Whether you have just brought home a new dog or want a safer and more comfortable gear to walk them every morning, this hybrid dog harness with an integrated leash is what can make the difference. As a pet parent, you’d agree, there is nothing more satisfying to see the anticipation and unbridled excitement your furry friend has to step into the outdoors. This pure joy can be momentary if you do not have the comfortable gear and your dog feels tied up and restricted when running through the grass or jaunting through the block.
Outdoor pet equipment company TailHigh has revealed the ‘Hybrid Dog Harness’ combining a harness with a leash in one single contraption that saves the trouble of carrying an additional leash and attaching or detaching it to the harness. This innovative dog accessory, with lightweight and retractable tape-type leash extendable up to 5 feet, is designed by BKID. Interestingly, it is made from breathable, soft EVA foam combined with mesh fabric for a comfortable fit. The harness is equipped with a seat belt like two-way-lock safety stop technology, which if the dog pulls the string during an unexpected action, can automatically stop the line even if the owner misses the handle, letting the dog escapes unhurt.
The hybrid dog harness is available in three – small, medium, and large sizes, so it can be applied from small dogs to large ones up to 77lbs. It comes with a Y-shaped chest pad to keep the dog’s chest from compressing in case of unwanted pulls and nudges and also features light-reflective stitching on the chest logo and leash to ensure more visibility in the dark. Available in Sunset Pink, Moss Green and Himalayan Blue colors, the all-in-one leash and harness costs $68.99.
Commissioned by Dominique and John de Menil, and opened in 1971, Houston’s Rothko Chapel houses 14 paintings by abstract expressionist Mark Rothko. During the chapel’s development, Rothko proposed that the octagonal structure, designed by architect Philip Johnson (and then Howard Barnstone and Eugene Aubry after Johnson quit), feature a skylight. Rothko died before the building was complete and, to protect his work from the Texas sun, the skylight was obstructed. Now, thanks to an ambitious restoration by the Architecture Research Office and lighting experts George Sexton Associates, new light is shed upon the entire space—lifting weight and revealing the depth of the paintings—through a laminated-glass skylight. It draws inspiration from the one within the artist’s former carriage house on NYC’s Upper East Side. The skylight is only one (albeit very important) part of a broader plan for the interfaith social space, which reopens on 24 September with timed tickets. Read more at Architectural Digest.
Image courtesy of the Architecture Research Office
While the moon might not provide so strong a brightness in contrast to the sun, the Moon has a way of reintroducing us to tranquility, the concept behind the new desk lamp – Moon Light. The delicate, folding desk lamp softly illuminates any room it’s in with a dual-tone light reminiscent of the Moon’s glow. The lamp is as functional as it is artful; folded, the lamp might evoke images of the Moon hanging just above a tree. Speaking to the desk lamp’s practicality and artfulness, the lamp effuses each room with the mellow, but illuminating glow we so often seek from the Moon.
Based in Hangzhou, China, Wenjie Zheng conceptualized the lamp by marrying technology with poetry. Upon first glance, the lamp is attractively uncomplicated and, simply, gets the job done. While pragmatism and application matter, Moon Light has so much to offer that exceeds its simplistic appearance. The lamp is essentially made of up three main parts: two long flutes and a toroidal ring. A closer look reveals that the linear flute hinges at the lamp’s ring, its focal point. The linear flute functions as the lamp’s primary source of light and can stretch out to a maximum of 145 degrees from the lamp’s center. The lamp’s design prioritizes optical prism lighting, which means that the glass is cut in such a way that naturally reflects and bends light, which exemplifies Zheng’s dedication to reproducing the feeling and illumination that’s generally associated with moonlight.
Moon Light’s main appeal is the toroidal ring that represents the lunar satellite and centerpiece of the design. The ring light offers auxiliary light, akin to the kind the Moon offers, which is ideal for younger children to use as a night light. Auxiliary and optical prism lighting distinctly enhances this design as its purpose is not to provide bright light, similar to that which comes from the sun, but to instead reproduce the tranquil glow of the Moon whether for yourself and that book you bring to bed or for a younger child who always seems to sleeps a bit better whenever the Moon gets to hang around. Best of all, this night light brings you the tranquility needed to clear your brain and get you that good night’s sleep.
