Hasta La Ideas

Many aspects of our lives have become digitized, and writing and drawing are no exception. Many of us use some sort of digital tools for keeping up our schedule, taking notes, brainstorming new ideas, or sketching. Even though digital tools offer great convenience, there is something about old-fashioned writing with pen and paper that inspires creativity in us. The designer behind notesX believes writing down your thoughts and ideas with pen and paper is the best outlet. However, traditional pen and paper may not necessarily be economical or ecological since the traditional paper cannot be reused. notesX is like a combination of a whiteboard and a notebook, providing great reusability and customizability with the familiarity of a paper notebook.

Designer: Hidehiko Fukushima

Click Here to Buy Now: $59.25 $79 (25% off at checkout). Hurry, sale ends Sept 6th.

This innovative notebook utilizes small magnets to bind the pages, the front cover, and the back cover. Since the papers are not glued or sewn together like traditional notebooks, you can easily add, remove, or move pages around as much as you like.

You can even take a page out from the bundle and stick it to metallic surfaces like a fridge door or a magnetic whiteboard. The front cover also has pockets to hold cards and small pieces of paper, things you’d usually stash inside a normal paper notebook.

The notebook’s special papers aren’t actually made with paper. Instead, they use synthetic resins and natural minerals. While the material offers a high-quality surface for writing from the get-go, its special property is that it can erase marks easier than you could when using a pencil. You can write with erasable pens like Pilot’s FriXioin series and then erase what you wrote by rubbing a plastic eraser that usually comes with these pens. You can also use wet wipes to erase a larger area or simply rinse the page down with water when you want to erase everything on it.

The pages themselves are minimal and bare, but there is a faint blue grid on the paper that acts as a guide without distracting you from what you’re writing. The synthetic paper also prevents glaring when taking photos of a page, making it easy to detect the edges of the page when you want to digitize it. This way, you can keep a digital copy of the page before you erase its contents. With this, you have an immortal and infinite notebook, allowing you to rearrange and reuse pages as much as you need.

The notebook has an elastic pen holder that can accommodate any pen with a diameter of 9mm to 15mm, regardless of whether it has a clip or not. A rubber band also keeps the notebook from opening accidentally, similar to those on notebooks like Moleskine. Beyond offering this basic function, this rubber band brings a philosophical aspect to the notebook. Almost like a ritual, the act of removing the rubber band to open the notebook commences your creative activity and putting it back to close it gives you great satisfaction by marking the completion of writing your idea down before it flies away.

Click Here to Buy Now: $59.25 $79 (25% off at checkout). Hurry, sale ends Sept 6th.

The post This rewritable notebook lets you write over and over again like a whiteboard first appeared on Yanko Design.

Melbourne Design Studios redesigned an almost forgotten piece of residence in the middle of Melbourne and named it The Hütt 01 Passive House. The home was created to be a regenerative design and is a certified Passivhouse ‘Premium’, which is the highest category of Passivhaus, and basically produces more energy than it uses. It also rates A++ (the highest category) in its Life Cycle Assessment.

Designer: Melbourne Design Studios

Also called “TMRW by Hütt: A Beacon of Hope for the Future” by the architects, the home is meant to be a peaceful oasis in the otherwise hectic urban jungle that is called Melbourne. It is situated on a 250 square meter site, which is quite interestingly shaped like a wedge. It possesses an extremely industrial feel and can be entered through a bluestone back lane. The home itself occupies a compact space of 78 square meters but is spread over two and a half levels. It features four bedrooms, two living spaces, three bathrooms, and a roof garden. The presence of a garden adds a natural touch to the home, providing it with a deeper sense of peace and zen.

Recycled bricks, charred timber, and black metal cladding were used to construct the home. In fact, all the bricks were sourced and saved from demolition sites throughout Melbourne. By employing cross-laminated timber (CLT) prefab methodology and material for the construction, the architects were able to reduce the carbon footprint, and the time required for the construction process. It also enabled them to use lesser finishing materials and plastering.

The home was created to demonstrate how better homes can be built in Australia, and how a sustainable design approach and Passivhaus can create a stunning residence. Its biophilic design, brilliant utilization of scarce inner-city land, and small footprint make it a modern and sustainable oasis in a major urban city. It is a prime specimen of how you can do more with less, while still utilizing high-performance technologies.

The post This all-black dwelling in Melbourne is a regenerative design that produces more energy than it uses first appeared on Yanko Design.

