Hasta La Ideas

Relying only on DIY solutions and minimal hardware, Dutch inventor Gijs Schalkx built a motorcycle by hand that runs entirely on methane gas sourced from local ponds and roadside ditches.

It’s difficult to integrate alternative energy sources into today’s world. While harnessing green energy for electricity and power is at the top of our minds, advancements in the technological world and societal norms constantly create new barriers and change the rules of the green game. Dutch inventor Gijs Schalkx knows this better than most. His most recent invention, the Slootmotor is a handbuilt scooter that runs entirely on methane gas sourced from local ponds.

Schalkx first begins by collecting methane gas with his homemade, manual well and pump. Built from what appears as a heavy-duty rubber swimming tube and some household appliances, including a steel air pump, Schalkx places the well and pump in a local pond or roadside ditch to harness the methane gas for Slootmotor. After giving the contraption some time to collect the methane gas from the pond’s or landfill’s surface, Schalkx connects the well and pump to his Slootmotor’s energy converter and pumps the collected methane gas by hand to be converted into power for his Slootmotor. Schalkx formed Slootmotor on the basis that methane gas will outlast preexisting alternative energy sources, considering the availability of methane gas in shallow waters like ponds and small ditches.

Requiring minimal hardware and DIY solutions to actually harvest the methane gas for energy consumption, Schalkx’s Slootmotor boasts an affordable and feasible build that can be deconstructed and rebuilt any number of times. Keeping all the tools and material needed for construction in a small leather pouch, riders of Slootmotor can rest assured knowing that even if the scooter breaks down, they can rebuild Slootmotor by hand from scratch. Additionally, the Slootmotor’s tiny engine keeps the scooter’s overall energy consumption low given that it doesn’t reach conventionally high speeds, reaching a maximum speed of 43 km/h (26 mph).

Designer: Gijs Schalkx

Bold-Design, a French firm started by product designers William Boujon and Julien Benayoun, developed this very unusual method of joining table legs. Behold the Trestle Twist:

“The twist, a decorative motif par excellence in the art of forging, is here the generating element of the object,” the pair write. “The decorative and the support function merge.”

While this would bring a lot of challenges in mass- or even small-batch production, I’d love to see some more experimentation with the technique.

Aaliyah’s second album One in a Million (released two years after she escaped her illegal marriage to R Kelly, who produced her 1994 debut) has—20 years after her death—arrived on streaming services. With production from various individuals including Rodney Jerkins, Craig Kallman, Barry Hankerson and Jomo Hankerson, the album sounds just as futuristic and dynamic as it did three decades ago. Aaliyah’s soft and smooth vocals float along the gritty, pounding bass lines. Missy Elliot and Timbaland wrote “4 Page Letter,” a classic R&B ballad. Her cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give It Up,” which features hip-hop legend Slick Rick, added a playful tinge to the album. “If Your Girl Only Knew” blends funk and pop with ’90s R&B. The album’s title track borrows elements from trip-hop and breakbeats akin to drum and bass. “Hot Like Fire” appears on the album twice, with the bonus version featuring Timbaland and Missy Elliott—the former who borrows a snippet of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” for his ad-libs. It’s a steady, sultry track from an album—and an artist—whose influence remains boundless.

Sound artist and designer Yuri Suzuki has created Sonic Bloom, an interactive installation in London featuring a cluster of colourful horn-shaped speaking tubes through which people can communicate.

Sonic Bloom is a network of red, yellow and blue horns that are arranged in a formation that resembles a blooming flower – hence the installation’s name.

Curated by Alter-Projects, each of Sonic Bloom’s horns is a speaking tube, meaning that people can communicate with each other through the horns’ interconnected tubes as well as listen to the sounds that they pick up and amplify.

Some of the horns face upward to catch the general sounds of the city.

The installation opens to the public today at Brown Hart Gardens in London’s Mayfair area – close to the city’s Oxford Street shopping district – where it will remain for 12 months.

Suzuki, who is a partner at design firm Pentagram‘s London office, explained the thinking behind Sonic Bloom’s primary colour palette, which he described as his favourite colours.

“I chose primary colours because I am dyslexic and they help with reading,” the designer said. “With these clear divisions, people can easily identify the passage of sound.”

“Primary colours also will fit very well into any landscape,” Suzuki told Dezeen. “I have created sculptures in public realms before and primary colours do not conflict with landscapes and environments.” 

