Ahead of his upcoming seventh studio album, Mahal (out 29 April), Toro y Moi (aka Chaz Bear) released two singles, “Postman” and “Magazine,” with the former being the funkier, more playful of the two. Paired with a groovy bass-line, occasional yelps and a music video (directed by kid. studio) that sees Bear and his friends cruising around San Francisco in a Filipino Jeepney, the playfully electric “Postman” delights.
Here’s a design exercise that I think can really help develop your skills – take a product and see if it’s disability-proof. If it isn’t, you’ve got yourself a rather nifty design brief! Take, for instance, the label maker – a pretty useful product… as long as you can see and read. To overcome this accessibility gap, the Braille Label Maker allows you to print labels in braille that the visually impaired can touch to read. The device sports an easy-to-use, non-cluttered design language, with concave recessed buttons that let you intuitively use the label maker without looking at it. The buttons on the label maker help navigate the relatively clean interface, and the labels can either be composed on the device itself or via a smartphone app using the special visually-impaired accessibility keyboard. Once the text is ready, the label maker prints it out on a special adhesive-backed Braille-friendly paper that lets you read the label by running your fingers across. Sure, the Braille Label Maker serves a very niche audience, but it’s an important one nonetheless.
The Braille Label Maker’s most significant feature has to be its incredibly clean design. Curved surfaces make it easy and comfortable to hold, a hood on the top holds the roll of paper, and a minimal keyboard with Braille markings and concave keycaps makes it easy to type with minimal error. Even though its wonderful black and orange design is the kind that your eyes instantly fall in love with, designer Isaac Chan was clever enough to focus primarily on making something the hands will love first, and the eyes later. The label maker finally sports a connector-pin-based charging port at the bottom that presumably uses a MagSafe-style cable, making it all the better for the blind to use!
Designer: Isaac Chan
The post Label Maker with a Braille input allows visually-impaired to print tactile touch-friendly labels first appeared on Yanko Design.
Smooth floors and wide thresholds are among the accessible design elements in a house designed by Argentine firm S_estudio for a family with a disabled son.
Casa Genaro is located in the La Cascada Country Golf neighbourhood in Córdoba, Argentina.
The project is named after the owners’ son, Genaro, who uses a wheelchair and has a short life expectancy. The clients desired a house that would be comfortable for their child.
Situated on an irregularly shaped property, the 382-square-metre dwelling consists of two offset bars that stretch from east to west.
The house was constructed using a traditional masonry system of plastered ceramic blocks, which are painted white. Each volume is topped with a pitched, metal-clad roof that communicates a notion of shelter.
The home’s street-facing elevation is on the east, where the team placed a wood-faced, two-car garage. A step-free pathway leads toward the front door.
“A sequence without unevenness enlivens the arrival of the house to the natural terrain and works as a bellows between the private interior and the more public exterior,” said local firm S_estudio.
The entrance leads into a wide, central hallway illuminated by skylights. The home’s programming is arrayed along this corridor.
“The house is the result of alternatives that achieve the highest level of accessibility and independence with the fewest number of routes, without altering the privacy of all the functions it contains,” said the studio.
To one side of the hallway are bedrooms, a game room and a small office space. Opening toward the south, this area receives the best quality of daylight for Genaro’s daily recreational activities, the team said.
To the other is the “social hall”, which consists of an open kitchen, dining area and living room. Large stretches of glass and sliding doors provide a connection to a covered patio, a swimming pool and a grassy yard.
“The social nave, hierarchical through its great height and sloping ceiling, opens to the north orientation in search of the exterior spaces,” the team said.
“A gallery in relation to the living and dining area, without slopes and completely glazed, gives continuity to the pool.”
The team incorporated a system of sliding and folding curtains that modulate daylight and provide privacy. Other interior elements include smooth porcelain flooring, wide thresholds and limited partitions.
Other wheelchair-friendly homes include an English house by Ayre Chamberlain Gaunt that aims to makes life easier for its occupant, while not compromising on design quality.
The photography is by Gonzalo Viramonte.
Project credits:
Architecture firm: S_estudio
Architect in charge: Bruno Sileoni
Design team: Bruno Sileoni, Jesica Grötter, Lautaro Giuggia Monteverde, Rocío Rueda Coll
Engineering: Marcelo Bonafé
Facilities: Labrin Ingeniera Sanitaria
Lighting design: LBLD
The post S_estudio designs Casa Genaro in Córdoba to be wheelchair accessible appeared first on Dezeen.
