and still do carry weight. It doesn’t mean I’m great, it just means I happen to have Louise Sealy as a client. Then just having that understanding of design was very helpful. The fact that I used to be a designer is what makes me very different than any other consultant. I value design. I can talk about their process with them because I’ve done the work.

What topics do most people come to you for now?

Most of what I do now is big picture planning. I usually do what I call “strategic business planning retreats” where I spend a whole day with my clients. They come to me to help them look at their current state and think about where they want to go and the steps and actions that will take them there. When I first started my business, it was a lot of tactical work—write a proposal, help negotiate pricing. I still do that, but most of what I do now is strategic planning.

What do you think sparked this change in needs from you over the years, and how did you manage to adapt to this shift?

It’s very clear to me: Millennials are smart, and designers have gotten smarter. Now, most designers understand and value design business, and they even have project managers. They have skills now that they didn’t have back then, or they make sure to have staff capable of taking that stuff on. It was a very clear shift almost seven years ago that happened almost overnight. People started saying, “I can write my own proposals now,” or, “I can write contracts, that’s easy.” 

Most of my clients are so much smarter than they used to be. And because of that, they mainly want somebody else, kind of like a virtual partner, to bounce ideas off of, to tell them about best practices based on what other people are doing, and to push them to think about other ways of thinking. Now project managers at small to midsize studios have somebody in that project manager-producer role, but they still need advice on how to better manage their team, how to negotiate with clients, how to troubleshoot with clients and all that. So I still do a tremendous amount of that as well.

Can you talk about how this will tie in with the workshop you’ll be hosting at the 2018 Core77 Conference next month? 

The workshop I’ll be leading is called “Best Practices Any Design Firm Should Know”. I’m not a big inspirational speaker, nor do I personally like inspirational speakers. That’s just not my kind of style. I really like tactical and actionable, so this talk covers topics like: What’s the best way to do pricing? What’s the best way to manage your clients? It lets you get inside my brain in one hour. It’s actually my most popular speaking topic because it’s super rapid fire, but you get so much out of it. It doesn’t go too deep, but you get so much more in an hour than you do with most other talks.

This workshop, in particular, is a good fit for both people who are looking to start their own business and people who already have a business. I tried to make it so that there are nuggets for everybody. There are nuggets for the one-person firm, nuggets for people who have a large team, and there are ones for people just starting out. I try to cover as much as I can in an hour for a range of audiences, even for people that work in-house. 

What you hope people will take away from your workshop?

If you can leave with three crazy new ideas, that will make me happy. That’s what this workshop is designed to to—give you three great ideas out of the 50 that you just heard.

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You want to start a creative business. Now What? Come to our 2018 Core77 Conference to learn more about launching & growing a product line or design studio of your own on October 25th in Brooklyn!

Buy “Now What? Launching & Growing Your Creative Business” Tickets here.

Learn more about Emily’s book, Brutally Honest: No Bullshit Strategies To Evolve Your Creative Business, here.

Renault rethinks how goods and services are delivered in cities with its Ez-Pro concept, which imagines autonomous, electric vehicles that connect up with a fleet of shared, customisable “robo-pods”.

Each delivery service is made up of an autonomous “leader pod” and a convoy of driverless robo-pods, which can either follow each other as a platoon or move independently.

Both vehicles can hold parcels, but the robo-pods can also function as pop-up shops, food counters and other types of retail.

This is made by possible by the modular design of the robo-pods. Each one consists of a standard base, to which different units can be attached.

A human concierge would sit inside the leader pod, to supervise the process.

“Released from today’s constraints of driving, the concierge can focus on value-added tasks, such as supervising the itinerary planning and driverless robo-pods, or ensuring efficient and customised service, such as in-person, premium delivery of groceries or fragile objects,” explained Renault.

The Ez-Pro is intended to cater to both professionals and everyday consumers. Users simply choose the delivery time and location most convenient for them.

They would be able to choose between receiving their parcel from the concierge or by accessing self-service lockers in the driverless robo-pods. Accessible at all times of day, these would be opened by the user via a mobile phone application.

Managed by the same logistics operator, a convoy of pods could leave from the same hub carrying different types of goods and merchandise, already paid for and headed to different destinations. Each pod could make deliveries for a number of stores at a time to maximise productivity and reduce costs.

According to the company, last-mile delivery – from a transportation hub to its final destination –makes up 30 per cent of traffic in cities.

Ez-Pro hopes to contribute to there being fewer vehicles on the road during rush hour and fewer traffic jams caused by poor driving habits or badly parked delivery vehicles. The robo-vehicles could be connected to city infrastructure like traffic lights to ensure a smoother traffic flow.

“Last-mile delivery services are one of the biggest opportunities for disruption in professional delivery services,” said the automaker.

“As e-commerce continues to explode, consumers want immediate delivery, retailers need to manage delivery costs, and cities continue to look for new ways of managing intensified traffic and congestion,” it continued.

Ez-Pro is a development on Renault’s ride-sharing Ez-Go concept, which was unveiled in March this year. Aiming to offer city-dwellers an alternative to public transport, the Ez-Go functions as both a car and an Uber-style ride-sharing service.

Renault is presenting the concept at the International Motor Show for commercial vehicles in Hanover, Germany, this week.

This week also saw IKEA’s innovation lab Space10 explore the potential of autonomous vehicles to take on new uses, with seven concepts that include a mobile cafe and a farm on wheels.

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Irish designer Orla Kiely has ceased trading both online and at her company’s three physical stores in London and Ireland.

A statement on the company’s website, signed by “Orla, Dermott and the team”, states that the company has gone into administration. It thanks shoppers for their ongoing support and for “embracing our brand and designs through the years.”

“Kiely Rowan Plc, the retail and wholesale fashion business of Orla Kiely has ceased trading as of Monday 17 September 2018,” it reads.

It says the decision comes “following various challenges that have faced the company over the past few years, both in the UK and abroad.”

Brand will continue to sell products with partners

Insolvency specialists David Ruben and Partners have been called in to undertake the voluntary liquidation.

According to the statement, the stores in Kildare, Ireland, and on London’s Kings Road and Monmouth Street are closed. However the brand plans to continue to sell homewares and accessories through its partner retailers, which are high-street stores Debenhams and John Lewis.

“Orla Kiely’s Home and Licensing business will not be impacted, and its selection of accessories and homeware will continue to be sold through its distribution partners,” it reads.

Brexit impacted the business

Kiely, known for her 1970s-inspired designs and signature stem and leaves print, began her working life as a fabric and wallpaper designer. She started her company with husband Dermott Rowan in 1995, and they remain the sole directors, according to the last accounts filed.

During the financial year to March 2017, the company had a turnover of more than £8 million, an increase of more than £1 million on the previous year. However gross profit remained static year-on-year due to an increase in the cost of sales.

Pre-tax profits fell from £151,318  in 2016 to £100,954 due to an increase in interest payments in the financial year ending March 2017. Overall the profit for that year was £74,260, down from £109,139 in the previous year’s accounts.

Under principal risks and uncertainties, the accounts submitted mention that the exit from the EU had an effect on confidence and exchange rates, which in turn affected the business.

Other UK high-street businesses have also faced difficulties recently, with House of Fraser and Toys R Us closing their doors this year, and other retailers including New Look reducing the number of their outlets.

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