Hasta La Ideas

Thanks to the male-centric history of the industry, advances in design centering on women’s needs sadly feel like an ultra-contemporary phenomenon. Innovations in women’s health and wellness have also largely lived in the shadows; as a result, the idea of discussing women’s needs for many years was seen as embarrassing or taboo. The MoMA Design Store hopes to challenge these stigmas with the launch of Design Innovations for Women, a series of objects for sale that represent the best designs on the market for women.

The selection of products focus on designs catering to topics typically uncovered in everyday dialogue—as described in their press release, the offering is meant to “eliminate stigma around the female body and empower women through direct, open and honest conversation about their unique needs.”

The Osé Vibrator is known for the controversy it stirred at the Consumer Electronics Show in 2019 when it was awarded with an innovation award only to be stripped of the honor a day later.

The Period Game is an interactive board game that makes learning about periods approachable.

Objects featured in Design Innovations for Women fall into three separate categories—sexuality, activity and reproduction. Topics explored within these categories, for one, include sex positivity, as demonstrated by products like Lora DiCarlo’s Osé Vibrator (the design that paved the way for sex toy companies to present their wares at CES). Products such as the Capster fitness hijab and Nike’s M Sportswear collection for expectant mothers address problems like representation in athletic apparel.

The Capster fitness hijab

Another selection of products tackle the 3 M’s—Menstruation, Motherhood, and Menopause—with examples including the DivaCup, the Elvie Double Breast Pump, and The Period Game, designed at RISD by Daniela Gilsanz and Ryan Murphy.

The DivaCup

As Design Innovations for Women demonstrates, it’s about time more designers include themselves in the mission to center the needs of womxn, a consumer-base making up half of the entire world’s population. “We’ve seen a cultural shift,” said Chay Costello, Associate Director of Merchandising at MoMA. “It’s a movement we’ve been following closely in recent years as female-centric designs have emerged in response to issues that had traditionally been taboo for decades. Yet, topics of sexuality and wellness as related to women’s bodies are still too often avoided and underrepresented in the mainstream so we are seeking to surface and share the best new examples of designs for women.”

Products featured in Design Innovations for Women are available at the MoMA Design Store in Soho and online from August 19 through September 27, 2020.

James Dyson and his wife Deirdre are to open their private art collection to the public in a gallery that WilkinsonEyre‘s founder, Chris Wilkinson, has designed for their UK home.

Named the Dodington Art Gallery, Wilkinson’s design will be built among trees in the listed walled garden at the Dyson’s secluded Dodington Park estate in Gloucestershire, England.

The gallery will be a discreet addition to the grounds, taking the form of a “low key pavilion”, and contain the family’s collection of modern art that includes works by the likes of Pablo Picasso, David Hockney and Andy Warhol.

“The Dodington Art Gallery has been carefully designed to create a discreet piece of architecture that fits comfortably into its particular context,” explained Wilkinson.

“It is constructed with quality materials that relate to the historic brick walls of the garden and it sits low within the site amongst the trees.”

Dodington Art Gallery, which has now been submitted for planning, will be positioned adjacent to the Dyson founder’s existing sculpture garden that visitors will also be able to explore.

It is set to become the first major modern art gallery in the area and will be free for the public to access on a limited number of days each year.

Wilkinson’s design for the gallery is composed of a series of walls in an angular arrangement, unified by a band of clerestory glazing and a thin overhanging roof.

These walls will be clad with patinated bronze panels, chosen for a contemporary aesthetic that also echoes the ancient red bricks of the historic walled garden.

Steel columns concealed by the walls will support the roof, which will project three metres from the edge of the building. According to Wilkinson, this is designed to partially overhang the existing garden wall and help to exaggerate the “horizontal nature of the building”.

The roof will be complete with a carpet of sedum plants, while its diagrid structure will be exposed internally.

Visitors will enter Dodington Art Gallery from the northeast corner of the building, where a glazed pivot door will puncture the garden wall.

Here, they will be greeted by a lobby that provides access to the exhibition spaces where the art will be displayed along the wall.

The lobby will also contain a staircase, passenger lift and goods lift to provide access to a hidden basement gallery. The basement will mirror the plan of the ground floor but also contain bathrooms, a reception and a cloakroom in place of an existing plant room.

