Someone should seriously make a whiteboard clock at this point, because this sounds like just a really smart idea. Meet Task Time, a clock with a set of magnets that let you assign tasks at certain times of the day in an incredibly analog way. You don’t need to bust your phone out and access the alarm or the calendar. You don’t need to tell Siri or Google to remind you to do something. Just make a note of it on the Task Time’s legend on the side, and pick up a corresponding magnet and place it on the clock. The colorful magnets become indicators of when you need to start a task, helping you efficiently manage your time in a wonderful low-tech way.
Designer: Dominic
While the Task Time seems like a rather simple idea and an elementary device, it has a great amount of appeal and versatility if you think of its applications. Sure, it makes for a great task clock while at work (even though you’d much rather use an online calendar service) but it also acts as a wonderful educational toy for children, allowing them to learn how to read time. Imagine a Task Time in a school, with different magnets indicating the different periods of the day. The child uses them as visual indicators to help understand how a day is split between story time, playtime, lunchtime, nap time, and home time. The visual dots help make the entire ordeal more interesting and easy to understand too, whether you’re a 6-year old learning how to read a clock or a 30-year old using the Task Time as your personal Pomodoro Timer to help boost your efficiency and productivity!
English fashion designer and activist Vivienne Westwood, who was central to defining the aesthetic of the punk era, has passed away aged 81.
Westwood came to prominence as a key figure in the punk fashion scene in the 1970s and went on to be named British Fashion Designer of the Year in 1990, 1991 and 2006.
“Vivienne Westwood died today, peacefully and surrounded by her family, in Clapham, south London,” the statement read.
“The world needs people like Vivienne to make a change for the better.”
Along with her role as a designer, she was known for her activism drawing attention to climate change as well as nuclear disarmament and civil rights.
Westwood was an ambassador for Greenpeace, designing the organisation’s official Save the Arctic logo in 2013, and an active supporter of the charity Cool Earth.
Born in 1941, Westwood began designing in the early 1970s when she ran a boutique on King’s Road known as SEX with then-partner Malcolm McLaren. During this time the pair contributed to the aesthetic of the early punk scene.
Westwood and McLaren would create numerous collections in the early 1980s before she launched her own line in 1984.
Her husband and creative partner, Andreas Kronthaler, said: “I will continue with Vivienne in my heart.”
In 2004 the V&A held a retrospective exhibition for Westwood that was the largest ever devoted to a living British fashion designer. She received an OBE in 1992 and in 2006 she was made a Dame for services to fashion.
Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, who was one of the country’s most influential post-war architects, has passed away aged 91.
Isozaki was known for his early Japanese brutalism including the Ōita Prefectural Library and later international modernist buildings including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Kitakyushu Central Library was one of Isozaki’s early brutalist works. Photo courtesy of Yasuhiro Ishimoto
In a prolific, six-decade-long career, he won numerous awards including the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019, RIBA Gold Medal in 1986 and was awarded the Leone d’Oro at the Venice Architectural Biennale 1996.
Isozaki was born in 1931 in Ōita on Kyushu – Japan’s third largest island – and studied at the University of Tokyo under Japanese architect Kenzo Tange, who won the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 1987.
He designed the Palau Sant Jordi for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992
After graduating he worked for Tange, before establishing his own studio, Arata Isozaki & Associates, nine years later in 1963.
His notable early works combined elements of Japanese brutalism and metabolism and include the Ōita Prefectural Library in 1966, Expo ’70 Festival Plaza in Osaka in 1970 and the Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art in Fukuoka in 1974.
In the 1980s Isozaki gained several high-profile international commissions including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, which was completed in 1986.
He went on to design numerous buildings across the world including the Palau Sant Jordi for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, Team Disney Building in Florida in 1990, the Shenzhen Cultural Centre in China in 2007, Art Museum in Beijing in 2008, Milan’s Allianz Tower and Shanghai Symphony Hall, both in 2014 and the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha in 2011.
The Shanghai Symphony Hall was a later work
On winning the Pritzker Architecture Prize in 2019 the jury described him as “a versatile, influential, and truly international architect”.
“Isozaki is a pioneer in understanding that the need for architecture is both global and local — that those two forces are part of a single challenge,” said Pritzker Architecture Prize jury chair Stephen Breyer.
“For many years, he has been trying to make certain that areas of the world that have long traditions in architecture are not limited to that tradition, but help spread those traditions while simultaneously learning from the rest of the world.”
One of my sporting-related dreams is to someday watch a match at any of the tennis Grand Slams, particularly Wimbledon. But since a trip to London will not be happening anytime soon for me, I’ll have to content myself with watching the matches on TV (or rather, on streaming). But the other closest thing I can get to it will probably be one of those upcycled products that use anything that was actually used during the competition, like this Bluetooth speaker from hearO.