Jungle is a one-part light fixture and one-part planter that can be suspended from the ceiling by two lengthy fabric straps.
Ever since we started working from home, biophilic design has been our saving grace. Created from the intersection of nature and the indoors, biophilic design typically combines some aspect of nature with interior design or architecture.
Designer: KABO & PYDO
Most commonly in homes across the world, indoor gardens are a form of biophilic design. Interpreting biophilia in a similar way, Jungle, designed by Poland-based KABO & PYDO design studio, is a planter that can hang from the ceiling and also function as a semi-flush mount light fixture.
Comprised of only a few parts, the beauty of Jungle lies in the design’s simplicity. Defined by a bulbous, capsule-shaped centerpiece, Jungle is a half-planter and half-light fixture. The capsule-shaped planter emanates a warm, golden light that’s diffused with an opaque body. The opaque body softens the light and accentuates the plant life by offering an unassuming canvas for teeming greenery to drape across.
As the designers describe, “The simple form of a glowing vessel is a perfect background emphasizing the beauty of the main actors – plants. The lamp emits a soft, silky-smooth light that creates a relaxing atmosphere, ideal for places such as the chill-out zone. Light and nature will help you relax.”
Hanging from the ceiling, the light fixture is suspended by two lengthy fabric straps that merge with the ceiling for a seamless look. Watertight by design, the opaque, plastic lampshade keeps a simple, modern look that fits right into any living room.
The post This hanging light fixture doubles as a planter to bring nature indoors first appeared on Yanko Design.
The latest edition of our Dezeen Weekly newsletter features a bridge that incorporates spaces for play, rest and planting.
Brearley Architects + Urbanists (BAU) created a bridge connecting two areas of wetland across Shanghai’s Yuandang Lake.
The 586-metre-long bridge for cyclists and pedestrians is a “hybrid structure”, blending architecture, infrastructure and landscape with the existing pathways and nature on the site.
Commenters are wowed. One said, “This is just gorgeous. I like everything about it.”
Other stories in this week’s newsletter include our latest lookbook, featuring ten homes with beautiful courtyards at the heart of the interior, Adidas’ floating recycled-plastic tennis court and news of a planning law in Brighton and Hove, England, that calls for new buildings to include special bricks for bees.
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The post A snaking Shanghai bridge features in today’s Dezeen Weekly newsletter appeared first on Dezeen.
Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard serves as executive producer on the forthcoming tribute album Ocean Child which celebrates the songs of iconic artist and activist Yoko Ono through 14 inspired cover versions. Among the extensive talent—which ranges from David Byrne and Yo La Tengo to Sharon Van Etten, Jay Som, Stephin Merritt and Amber Coffman—Japanese Breakfast contributes an endearing iteration of the classic “Nobody Sees Me Like You Do.” A portion of the proceeds from the album will be donated to WhyHunger, a non-profit (which Ono has long supported) that strives to end hunger and poverty in the US and across the world.
An early 20th-century mansion in the centre of Querétaro, Mexico, has been turned into a boutique hotel by architecture studios Anonimous and JAHS.
The Tá Hotel de Diseño, or Tá Design Hotel, encompasses 11 rooms within a neocolonial villa that formerly belonged to Doña Carmen Septien de Soto – a local philanthropist and creative figure.
“In honour of her memory, in 2015 the idea was born to turn the Casona de Doña Carmen into a place where architecture, hospitality, gastronomy and art could coexist,” said the team, which completed the project in 2021.
Querétaro, also known as Santiago de Querétaro, is famed for its well-preserved classical architecture, which draws from Spanish and other European influences. Local firm Gestalt Arquitectos recently completed a minimalist, concrete home that draws cues from the city’s neocolonial heritage.
The Tá Hotel de Diseño site is located beside the Jardín Guerrero, recognised as part of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage of Humanity, in the heart of the city.
The building is organised around two courtyards, which were stripped back to their original masonry as part of the renovation.
Each of these courtyards provides a tranquil place for hotel guests to relax: one contains a pool, and the other encloses a tall tree.
“The courtyard and passage walls have a strong constructive character,” said the architects, whose intent was “to reveal their processes, textures and colours.”
On the ground floor, six guest suites are laid out along a central corridor, while another five were built within an additional second storey.