How often have your camping adventures halted at the shoreline just because your camper was not amphibious? Considerable options combining the benefits of boat and camper have hit the markets before and now Caracat – a smart, safe, environmentally-friendly camper/boat combo – has made to the fore, challenging the best options with the freedom of use on land, sea and lake.

Made with pleasure and commitment to give users demanding a safe, livable home they can take everywhere including on water; the Caracat is meant to realize the dream. The vessel knows no bounds: it can with equal ease tow behind your vehicle on land and instantly go far into the seawater to let you spend a night or two with ease. This is deemed possible by the extending pontoon system (hulls) onboard, which creates a stable 3.7m wide footprint on water and electronically tucks up to 2.5m for an effortless tow on land.

Designer: Caracat

This unforced transition from a boat to a camper or vice versa is Caracat’s prowess. It is powered by a silent electric engine and on the inside features interesting camper essentials like convertible furnishing, solar panels, and a pop-up roof. The interestingly finished layout of the Caracat is complimented exceptionally by the well-organized open floor plan interior. The comfortable space for up to four people includes convertible sofas in the aft and fore. Compatible with a pop-up roof, the catamaran opens up space for an additional two people. Good for a group/family of 6, the Caracat has complete provisions to keep the residents entertained. To this end, it is finished with retractable smart TV and a powerful wireless audio system.

Designed with the idea of more in less space, this incredible home away from home, offers comparable comfort on both land and water. It can be operated by anyone with a Class B driver’s license. The incredible Caracat completely erases the limits of imagination, it leaves the human ability to explore and discover new dimensions!

The post This electric catamaran erases limits of imagination: offers safe, livable home on land and water first appeared on Yanko Design.

From desert blues to atmospheric compositions, songs that span captivating genres

Hope Tala: Leave It On The Dancefloor

West London-based artist Hope Tala’s “Leave It On The Dancefloor” is a shimmery, synth-driven track. The buoyant tune—co-written with Mozella (aka Maureen Anne McDonald) and produced by Greg Kurstin—is an optimistic ode to the power of dancing your woes away. “I wrote this song imagining what I would want someone to tell me while I was going through a hard time. The chorus lyric encapsulates it all: ‘So come on leave it on the dancefloor, leave your worries all behind and let the night take the pain away,’” Tala shares in a statement. “Going out was something I missed intensely through the various COVID lockdowns, particularly when I was feeling down in the dumps. It was something I didn’t know how much I valued until it wasn’t possible or safe anymore. A lot of the music I’ve been writing since the pandemic started has been exploring the wonder and joy of that experience: the community that lives among the heat of happy bodies on the dancefloor—how precious that is.”

Vieux Farka Touré and Khruangbin: Tongo Barra

To honor the late Ali Farka Touré, the internationally celebrated Malian singer and virtuoso guitarist, Ali’s son Vieux Farka Touré partnered with pioneering music trio Khruangbin on a collaborative EP appropriately entitled Ali (out 23 September). An homage to desert blues—the genre his father invented—the album features eight tracks, including the riveting “Tongo Barra,” a refreshing, referential jam.

Frances Chang: p much deranged

Fuzzy guitar, unexpected percussion and lo-fi-leaning vocals open “p much deranged,” the first track from Frances Chang’s debut album, support your local nihilist. Ever shapeshifting, the song languidly contemplates alienation and togetherness before shattering its pace completely. Accompanying the song is a music video (premiered on Beats Per Minute) by Shlomit Strutti, with psychedelic visuals that complement the song’s trippy Moog sound and unconventional trajectory.

Brad Walsh: Derb Chtouka

From experimental art-pop recording artist Brad Walsh’s recently released album Antiglot II (a follow-up to his mesmerizing 2017 LP, Antiglot, which is comprised of just layered vocals and self-generated sound) comes the meditative single “Derb Chtouka.” Named for a street in Marrakech, Morocco—where Walsh filmed the accompanying music video—the track is a deeply expressive sonic landscape upon which the singer asks each listener to journey.

Myele Manzanza feat. Wallace: Silencing the Sun

Drummer, composer, producer and beatmaker Myele Manzanza has announced his third album, Crisis & Opportunity Vol.3—Unfold, and from it comes “Silencing the Sun,” a brilliantly layered track that, like much of Manzanza’s work, pushes the genre of modern jazz. Throughout its nearly three minutes, the single titillates, shifting between New Zealand artist Wallace’s airy vocals, robust percussion, bold keys and plucky guitar licks.

Scone Cash Players: Brooklyn to Brooklin

A dizzying, funk-filled voyage from the NYC borough to the similarly spelled São Paulo neighborhood, the soulful single “Brooklyn to Brooklin” is the latest from Miami-based act Scone Cash Players (led by the legendary Adam Scone). The psychedelic-tinged track will appear on an album of the same name, out 9 September on Daptone Records.