Hyper-local materials and production processes take centre stage in (Un)finished, a showcase of work by 17 design graduates from the Royal College of Art that was created largely during the coronavirus lockdown.
The exhibition, which was presented at the London Design Festival as part of the Brompton Design District, captures the unique constraints placed on the student’s work as a result of the ongoing pandemic and offers thoughts on how design could lead to a more sustainable, connected future.
The Second Life collection was made by Maria Ramon Vasquez
“A lot of these projects are about what you can adapt to do as a designer, that you can do at home and do locally,” Georgia Cottington, a student who helped to organise the event, told Dezeen.
“It’s about ingenuity, resourcefulness and making us think about systems and materials,” added Jane Withers, who curated this year’s reduced, pandemic-friendly Brompton Design District programme.
“None of us has ever experienced anything like this but what I’m interested in is creative responses, so how we can not just carry on but learn from this?”
Rashmi Bidasaria’s Kaarigari textile and Rowan Vyvyan’s Best Stool were exhibited in the (Un)finished showcase
With campuses closed, the international members of the MA Design Products degree were dispersed around the world, with many losing access to their studios and material supplies.
In response, various projects make use of locally foraged materials such as clay and wood as well as waste materials such as glass and plastic bags.
Max Hornaecker made his Domestic Clay cups from clay found in his garden
Max Hornaecker sourced and created a series of earthenware cups entirely within the means available in his family’s back garden in Tuscany. After discovering the clay in the ground, he formed it into simple, modern vessels before firing them in a DIY pit.
“Clay is something we all have, everywhere, but it’s shipped around the world and we’re always using someone else’s clay. It’s like shipping water,” said Withers.
“So this project highlights what’s in front of us and calls out the absurdity of the global clay trade.”
The SE17 Chair by Andrew Scott was created entirely within the London postcode, after which it is named
Another student, Andrew Scott, created the SE17 chair from materials that were entirely found and processed in the London postcode after which the piece is named.
First, he built an analogue lathe on his balcony using only wooden pallets and pieces of a discarded clothes rack, which he then used to turn wood found in a nearby park into the chair’s frame.
The seat is made from plastic bags that were collected from East Street Market and twisted into a colourful piece of rope.
Oliver Hawkes’ As Good As New project uses a broken chair as its base
Similarly, Oliver Hawkes used the base of a chair dumped on the side of the road as the basis for a new seating design, topping it with a backrest laced with camping rope.
The design is deliberately simplistic, in a bid to draw attention to how easily broken furniture could be fixed rather than discarded.
The Second Life tableware collection integrates found ceramic pieces
For her Second Life collection, Maria Ramon Vasquez integrated ceramic shards she scavenged from the banks of the Thames into a complete tableware set, while Lea Randebrock developed a way to turn waste glass fragments, too small to be sorted by colour and industrially recycled, into a water-absorbent material.
Making use of its moisture-retaining properties, the student used the glass to create a ridged tile for growing microgreens such as cress without the need for soil or plastic trays.
Lea Randebrock’s Fusion project hopes to expand the possibilities of recycled glass
“At the moment, the recycling industry is unable to mix different coloured glass but she found a way of combining them together and still being able to make a solid, valuable material,” said Cottington.
“It’s about exploring those constraints that people think exist and showing that there’s actually more that can be done with the material.”
The Spirulina Society project by Anya Muangkote encourages the domestic cultivation of the edible algae
Other students tackled the need for increased self-sufficiency in terms of our food, water and electricity supply, which was poignantly reinforced during lockdown.
Anya Muangkote developed a range of products for the domestic cultivation of Spirulina, a highly nutritious edible algae.
While designers have previously created countertop devices for this purpose, Muangkote encourages a more DIY approach through an open-source system of 3D-printed lids and harvesting funnels, which can fit a range of readily available containers.
The Clay Pantry vessels are 3D printed
Another project from Randebrock that was on display in the showcase was The Clay Pantry, a series of 3D-printed clay vessels that allow fresh fruit and vegetables to be cooled and stored without electricity.
The system harkens back to ancient ways of storing food by filling an outer cavity in the vessel with sand, which is watered daily like a house plant to keep its contents fresh.
