Tank Garage’s Love Is Louder Than Bombs red wine raises money for relief efforts in Ukraine—specifically for Good Bread, Prytula Foundation and the Ukrainian Women Veteran Movement. Made with foot-stomped grapes from Amador County, the 14-month aged wine is comprised of 85% syrah, 10% valdiguie and 5% negrette. It has notes of deep plum and blueberry jam that are finished with a touch of smokey charcoal and oregano. With a bottle designed by Ukrainian sisters Victoria and Vitalina Lopukhina, this wine looks, tastes and does good.
If you go camping regularly, sometimes during different seasons and with different people, you probably have different kinds of tents that will suit the environment and the company. But what if you could have just one tent which you can adjust and change the shape to suit your needs and the number of people that can stay inside? Of course you would want to have that one instead of having several at your disposal (unless you plan to collect different kinds of tents of course).
Designer: Yeonguk Choi
The 2/3 home is a concept for a backpacking tent that can be expanded, folded, and changed depending on what you need, what season it is, and how many people will be staying inside. It’s a combination of tunnel-type tents and alpine tents but with supposedly much easier ways to assemble, pack, store. The designers experimented with different kinds of materials and types of tents until they were able to find and develop a concept that can hopefully become an actual multi-functional tent.
Using woodwork and nylon 15D fabric in the trial and error phase, they were able to come up with something that works using 20D fabric and Monolite lip-stop nylon mesh for the ventilation part. They also used various plastic subsidiary materials for the other parts and DAC press fit 8.7mm for its tent pole. Basically, the final product is “a backpacking tent that expands with you”. The Duo Mode, as its name states, is meant for two people with an alpine tent model while the Trio Mode is the expansion mode that can accommodate three people.
The Duo Mode is compact, easily installed with its one main pole and two ridge poles. Aside from its small size, it’s also built to withstand some strong weather conditions including strong winds with its bow-like bent tent. It’s also more “livable” than the normal alpine tent since the interior has a hexagonal shape. The Trio Mode is where you can add a separate tent extension to connect to the duo mode. Aside from being able to fit in three people, it’s more habitable because you get more space and is recommended for use during winter.
A chair that can adapt over time and one fabricated with 3D-printed liquid metal are among the designs that students at MIT came up with for The Next 150-year Chair exhibition.
In total five pieces were created for the exhibition, which was a collaboration between American furniture company Emeco and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to conceptualise sustainable furniture pieces.
Top: students were asked to design sustainable furniture. Photo by Jeremy Bilotti. Above: Amelia Lee designed a chair called The Wable. Photo by Jeremy Bilotti
Called The Next 150-year Chair, the project was carried out via a course at MIT that guided students through a design process with access to Emeco’s manufacturing technology.
The prompt was based on Emeco’s 1006 Navy chair developed in 1944, which has a “150-year lifespan” according to the company.
“Today, a 150-year chair means making something that lasts a long time, which is a great thing to do,” said MIT associate professor Skylar Tibbits. “But the question is whether that will be the same for the next 150 years – should the goal still be to make things that last forever?”
“That’s one approach, but maybe there’s something that could be infinitely recyclable instead or something that’s modular and reconfigurable.”
The students took a variety of approaches to the prompt. Photo of Faith Jones’ Rewoven Chair
The students each took a different approach to answering the question, and the results featured a number of complete furniture pieces and components.
Masters student María Risueño Dominguez developed a furniture component based on longevity. Her research on furniture consumption and interviews with people involved in the furniture industry resulted in a concept called La Junta – a cast-aluminium joint with multiple different inserts shaped to fit a variety of components.
Plastics, textiles and metal were used for the designs. Photo of María Risueño Dominguez’s La Junta
Other designers took a materials-focused approach when addressing the prompt.
Amelia Lee, a student at Wellesyan taking courses at MIT, developed a product made from a single sheet of recycled HDPE. Modelled on a rocking chair, the piece can be turned on its side to function as a table.
“This chair can last through childhood, from crawling around it to being able to turn it over and play with it,” said Lee.
Zain Karsan took a different approach by aiming to improve the metal-printing processes for the frames of his chairs.
“This process is an alternative to the slow process rates of traditional metal additive manufacturing wherein molten material is dispensed at high speed in a bed of granular media,” said Karsan. “A series of chair typologies are presented as a proof of concept to explore form and joinery.”
The projects accounted for style as well as longevity. Photo of Zane Karsan’s Liquid Metal Design
Faith Jones wanted to create a product that did not sacrifice comfort in a search for sustainability. Her ReWoven chair takes a wooden frame and tubular cotton, weaving the fabric around the aluminium skeleton in a way that would allow for the removal and replacement of the cotton.
Finally, designer Jo Pierre came up with a product aimed at the changes that will likely come as cities grow and become denser. Called Enhanced Privacy, the product is a plastic partition designed for domestic spaces. The hanging sheet of plastic can be filled with water in order to block sound and diffuse light.