Amtrac feat. Samuel T Herring: Domino

LA-based recording artist and electronic music producer Amtrac (aka Caleb Cornett) taps Future Islands frontman Samuel T Herring as a collaborator on the dizzying new single “Domino.” Herring’s earthy vocals contrast and complement Cornett’s energetic, electronic instrumentals. The engrossing dance track comes with an equally enthralling music video, directed by Cameron Veitch, which twists back-to-office anxieties into a clever, comedic horror show.

Listen Up is published every Sunday and rounds up the new music we found throughout the week. Hear the year so far on our Spotify channel. Hero image courtesy of Vieux Farka Touré and Khruangbin

Using resistance to its advantage, the Unitree PUMP can practically mimic any sort of exercise equipment you need. Its modular and universal design allows you to work on any part of your body, and the pocket-sized resistance machine is small enough to travel with too, letting you build muscle without carrying your entire gym with you.

The PUMP comes from Unitree, a robotics company known more popularly for their quadruped ‘robot dog’. A byproduct of the technology developed for the dog was a patented motor capable of generating resistance. It didn’t take long before the folks at Unitree saw a novel application for this motor. Capable of generating resistance as high as 44lb (20kg), the PUMP is a deceptively tiny palm-sized gym that can be used in a multitude of ways to work on any part of your body, coving as many as 90% of all muscle groups. It’s also capable of outputting a stable resistance so you don’t end up injuring yourself or straining your muscles. Who would’ve thought building the muscles of a robot dog would end up helping build, well, human muscles!?

Designer: Unitree

Click Here to Buy Now: $159 $259 ($100 off). Hurry, only 25/100 left!

All of PUMP’s capabilities lie in this one handheld device that contains a motor and a microcontroller board that helps adjust the PUMP’s resistance as well as track your workouts. The PUMP can be strapped to objects like door frames, railings, or even the floor, and can be used to mimic the feeling of working with weights. You can use it for general full-body workouts, HIIT routines, or even focus on your core or other parts of the body.

The PUMP works pretty much as a standalone device and hardly needs any additional accessories (apart from straps and such), but the minute you include its modules, you can basically have it replace an entire gym. Moreover, all that mechanical energy stored within the PUMP from all your exercising can then be used to charge your phone! In PUMP’s Generation Mode, the mechanical action of working out gets directly translated into electrical energy, which can then be used to charge your devices!

Concentric Mode – You can customize resistance from 11 – 44lbs (5-20kg) and a ratio from 0-50%.

Eccentric Mode – Gives you more burn when you’re releasing the weight, giving your muscles more time under pressure.

Constant Mode – Adjust the resistance range from 4.4 – 44lbs (2-20kg). The resistance will be the same whether you’re pulling the rope out, or releasing it back in.

Chain Mode – Choose resistance from 4.4 – 44lbs (2-20kg), but it allows you to schedule resistance and let PUMP adjust resistance automatically while you train.

The Unitree PUMP pairs along with its companion smartphone app that lets you choose from more than 100 free tutorials on how to use the PUMP to target various parts of your body. Along with recommending exercises, the app lets you set the resistance, helps track your reps, and even counts your calories, giving you an overall breakdown of your workout.

Additionally, the app gamifies the process of exercising with a built-in fitness game that enhances your weight training experience like nothing else on the market! The app even helps you unlock the PUMP’s true potential by suggesting new ways to use it – with simple gear and a little elbow-grease, you can turn you PUMP into a rowing machine, paddle machine, smith machine, or a leg extension curl machine. Combine two PUMPs and with a pair of floor-mounted suction cups, you can even simulate training on barbells!

The idea of a space-saving gym isn’t just appealing to the traveler (although the PUMP was built to be travel-friendly), but also appeals to people with small apartments who don’t have space for a peloton, or the money for vast amounts of gym equipment. Each PUMP ships with a power cable (given that it runs on a motor), storage pouch, and accessories like a door anchor, extension rope, annular fitting belt, ankle strap, pull-rope handle, and a safety buckle. The entire device weighs a paltry 700 grams (as much as a bottle of water), but is capable of outputting resistance nearly 30 times its overall weight. The price of this palm-sized gym starts at a super early bird price of $159.

Click Here to Buy Now: $159 $259 ($100 off). Hurry, only 25/100 left!

The post Tiny pocket-sized resistance machine with modular attachments replaces a full-body gym first appeared on Yanko Design.