Eric Saldanha’s Wearloop cleans clothes without water
Several projects also had a focus on working with the local community, among them Cottington’s The People’s Quilt. The patchwork was created through a co-design process with the residents of two housing estates close to the RCA, in honour of their 11-year fight to stop the buildings’ demolition.
Following a series of pre-pandemic design workshops, each element was embroidered by a different member of the community while stuck at home during lockdown.
The People’s Quilt by Georgia Cottington was co-designed with the local community
“It’s quite messy and slow, building that relationship with the community and this visualises that process,” said the designer.
“Through making the quilt, I was able to build that trust with them to do a more radical project together with [fellow student] Elliot Lunn, in which we’re transforming their unused garages into artists’ studios.”
The (Un)finished showcase also featured a temporary workshop
While one part of the (Un)finished showcases highlighted the different projects, the other was turned into a temporary workshop with a rota of students in residence, in a bid to make the often oblique design process visible for visitors.
“Because of Covid, we kind of felt that our time at the RCA was unfinished and that we’d lost out on the best bit, which is being in a studio and working collaboratively with people,” said Cottington.
“So the idea was that we would also give ourselves a chance to have a design studio, in which each day a different designer builds something that they think is essential to a studio.”
Each day a different designer in residence built a piece they deemed essential for a studio
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say 2020 has been challenging for most people.
As a designer, I entered a post-911 economy, stayed employed during the housing crisis, and am working through whatever 2020 is shaping up to be. It’s fair to say I have seen ridden out some choppy economic waters. For the next several weeks, I’m going to be writing a bit about tips and tactics for working, networking, career path, and driving concepts into production through the lens of unforeseen circumstances. Let’s begin with a topic that is affecting the majority of office employees right now: Work from home. Remote work looks like it won’t be going away any time soon, so how can you make it work for you in the long term?
For Starters
Working From Home (WFH) used to mean you weren’t exactly working but weren’t entirely taking a day off, either. It was generally tolerated as opposed to encouraged. In the early 2000s, WFH was a way to occasionally spare people from shitty commutes, or a way to guilt someone into working half-days if they had an appointment to see a healthcare provider.
We are not ‘WFH’ at the moment. We are living in a time where the very nature of work itself has shifted significantly, out of necessity. If you are reading Core77, it’s a fair assumption that you and most of your co-workers live that special variety of 2020 WFH life today.
As someone who is addicted to multitasking, it’s easy to take a break and lose track of time. Laundry, Dishwasher, Rendering….these are all somewhat automated functions that can run in the background. In terms of our attention span and focus, our Foreground and Background can blur. Before you know it, the sun is setting, and it will be a long night.
With a bit of rigor, you can achieve a balance. I’m not saying getting started on it is easy, but since our time in quarantine is undetermined, it’s worth a shot. I don’t have an equation for success, but rather the ingredients for a better recipe to being productive: it’s about Time and Space Management.
Mind your gaps
If you work from home (as many of us now do), you need to separate work and home. If you had a commute before Covidtimes™, that was your time. Even if you spent it with hundreds of other people on public transportation or in a car or on a bicycle, etc. Reclaim that time instead of scurrying from bed to computer.
Try to take back the time it took to get from Home to Work. You deserve that time, and you became accustomed to it. Your brain needs a break. Starting your day out right is ideal, as it sets up your schedule.
Maintaining a schedule is critical. Research suggests that we, as humans, are highly effective in 90-minute bursts. Set a timer and give it a try. Even better, try to block your schedule out into 30-minute increments with a 15 minute <insert activity here> break. This is when you can grab a coffee, wash a few dishes, whatever…but do not get lost on Dribble or IG. Don’t trade down to a smaller screen, get on your feet (and remember, no one said you had to wear shoes).
TRY: Reclaiming your commute. Taking small breaks. Working for 90-minute bursts.
Think small
We all have our own versions of a ‘To-Do’ List. This list typically includes things ranging from tasks requiring a few minutes to several hours. Do not treat all tasks as equal, as this can lead to unnecessary anxiety.
Break down your more significant tasks into smaller items. This way, you can chip away at things over time. This approach will better reflect progress towards a larger goal. Besides, your ‘To-Do’ List feels (and looks) better when you can check off items on the daily.