The students’ projects were exhibited at Emeco House, the company’s event space in Los Angeles in a converted 1940s sewing shop.
There was a point in very recent history when it seemed that the world had run out of single-use face masks, sometimes referred to as surgical masks. Eventually, however, supply did finally catch up to demand, and the use of such protective gear became so common that people would acquire them in bulk. Unfortunately, these masks weren’t made exactly made with regular people in mind and in situations where they would not be disposed of properly. What was a tool that helped save human lives, unfortunately, became poison to the planet, especially our already polluted waters. Although restrictions have been lifted in many places, these single-use masks are still in high demand and use, including outside the medical field, and the harm that these discarded masks pose to the environment has been demonstrated with dramatic effect in a pouf made almost completely out of this personal protective equipment.
Surgical masks look simple enough that most probably take for granted the materials used to make them. Most probably presume that they’re made from biodegradable material since they feel like cloth or paper, but that’s not exactly true. They are made from a certain kind of plastic, and they can’t be recycled because of their use in medical scenarios. Thus, they become dangerous pollutants, whether they’re burned by incinerators or thrown into the waters.
Given the volume of single-use masks produced and discarded on a regular basis, that can easily cause an environmental problem. What makes the situation worse is that very few people are aware of this situation, let alone of the harmful potential of these masks. What better way to call their attention, then, than by putting this number into perspective in a rather shocking manner?
That is what COUCH-19 does in a way that is both meaningful but also useful. Hundreds of used masks are collected and then sanitized using ozone before they’re entombed in a pouf made from recyclable crystal PVC. Each pouf is modular so that it can be combined with others to form a couch to one’s specifications. The poufs are shaped irregularly to give the semblance of the masks frozen in time. The iceberg-like design is intended to be a reference to global warming.
As a couch, the COUCH-19 looks both interesting but also a bit unsettling, which is part of the message. While there’s no doubt that it can function as a piece of furniture, its appearance is alien enough to give our brains pause, forcing us to face the reality that those masks convey, that of a world where we might be forced to live with the very trash that we so mindlessly throw away.
A 525-million-year-old fossil of an extinct worm-like animal known as the Cardiodictyon catenulum was first discovered in China in 1984, but only recently have scientists found that the barely half-an-inch animal has a brain. Using a technique called “chromatic filtering,” scientists were able to reveal the animal’s nervous system and brain in an unsegmented head. Not only is this finding extremely out of the ordinary as many believed brains were impossible to fossilize, but it also questions common assumptions about evolution. “This anatomy was completely unexpected because the heads and brains of modern arthropods, and some of their fossilized ancestors, have for over a 100 years been considered as segmented,” says Professor Nicholas Strausfeld from the University of Arizona Department of Neuroscience who led the study. The Cardiodictyon‘s unsegmented head and brain suggest a new theory about evolution: that the brain and trunk nervous system evolved separately. This discovery could impact the understanding of other creatures beyond arthropods, as well. Learn more about it at Interesting Engineering.
R&B duo Emotional Oranges experiments with new sounds on their latest single, “On My Way.” Grooving on lush percussion and sensual lyrics, the track sees the pair trading their laidback, pop-leaning sound for a fresh, rhythmic and lively soundscape, inspired by South African amapiano. Dance-worthy and bright, it’s the final single for their upcoming album, The Juice Vol III (out 9 December).
Architects Maria Gomez, Giovanni Ocampo and Héctor Coss have completed a low-lying, three-house retreat in western Mexico that explores the ability of concrete to work in “aesthetic harmony with the desert”.
The project, Casa Santos, is located in Todos Santos, a coastal town on the Baja Peninsula. The retreat – which is rented out when not in use by the Miami Beach-based owners – sits on a 2,000-square-metre desert property with distant views of the sea.
Maria Gomez, Giovanni Ocampo and Héctor Coss completed the project in western Mexico
While designing the project, architects Maria Gomez, Giovanni Ocampo and Héctor Coss were mindful of the region’s beauty and vulnerability to earthquakes. They aimed to design a cluster of low-key buildings that work in concert with the terrain.
“Casa Santos is an exploration of the possibilities of concrete to create community and sustainability in aesthetic harmony with the desert,” the team said.
Casa Santos features a pool and terraces set into a slope
The development consists of three houses, with a fourth building for service functions. The property also features a swimming pool and sunbathing terraces set on a slope.
The buildings are made of ribbed concrete with a pinkish hue – decisions informed by the site’s context and sun exposure.
The volumes are formed from ribbed concrete with a pinkish hue
The colouring is meant to blend with the desert sand, and the wall fluting engenders shadows, helping reduce solar heat gain. The concrete also offers protection from the sun.
“Concrete provides relief from the desert heat, as well as refuge in a seismic area facing the sea,” the team said.
The walls were created using formwork made of rolled-steel sheets. The formwork provided flexibility in regards to where apertures were placed, the team said.
After the concrete work was complete, the steel sheets were recycled to become doors, fences, and gates on the property.