Designer: hearO
This is a brand that tries to create products that may not look like most of the audio products that you’ll see in the market. This time around, they used actual tennis balls that were used from this year’s Wimbledon competition for their hear0 3.0 Bluetooth speakers. It still retains the basic shape of a tennis ball as well as its distinct green color. It still has the Slazenger logo as well as the tournament’s branding, in case you forget where it actually came from.
What they did was embed the tennis ball with a 3W speaker. So you get a white speaker grill on one side of the ball and it has a frequency of 100Hz to 20kHz. It has a 500mAh battery and since it’s a ball, you can bring it around with you to play your music or podcasts or audiobook. And if it runs out of power, it also has a charging cradle with both USB A and USB C ports. hearO also promises to plant a tree with every purchase of their latest speaker, in partnership with The European Nature Trust.
Aside from the upcycling element of this product, which is already pretty good, this is also a way for tennis fans to have something from one of the most popular tournaments. You have no way of knowing if your favorite player actually touched the tennis ball/speaker you’re now listening from, but it’s nice to imagine that you have some part of Wimbledon with you.
Ten Eyck Landscape Architects has restored a “recreational heart” to a downtown park in Austin, Texas with vernacular buildings, play spaces and a revitalized ecosystem.
In 2014, the city of Austin adopted a vision plan for the future use and care of the 84-acre Pease Park, the oldest public park in the Texan capital, that focused on built elements, historic features and cultural resources.
Ten Eyck Landscape Architects restored the downtown park in Austin
“The challenge was to weave a heavy program of play elements, trails and other park facilities into the topography without overwhelming the native setting in a constricted space,” said primary consultant Christine Ten Eyck.
A basketball court features in the new design
“We hope Kingsbury Commons sets a standard for Austin parks by integrating fun and play within nature.”
Completed in 2021, the renovated Kingsbury Commons serves as a new, accessible “front door” for the park, inviting visitors in through historic stone archways and mature live oak trees.
The team removed telephone poles, an old splash pad and a restroom to clear an open activities lawn with sweeping views of the park and access to the adjacent Shoal Creek.
Kingsbury Commons includes places to play
“The new park design weaves together the mature existing vegetation with a robust program of facilities and amenities comprising event rental spaces, new restrooms and storage facilities, a treetop observation pod, natural playgrounds, a basketball court, and an interactive water feature that recalls the karst limestone aquifers found in the Texas Hill Country,” the team said.
The embedded recreational amenities encourage visitors – both young and grown – to interact with nature and central Texas geology.
The team restored a 1920s Tudor cottage. Photo is by Brittany Dawn
Kids can climb through the tree cover in an all-abilities playground with climbing structures, swings, and natural wood balance elements; while adults can exercise or play bocce in a riparian restoration zone.
The team also worked to restore a 1920s Tudor cottage that sits on a bluff overlooking the park.
The previously-derelict structure is now a single-room event venue
The derelict structure was previously used as restrooms and storage, but the team transformed it into a single-room event venue with a new vaulted roof structure and large northern window that complement the existing wood shake roof material and cleaned exterior.
In addition to the preservation work, the team tucked a set of new support buildings against the park’s western hillside.
“Featuring steel mesh walls and a color palette inspired by the landscape, the buildings recede into the background,” the team said.
Restrooms feature a vernacular dogtrot design
The restrooms are composed of vernacular dogtrot structures with vanities in the breezeway, and a building opens to a connecting courtyard with terraced limestone seating that creates a small amphitheatre beneath the cedar elms.
“Architectural elements were intentionally designed to highlight rather than overshadow the natural setting,” the team said.
Ten Eyck Landscape Architects inserted a steel orb into the park known as Treescape
Known as Treescape, a two-level, 40-foot (12-metre) steel orb creates a treehouse observation pod with a cargo net hammock and central oculus. The lower level connects to decomposed granite trails, while the upper level is accessed by an ADA-accessible bridge on the hillside.
Materials for both the architectural and landscape elements were chosen for durability during the area’s major flood events.
A low ribbon-like limestone wall winds through the park mitigating the elevation changes. At various points in its path, it becomes stepped seating and ultimately highlights a restored natural spring that feeds native plants.
The project also included a rehabilitation of the existing tree canopy consisting of hundred-year-old oaks and elms, ecological restoration of upland and riparian zones, removal of invasive species and native soil restoration.
A low ribbon-like limestone wall winds through the park. Photo is by Adam Barbe
Kingsbury Commons holds a USGBC SITES Gold certification and received a Texas ALSA Honor Award in 2022.
Nearby, Clayton Korte – formerly known as Clayton & Little – embedded a wine cave into a Texas hillside.
The photography is by Casey Dunn unless otherwise stated.