All required energy for the gallery is expected to be provided by a ground source heat pump.

The Dyson family is reported to have a deep-rooted appreciation for modern art, with Dyson once aspiring to become an artist himself. His wife, Dierdre, is an established painter and carpet designer.

Among the works in their collection that will be exhibited is a print from Warhol’s Toy Series, Crying Girl by Roy Lichtenstein, Hockney’s Domestic Interior Scene, Broadchalke, Wiltshire and pieces by Picasso, Yves Klein, Victor Vasarely and Allen Jones.

Architect Wilkinson co-founded architecture studio WilkinsonEyre with Jim Eyre in 1987, with offices in London and Hong Kong.

The gallery is the latest project in the studio’s twenty-year relationship with Dyson and follows the construction modular student halls and a mirrored laboratory at its Malmesbury campus.

The post Dyson family to make art collection public in home gallery by Chris Wilkinson appeared first on Dezeen.

The act of looking at a watch is always driven either by curiosity or by being in a rush. You only look at the time when you’re bored, or concerned about running late, so a watch that’s inundated with features and widgets and subdials could theoretically be useful, but seems counterintuitive. The art of looking at a watch is intentional and filled with anticipation, so it makes sense that the brand built its minimalist watches on the very ethos that a watch should be able to calm you down. Designed with a minimalist attitude that’s just crafted to bring out the zen in you, the Artisan series from Maven Watches combine aspects of minimalism, modern architecture, and color theory to look pure yet engaging enough for your eyes to stay affixed on them. There’s something complicated about the watch’s outward simplicity. It isn’t as straightforward as you’d think, as founder and designer Nathan Lo put a lot of effort into creating this unique aesthetic, inspired by the coexistence of modern architecture and dynamic natural landscape.

Maven was founded in 2017, and launched their line of watches with an Indiegogo campaign that saw its fair share of success, helping kickstart the brand. Three years and four series of watches later, Maven’s aesthetic is sort of set in stone (take that as a pun, if you will). The watches draw their inspiration from concrete, bricks, grass, rocks, and the simplicity of modern architecture and untouched landscapes. The Artisan series, a personal favorite, comes in a variety of color variants and band styles, including natural hues like olive and tan, as well as more monochrome palettes like the wispy light-colored Smoke Green, or the all-black Shadow. The watch face is minimal yet informative, with two concentric rings of numbering, the inner ring with the hours and the outer with the minutes (so both watch hands point at their corresponding number). The simple forms and minimal detailing make the Artisan series equally appealing on both male and female wrists, and Maven does offer each watch in three sizes (28mm, 34mm, and 40mm). Each watch in the Artisan series comes crafted from 316L Stainless Steel with a scratch-resistant Sapphire Crystal glass covering the front. The insides of the watch are fitted with a Swiss quartz movement and consumers have the option of choosing between pure Italian leather straps, or Milanese mesh straps. “Our timepieces feature only high-end components and materials to withstand time, and act as delicate accompaniments in your everyday journey,” says Maven’s founder, Nathan Lo… a pretty poetic way of highlighting that the minimalist watches, just like architecture and nature, have their own way of withstanding time. Besides, they evoke a sense of grandeur and tranquility too, with their absolute visual simplicity and sensibility.

Designer: Nathan Lo

Click Here to Buy Now: $151 $168 (10% off). Use exclusive coupon code for an additional 10% off: Yankodesign.

The Artisan Series

Inspired by the coexistence of modern architecture and dynamic natural landscape, The Artisan holds the essence of nature within its modern construction. With natural color tones, it is easy to mix and match with your wardrobe as your style essential.

In three sizes (40mm, 34mm, and 28mm).

The Geometric Series

Inspired by the geometry of nature and architectural designs, the minimalist watch design is formed by geometric lines which echo the rhythm of nature and landscape. Three different shades of cool and warm grey mirror the pyramidal form of the mountains that rise above us and trace the contours of the terrains. The watch names are words that are deeply rooted in the Japanese culture, representing the quintessence of Japanese aesthetics. The emphasis on the simplicity and subtlety of beauty and nature aligns with our minimalistic and understated designs.