The upstairs rooms are slightly larger and each has a private outdoor space.
The terraces serve as a buffer between the historical architecture and the more recent intervention, according to the architects.
“A decision was made to separate the pavilions from the new rooms in order to respect the original facade,” the team explained.
“Throughout the project, the facade of the house and the existing structure were respected at all times,” they continued.
“We worked in close collaboration with the National Institute of Anthropology and History to preserve the historic quality of the facade and not alter its identity.”
The interiors, designed collaboratively with Jesús Andrés Herrera Soto, also contrast the historical surrounds of the villa.
Each of the rooms features a unique design, which includes bright patterned tiles, colourful accent pieces, and historical elements reinterpreted in a contemporary setting.
“The interior design of the hotel is characterised by an eclectic mix of materials, colours and styles that interact with the neutrality of the architecture,” said the architects.
Anonimous has also designed a home topped by an oversized thatched roof in Puerto Escondido, on Mexico’s west coast.
The photography is by Rafael Gamo.
The post Anonimous and JAHS repurpose historic Querétaro villa as a boutique hotel appeared first on Dezeen.
Incredibly, there are now companies that make shaftless, retrofittable elevators designed for domestic use.
For wheelchair users and people with mobility issues, this type of elevator provides a relatively affordable way to provide stair-free access between two floors, with vastly reduced construction costs versus adding a conventional elevator and shaft (if your local building codes would even allow that).
One such model is the Stiltz Trio Alta, which runs about $35,000, uninstalled. Zack of JerryRigEverything, whose wife Cambry is a wheelchair user, purchased one. To save some money on the installation, he DIY’ed it with a couple of guys. Admittedly I can’t tell if they’re buddies or contractors, but Zack did more than his fair share of the work, and as always, made it look easy:
All told, it took the three guys “about 2 days for the construction and framing, and another 2 days for the lift assembly,” Zack writes. “But I think it turned out pretty cool.” Agreed!
A few things in nature evoke a feeling of smoothness and flow, and, ironically as it might at first sound, the large orca is one of them.
Many people depend heavily on computers, which means also depending heavily on keyboards and mice. These critical input devices, however, are also often the biggest sources of frustration for many people, particularly when it comes to ergonomics, comfort, and usability. Fortunately, people have started to become more discerning about the designs of the products they buy, and designers have also become more critical about well-crafted objects. Some are even daring to think outside the box, using Mother Nature as the source of inspiration and direction for some of these unnatural things.
Designer: Arjun Vallabheshwar
Flowing water has always been a metaphor for smoothness and frictionless movement, even back in ancient times. Most of the creatures that live in it have naturally developed the ability to also swim smoothly through the water and have likewise become associated with ideas such as fluidity and even grace. That applies not just to small fishes but even to massive whales.
Next to dolphins, orcas are probably one of the most familiar mammals of the sea. They’re objects of fascination and even love, despite their more common name of “killer whale.” As designer Arjun Vallabheshwar notes, the orca combines both grace and power when it dashes to catch its prey, and the water has no choice but to make way for it.
Therefore, the orca felt like an almost natural source of inspiration for a mouse, especially considering how they share a similar basic shape and color scheme. An orca’s body evolved to be perfectly hydrodynamic, and this mouse concept adopts a similar form, with a pointed “snout” and a wider and higher back. The concept also includes what can be described as the whale’s fins, providing a structure where the thumb and the pinky can rest comfortably.
The design does make one wonder if the sloping top of the mouse is actually ergonomic since it could cause the user to raise their wrist higher than normal. Nonetheless, the mere form of the mouse already makes it look like it’s ready to glide through your day and, perhaps, even inspire a stress-free outlook to your work.
The post This killer whale-inspired mouse concept wants to kill the friction of work first appeared on Yanko Design.
Billed as an “invisible smart lock,” the Level Bolt is marketed towards folks who want a smart lock, but don’t want to change out all of their existing hardware or change keys. With the Bolt, all you do is swap out the bolt and strike plate, keeping your original key and the lock hardware on both sides of the door. Done correctly, this takes just minutes:
Then, assuming what’s depicted in the video below is your lifestyle, you can send a “digital key” to anyone’s smartphone, so they can let themselves into your house.
It runs on a single CR2 battery, which fits within the hollow deadbolt itself.
That raises the question: What happens to the lithium battery, which is essentially the deadbolt, if someone tries to kick the door in while it’s bolted?
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