All of the buildings have kitchens
In terms of the homes’ layouts, they are similar but vary slightly. One has two bedrooms, and the others have three. All have a kitchen, dining area and lounge space.
The buildings are composed of two different modules – one for the bedroom/bathroom, and the other for public functions. Both modules are cube-shaped and measure 25 square metres.
The cubes are meant to interact with each other and form “passages, alleys, patios and squares that emulate the trace of a medieval town,” the team said.
Within the dwellings, materials include medium-density fibreboard millwork and concrete flooring. The ribbed walls were left exposed, giving rooms a distinctive look.
Ribbed walls feature in the interior
“The project understands the wall as a pure element that articulates the habitable,” the team said. “Every wall is at the same time a wall interior, exterior facade, structure, texture and finish.”
Overall, the architects say that Casa Santos offers “answers to the original questions of modern architecture”.
“It provides the possibility of a modular construction and accessibility to scale, offers sustainability and climate resilience, and achieves an architecture that is austere, formal and in harmony with the surrounding nature,” they said.
The project is located in Todos Santos in Mexico
Architects Maria Gomez and Giovanni Ocampo lead a Mexico City-based firm called La Nopalera. The studio of Héctor Coss is also based in Mexico City.
Other projects in Todos Santos include the Paradero Hotel – designed by architects Ruben Valdez and Yashar Yektajo – that features beige concrete walls that swoop outward and a central low-water garden as well as a house with dramatic arches by RED Arquitectos.
Informed by the Indian tradition of hair oiling, the HoliRoots Hair Oil from Akash and Nikita Mehta’s beauty brand Fable & Mane is an award-winning root treatment for stronger, healthier hair. Within the vegan formula, ashwagandha helps to thicken hair while dashmool promotes scalp health to encourage growth. As a part of the Every Body campaign, 100% of the proceeds from “The Every Body” version of the oil will go to the SisterSong reproductive justice collective to support everyone’s right to safe, accessible abortions.
Trends come and go, and some designs even return with a vengeance. That applies not only in the fashion world but in other industries as well, including interior and even office designs. In the not-so-distant past, cubicles were torn down to give way to open floor plans. That more social and more democratic design, however, also came with costs to focus and productivity, which has resulted in some offices bringing back those boxes that try to give you a small sanctuary in a storm of distractions. Rather than just confining space, however, cubicles also offer opportunities to personalize and optimize, and this new computer monitor takes that to heart in a rather novel way.
Desk space is always limited, whether you’re working in a cubicle, an office floor plan, or even at home. It can be even more limited, however, when those work dividers are involved because they put boundaries in three dimensions. That’s why some people have become a little bit more creative by utilizing the vertical space that these walls provide, but the desk space occupied by a computer monitor still takes a whole chunk out of what’s left.
The aptly named LG Libero 27MQ70QC monitor frees up that space so that your desk is actually left for things that you actually use rather than just look at. You can technically buy some mounting accessories for a plain computer monitor, but this LG screen comes with one built-in already. Plus, it does so in a rather innovative way so that you can actually use the monitor on your desk like normal if you no longer have any wall to hang it from.
The trick to the Libero is a folding stand that also acts as a handle that can hang on hooks over your cubicle or any wall, for that matter. That stand even lets you tilt the monitor forward or backward to your preferences and comfort. Everything about the Libero’s design revolves around this duality. For example, the included webcam is removable and has dedicated ports top and bottom so that it will always sit on the “top” of the monitor, regardless of the orientation.
The 27-inch LG Libero isn’t just all about this gimmick, though, and it has the trapping of a quality monitor you can expect from the brand. The original $500 price tag, however, might feel a bit too steep since you can MacGyver your own hanging monitor solution for so much less. That said, you do get the benefits of a product that was designed to be used in such configurations rather than having to struggle to make things work on your own.
Festool has announced the CSC SYS 50, a cordless jobsite table saw that runs on two 18V batteries. Portable, the design actually fits into one of their Systainers, and the company says the two batteries are enough to turn the motor at up to 6,800 RPM. It weighs 15kg (33 lbs.).
The saw allows rip cuts at a maximum width of 280mm (11″) and can cross-cut pieces up to 450mm (17 3/4″) in width. The maximum blade height is 48mm (1 7/8″) at 0°; the blade can be tilted from -10° to 47°, and you can make miter cuts up to 70°.
It comes with a dust collection bag that attaches to a dust port; alternatively you can hook it up to a dust collector.
While setting the fence is up to you, the blade height and angle are set digitally, using a dial.
Here’s the saw in action:
The saw will be released in February, at least in Europe; the listed price in the UK starts at £1,532 (USD $1,853). Adding the underframe seen in the photos below bumps the price up to £1,833 (USD $2,216). There’s no word on a U.S. release date.
It’s worth noting that Festool’s parent company, TTS Tooltechnic Systems, acquired SawStop in 2017. However, the CSC SYS 50 does not appear to contain SawStop’s safety technology.
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