Sometimes I don’t know how long it will take to complete something. An approach I take is thinking about the day as a pie chart. I can work proportionally to focus on the right things. Then I use my calendar to keep myself on track.
It can be difficult to remember how much your time is worth during a pandemic. If you find yourself losing track of time (completely normal BTW), you could be losing money even if you aren’t charging by the hour. Don’t be afraid to move a deadline as long as you aren’t bound by a contract. Let your level of quality be your guide.
That old ‘this project will never end’ feeling’ hits all of us from time to time. If you feel like something is taking too long or you are losing perspective set up meetings with former colleagues. You haven’t talked in a while anyway. And you want feedback on your best efforts, don’t you?
TRY: Breaking down large tasks Thinking about your time as a pie-chart Googling ‘Opportunity Cost’ Move deadlines if necessary
Fight the whitespace
Being intimidated by a Blank Page is the worst. Every person who claims to be creative is faced with this. Sometimes I can push through and keep sketching or working at a problem by switching lenses. Other times I’m just fucking stuck.
In the past, I occasionally addressed this issue by grabbing a coffee or a snack from someplace up the street with a coworker. Those options aren’t as easy today. But making the time is still as easy as a calendar invite. In 2020 the invitation is now…also the location.
If you need a break take one. But since your home can provide endless distraction set a timer. I don’t think I am alone in thinking that time and/or inspiration works differently in Quarantine.
Given my experience, inspiration rarely works from 9-5. If you work better on off-hours to develop ideas, you likely had the same approach to ideation pre-2020. Discuss what works best for you with your peers and leadership.
If the ‘night shift’ approach to delivery isn’t feasible, that’s ok too. There are some great tools out there that enable real-time collaboration, so don’t be afraid to try them. Remember that tools are only enablers, so don’t over-rely on them either.
TRY Booking a virtual coffee break with a co-worker or friend. Setting alarms for your short breaks. Communicating your preferred working style to peers. Using collaborative tools.
Work with the machine
For some, working from home results in a lack of serendipity. “Slack doesn’t enable hallway conversations,” they may say, but in fact, it can. It just depends on how you use your communication and collaboration tools.
There are many ways to strike up a conversation, but mind the channels your organization utilizes. Pay attention to how the organization uses its applications and to what ends.
And know when to use what. You wouldn’t use a Calendar App for Email any more than using a Messaging App for scheduling. Long-form communication is likely best over Video unless you like writing a lot. Short-form content is ideal for messaging apps and email. Oh, and don’t be too informal over Email, as it’s an official record.
Adapting to the status quo re: communications is anything but easy, especially when there are better ways of working/available tools. You can use any communication fumbles as an opportunity to lead the way. Remember to give ‘what works for everyone else’ a chance first. Then you can get others on board for iteration by using examples in the name of ‘improving our way of working.’
There are many people out there feeling like they are working in a silo. They could solve this by using software differently–like setting up less formal (or more regular) interactions with peers. And by scheduling meetings to share progress earlier in a process. This is an opportunity to learn from others as well as to be a force for change.
TRY: Identifying what tools are best for what communication needs
Becoming an expert at remote collaboration
Driving iteration of meeting formats and tool usage
Advocating for collaborative work
TL;DR
I would recommend trying to put a few guidelines from each section into effect! And remember, don’t try to act on everything at the same time—being overly disruptive isn’t going to have the desired result.
What questions do you have as a working professional in the times of COVID? This ongoing series is designed to focus on designers’ real questions in the face of rapid change. Let us know what other advice you’d like to hear from industry experts in the comments below.
Found in the mass burial ground known as Saqqara, 27 unopened 2,500-year-old sarcophagi tease the possibility of many more. They were found in shafts as deep as 30 feet below surface level in two plots—13 in one and 14 in the other. Largely preserved and seemingly unopened since buried, they offer in-depth looks at the art used to adorn the dead and the methods of mummification. Saqqara is a hotspot for archaeological excavations, given it was the site of burial grounds for the Egyptian capital Memphis—just 12 miles from the Pyramids of Giza. Researchers have found mummified cats, dogs, buried treasures and troves of ancient objects, and are certain more remains buried. Read more at Vice.