Watch Specifications

Maven Watches uses components with the highest quality possible. Every Maven watch features precise Swiss quartz movement, scratch-resistant sapphire crystal glass and genuine Italian leather.

Click Here to Buy Now: $151 $168 (10% off). Use exclusive coupon code for an additional 10% off: Yankodesign.

These days, as businesses order transparent plastic sheets to build anti-COVID barriers, they may find that some suppliers are out of Plexiglas®, but have plexiglass in stock. What’s the difference?

Both products are sheets of acrylic. Plexiglas® is the brand name trademarked in 1933 by Rohm, the company set up by Plexiglas® inventor Otto Rohm. Meanwhile, the term plexiglass is generally used to refer to any sheet of acrylic.

Plexiglas inventor Otto Rohm

Plexiglas inventor Otto Rohm

The difference lies in how they’re manufactured. To make sheets of acrylic, one can use extrusion or cell casting. Extrusion is quick and relatively affordable, making it a widespread go-to.

Cell casting is when liquid monomer is poured between two sheets of glass sealed with a rubber gasket, then heated up to polymerize the pour. This is time-consuming and expensive: The glass has to be thick enough that it doesn’t sag under the weight of its contents, and the surface of the glass must be free of imperfections to give a good finish. Acrylic sheets that are cell cast have cleaner surfaces less prone to scratching, whereas extruded sheets have lower-quality finishes and may show ripples or specks.

Drilling down further, U.S. Plastic Corp. attributes the following to each process:

Cast sheet has the following benefits over extruded sheet:

– less low angle distortion
– low minimum run/order quantities
– thousands of standard and custom colors available
– greater range of available thicknesses (available in thicknesses greater than 1.00″)
– slightly better chemical resistance
– less tendency to melt or chip during machining
– slightly higher service temperature
– more suitable for use involving continuous contact with water
– better capability to handle long-term mechanical loads

Extruded sheet has the following benefits over cast sheet:

– lower cost
– better thickness tolerance
– less dirt,lint or particulate contamination in the sheet
– cements and thermoforms faster

Plexiglas® is only manufactured using cell casting, and thus it’s more expensive. Lowercase-P plexiglass can be either cell cast or extruded, the latter of which will reduce the cost.

So which should you use? If you’re making sneezeguards for checkout counters, save a couple bucks and go with generic plexiglass. If you’re crafting a high-quality model for a presentation that’s going to win business for your firm, reach for the Plexiglas® good stuff.

Vollebak continues to push the limits every time on how innovative, functional, and sustainable their designs can be while I push the limits on why I need more hoodies in my closet. I didn’t choose the hoodie life but Vollebak did and they are making the most of it in their latest hoodie made from compostable plants and pomegranate!

Inspired by our ancestors who made their clothes using grass, tree bark, animal skins, and plants, etc. the Plant and Pomegranate hoodie feels, looks, and lasts as long as a normal hoodie but it is far from normal. Think of it as the Clark Kent of hoodies – it looks ordinary and then when you take a closer look, you realize its superpower which in this case is helping our environment. Vollebak has been a leader in making sustainable apparel that is also super innovative like its solar power jacket, the indestructible hoodie, and the biodegradable algae t-shirt which is the closest product to the Plant and Pomegranate hoodie. “The thing that makes it different is simply the way it starts and ends its life. Each hoodie is made from eucalyptus trees from sustainably managed forests before being submerged in a giant vat of pomegranate dye to give it its color. As it’s made entirely from plants, the hoodie is fully biodegradable and compostable,” explains the team.

Once you feel your hoodie has completed its circle of life (it could be 3 years or 30!) then all you have to do is put it out with the compost or bury it in your garden. Vollebak’s hoodie was given birth from elements grown in nature and ends it’s life there too, you can quote Rafiki in the funeral if you decide to hold one in case you are as extra as me. Don’t hold back tears, they might just water a new pomegranate plant in your garden! Ending fast fashion and adopting a sustainable clothing style might seem like a small step but it is still an important step to reduce waste generation and help our planet. Your closet and the climate will both thank you for making eco-conscious decisions – so, let the hoodie life choose you!

Designer: Vollebak

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