The installation’s layout features seats and horns at varying levels to ensure that people of all ages are invited to interact with the sculpture. Suzuki described this as an important aspect of the work.

“I personally think just a statue standing in public realms does not give enough function to the community,” the designer explained. “If people actively use it, then public art has a meaning.”

Sonic Bloom also features a digital element for those unable to travel to its site in London.

Users’ voices will be recorded and transformed into flower animations, which will eventually be shared on a website for people across the world to click and listen to.

Devised before the coronavirus pandemic, Alter-Projects founder Anne-Laure Pingreoun described how the urgency of Sonic Bloom’s message has been enhanced by the isolation caused by national lockdowns.

“We strongly believe that art and design can change cities, spaces and minds alike,” Pingreoun explained.

“Nowadays, especially after covid, it is more important than ever that cities are filled with art, as culture is a powerful tool to regenerate areas and commerce.”

The installation was designed so that it can be dismantled and easily reassembled in other locations to avoid waste. Alter-Projects also took the coronavirus pandemic into consideration when developing the final design.

“We had security in mind during the entire process, and wanted to make sure it was as Covid-proof as possible,” Pingreoun said.

“We decided to use anti-bacterial paint, made sure the seats were securely distanced, and [property group] Grosvenor will be cleaning it regularly.”

“Obviously, this sculpture could help to shorten the distance of communication between people, but at the same time, it could be positioned as a communication centre to help people slowly go back to pre-covid methods of communication,” concluded Suzuki.

Suzuki is a Japanese sound artist and designer. In 2018, he created Sonic Playground, a collection of colourful sound-modifying sculptures for the High Museum of Art Atlanta in America.

Alter-Projects is a multidisciplinary curatorial agency founded by Pingreoun in 2015. The collective recently exhibited another sensory installation at the London Design Biennale.

The photography is courtesy of Alter-Projects and Yuri Suzuki.

Sonic Bloom is on show at Brown Hart Gardens in London from 23 August for 12 months. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.

The post Yuri Suzuki designs Sonic Bloom to connect people with the sounds of London appeared first on Dezeen.

Invented in the 1910s, the Osborne Fire Finder is a circular mechanical table with a glass top that’s used to pinpoint fire locations.

Image: Charles White

Image: Charles White

Intended for use in fire lookout towers, the design is simple and ingenious. Here’s how it works:

Invented by William W.B. Osborne, a U.S. Forest Service employee, the device was mass produced from 1920 to 1935 by Leupold & Stevens, a company that makes sighting devices. L&S continued to produce spare parts for it for decades, ending in 1975.

As forest fires began to tick back up in the 2000s, there was renewed interest in the object. However, not only was Leupold & Stevens no longer manufacturing any, the production drawings and casting patterns for the cast-iron base had gotten lost over the years.

Thankfully Jeff Palmquist, who at the time was a member of the Forest Fire Lookout Association and a volunteer lookout at the San Bernardino National Forest, learned of the problem. Jeff’s family ran California-based Palmquist Tooling, where Jeff worked as a pattern manufacturer. CAD files were created by measuring existing Osbornes, and by 2003 Palmquist Tooling was providing both spare parts and complete Osborne units.

According to a Forest Fire Lookout Association newsletter from 2005, “Design changes included reducing overall weight by making the square base out of aluminum instead of cast iron, adding nylon inserts vertically and horizontally in the sight ring eliminating metal to metal rubbing with the azimuth base, and adding some feet to the bottom of the square base so the firefinder will sit level when off of the rails.” The list price for a complete Osborne was listed as $3,960 (in 2005 dollars).

“This is a model 1932 Osborne Finder that came out of a lookout near Hanging Rock, West Virginia,” reads a 2016 Facebook post from the FFLA San Diego-Riverside.

“The Osborne was in pretty bad shape as the following photos show. The map is almost totally gone.”

“The wooden platform and rails, broken and rusted.”

“The rusted underside of the fire finder.”

“Jeff and the guys at Palmquist Tools in South Gate Ca, stripped the Osborne down in preparation for the restoration.”

“A big thanks to Jeff at Palmquist Tooling Incorporated in South Gate Ca for the complete restoration of this Osborne.

“We are proud to be involved in the restoration and preservation of this iconic piece of wildland fire firefighting history. It will be well looked after until it finds its way back to where it belongs – In a working fire lookout tower.”