Image courtesy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities
Look at the Morning Machine and tell me that isn’t something you would see Tim Cook unveiling, claiming it makes the “best coffee experience you’ve ever had”. The Morning Machine is a technological step above your Keurig and Nespresso, and a convenience step above having your own Barista in your kitchen. Designed to brew coffee ‘with purpose’, the Morning Machine has the ability to analyze the coffee pod you put in it and configure the exact way to brew it. Different beans come from different places, and require different techniques – the Morning Machine recognizes these nuances and applies bean-specific brewing mechanisms to make sure the coffee tastes exactly how it was intended to be consumed.
The Morning Machine comes with three areas of hardware that give it a superior edge over your standard pod-based coffee machine. This slick, matte-black hunk of beautiful metal comes with the ability to precisely control temperature, pressure, and quantity (weight) of the water required in the brewing process. While the Morning Machine itself comes with thousands of profiles for brewing different styles of coffee, you can create your own profiles too, adjusting the blend through a smartphone app to create your own ‘recipe’. The device works with Nespresso OriginalLine capsules among others, and can even be used with cold-shot capsules, tea-capsules, or even with single-use drip bags. You can either control the machine via its slick, intuitive, Nest thermostat-inspired jog-dial, or even via the app. The machine is even capable of sensing when your cup’s near the outlet or not, immediately cutting the flow once you lift your cup off the machine. The level of sensibility, sensitivity, and sleekness remains unrivaled, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the guys behind the design cited Apple as a reference.
Developed by passionate caffeine-heads Leon and Andre, the Morning Machine comes at a pretty unique time, especially considering how more people are consuming their coffee at home rather than going to the nearby barista, or having to deal with their local café shutting down due to the pandemic and economic aftermath. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that the Morning Machine is a barista replacement, for starters it probably can’t smile at you and ask you how your day’s been (yet), but if you’re the kind of person who just craves that perfect cup of coffee in the morning (without the chit-chat or waiting in line), the Morning Machine is a pretty incredible alternative. Moreover, it’s more than just a slick looking machine… it’s a marketplace too. Partnering with some of the best coffee roasters across UK, EU, Australia, and South East Asia, the Morning Machine brings world-class beans and roasts to your doorstep, your cup, and finally your tastebuds. Yeah Tim Cook, it could easily be “best coffee experience you’ve ever had”.
The Morning Machine is the world’s first coffee capsule machine with barista-approved controls.
By pairing a growing variety of high-quality coffee capsules with customizable recipes, the Morning Machine allows you to explore new flavors and roasts from the comfort of home, while enjoying it just how the roaster intended it.
Key Features
The Morning Machine has a built-in scale that helps provide you with consistent brews. There are also two thermal sensors coupled with a PID (Proportional Integral Derivative) controller, allowing you to set your brew temperature to highlight each coffee’s nuances. Lastly, you can control the brew pressure via the Intermittent Wave Brewing System (patent pending) to enhance your coffee’s mouthfeel and texture.
Weight-based Brewing
There has been a shift in coffee brewing with the use of scales. Compared to simply relying on volumetric measurements (from a flow meter), scales provide you with accuracy, which leads to repeatability and room for experimentation. Instead of simply eyeballing the liquid espresso and crema, a scale provides weight-based brewing, where the output is instantly measured and displayed. This allows you to brew to more consistent-tasting cups of coffee.
Temperature Precision
Another factor that affects the coffee’s flavor is its brew temperature. According to the Specialty Coffee Association’s The Coffee Brewing Handbook by Ted Lingle, various coffee flavor components such as malic acids, citric acids and sucrose, each require different temperatures for a balanced cup. To prove this, they did a blind taste-test with seasoned coffee professional, Adryll Lin, from Mercanta Coffee Hunters.
They took the same coffee and brewed with three varying temperatures on the Morning Machine.
After revealing to Adryll that he was drinking the same coffee brewed in different temperatures, he was pleasantly surprised that his chosen cup, Cup C, was the one brewed with the lowest temperature, as he felt that it was the one that had the most balanced flavors. Hotter coffee does not always equate to better coffee; and while coffee preference remains very subjective, exploring how temperature can affect its flavors is just the tip of the iceberg.
Pressure Profile
Many coffee professionals debate the effect of pressure profiling on the cup. Some say that a slow ramp-up would even out the extraction process, while some prefer to lower the pressure at the end of the brew to mute out some of the bitter and astringent qualities of coffee.
A quick experiment on Total Dissolved Solids.
The third key feature of the Morning Machine is the Intermittent Wave Brewing System, which is used to control pressure. This system affects the coffee’s Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) and allows exploration of how pressure can affect your coffee’s taste.
One of the Morning Machine’s capabilities is the Bloom & Brew, which uses the Intermittent Wave Brewing System. In this process, the coffee is pre-wet, followed by a short pause, and then the brew finishes with a low pressure.
For the full breakdown of the process, coffee capsules were punctured with the lowest pressure setting, then the brewing was paused for 20 seconds. Then, the Morning Machine automatically kicked in to half the brew pressure capacity of the pump (about 10 bars) for the remainder of the brew, as it hit 25 grams of output for the coffee.
The result was a noticeably different and stronger cup of coffee. They tried the Bloom & Brew method across various capsules with different roasts (from light to dark), with consistent results in the increase in TDS—and that’s only the beginning.
The Morning Machine is Purposefully Connected
Create your own custom pressure profiles (via the Morning mobile app).
Going back to the ritual and the home brewer in mind, the Morning Machine is purposefully connected to allow you to get the most of your brewing and tasting experience.
Less mess with the “Cup Detection” feature.
Designed for the Home Brewer
Interactive OLED Dial Interface – Select your favorite recipes via the dial interface and watch the progress of your brew.
Works with Nespresso® OriginalLine Capsules – The Morning Machine works with the most popular single-serve coffee format.
A Compact Design for Your Home – The Morning Machine sports a sleek and compact design with a multitude of coffee brewing features built-in.
Brew Modes
Quick-Brew – Brew coffee recipes on the machine or via the Morning mobile app with one-touch brewing. You can use our pre-set recipes or browse through our partner roasters’ recipes.
Brew Your Coffee, Your Way – Tweak the coffee output, brew temperature and pressure profile to achieve your desired coffee flavor profile.
As a repository of digital models, Thingiverse is a tough incumbent to tackle. But that isn’t stopping 3D software company Physna from trying. Physna is the company behind Thangs, a Thingiverse competitor powered by “a new software that codifies three-dimensional objects in a new way, providing a deeper understanding of their physical properties, their components, and the way they fit together,” the company writes. Notably, their approach enables “Geometric Search,” whereby users can find models geometrically similar (i.e. physical properties, measurements and features) to those that they’ve uploaded.
“[Thangs’] parts recognition algorithms…know how parts fit within assemblies and makes accurate predictions about each object’s function, cost, materials, performance, compliance and more.”
Thangs is free, offers unlimited storage and currently has “over a million” models ready to be searched. You can check it out here.
Just three months after releasing the powerful Untitled (Black Is), UK collective SAULT returns with their second album of 2020, Untitled (Rise). This new record imparts a more exuberant sound through upbeat disco, funk and even house elements, but the topics remain just as poignant—exploring race, resilience and rebellion. A standout from the album, “Free” begins with classic boom-bap, a super-funky bass line and a little distortion, before unfolding into a soaring, soulful and exhilarating five-minute ode to independence.
You know that “As is” section in every Ikea, where they sell damaged or returned furniture pieces for a song? Turns out they’re going to open an outlet where the entire store is basically that, but the broken furniture pieces will have been repaired. “Ikea will open its first second-hand store selling refurbished furniture in Sweden later this year,” reports Swedish newspaper The Local.
The second-hand store, which is a test project that will be re-evaluated regularly, will be supplied with furniture and home furnishings from a nearby Ikea store that have been damaged and repaired.
The company has already begun repairing and re-packaging products in every store that have been damaged in transit, as well as allowing customers to return products — including furniture — for resale or donation to charities.
“If we are going to reach our sustainability goals we need to challenge ourselves and test our ideas in practice,” Ikea Sweden’s sustainability director Jonas Carlehed said in a statement.
This won’t be a standalone Ikea edifice, but will instead be located in Sweden’s ReTuna Återbruksgalleria, which is an entire shopping mall of recycled goods only, located in the town of Eskilstuna.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
Photo by 
Photo by 