Project credits:
Landscape architect /prime consultant: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (Christine E. Ten Eyck, Stephanie Saulmon, Tim Campbell, Jia Li) Architect: Clayton Korte (Nathan Quiring, Joseph Boyle, Hanna Leheup) Treescape: Mell Lawrence Architects Civil engineer: Garza EMC MEP engineer: Jerry Garza & Associates Structural engineer: Architectural Engineers Collaborative Lighting designer: Studio Lumina Graphics and wayfinding: Page/Dyal Water feature: GPSI General contractor: Harvey-Cleary Builders Owner / client: Pease Park Conservancy, City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department
We love it when readers share recent design work with us, and relish the opportunity to, in turn, share exposure via our site and social channels with them. Below is a round-up of 2022’s reader design projects, starting with the most popular ones followed by two of the most controversial. Click through to read the full story, or comments, behind each and if you are a designer, be sure to submit your project for publication in 2023!
Scott Yu-Jan makes a Mac Mini portable via a custom 3D printed case which utilizes an iPad mini as monitor. As they say it allows everyone’s “favorite daily driver” to hit the road…
Harvard University’s Master in Design Engineering Program redesigned the MUAC -tape (Middle Upper Arm Circumference) – a severe malnutrition diagnosis tool. Their solution improves upon the original in a variety of ways including a built-in marking tip on the tool…
Shion Ito visited a classroom of students and prototyped tools to assist with student focus. His solution is a spatial division system which permits students to layer screening elements and individually adjust the privacy of their desk. Core77 readers were enthusiastic about his design, “Forest” …
StudioYO designed these magnetic wooden pebbles that connect together, creating dynamic sculptures or serving as a toy to occupy ones hands with. They worked with the Shizuoka turnery, operating since 1864 to produce the objects…
Desiree Riny, Brendan Lim and Steph Porrino participated as “Team Access” in the Tikkun Olam Makers: Melbourne make-athon where the goal is “to create and build products that improve the lives of people with a disability.” They developed a prototype of a heavy magnetic base which keeps mixing bowls in place without using one’s hand…
Joseph Kim produced this object series that invites user “input” via a simple vocabulary of material, color and form. It employs the aluminum 80/20 T-slot system and was developed in Carnegie Mellon’s Advanced Open Sculpture course…
Andrew Roberts’ speculative thesis, Uncanny Bastards, “proposes a marriage between artificial intelligence tools and multi-material 3D printing to create compelling designs and artefacts for film.” The results are… Uncanny…
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Now for the Controversy! Which, we may as well let you know now, is actually very mild by the standards of the internet. As much as we love receiving the work of our readers, we equally appreciate when they contribute design critique … it’s a healthy circle …
Furbershaworks designed a bench intended to facilitate conversation between two parties with its sculptural form aligning participants for a not-quite face-to-face talk. Commenters were divided on both concept and realization …
Disco Compacto successfully kickstarted not only its chair — an intriguing design that integrates “technical simplicity and visual complexity” — but also a fair amount of discussion amongst Core77 readers …
And if you read “Why Soda Bottles Used to Have Round Bottoms,” you’ll learn that it was due to a design limitation in bottle caps, and nothing to do with the molding of the bottles.
As for some package design innovations we saw this year:
Industrial designer Wyatt Coe designed this Scotch Flip concept, where the packaging becomes the dispenser.
The Butterfly Cup is a biodegradable and recyclable paper coffee cup with an integrated lid and spout. It can also be used for cold drinks.
Australian packaging firm Caps & Closures developed ThermoShield, customizable caps that change color with the temperature.
For packaging materials, Estonian startup Woola developed Bubble Wool, a bubble wrap alternative made from waste wool.
Designers at OF Packaging realized that if you make a 2D shape into 3D, it’s easier to recycle (easier for the scanning machines at material recovery facilities to detect). Thus their Roll ‘n’ Recycle packaging design:
These Flip-It devices turn top-spout bottles into bottom-spout, so gravity will let you get the last drop of product.
This Sanizone tool was designed because yogurt packaging is difficult for those with arthritis to open.
Ugliest package design of the year might go to A$AP Rocky’s new whisky brand, with included plastic cups that are meant to mate with both ends of the glass bottle.
The niftiest, most useful (to me) bottle I saw this year was this mixing bottle for gasoline and oil, which makes short work of the small-engine ritual.
Or that they’ve got weird-looking lawnmowers like these?
One thing we couldn’t miss this year, is that power tools are continuing to get friendlier-looking (some might say toylike). Here’s Black & Decker’s designey Reviva line, aimed at DIY’ers.
And check out these drills and drivers by Chinese manufacturer Hoto:
Designed by Chilean studio Elemental, the Casa del Tec is a majestic concrete home outside Monterrey, Mexico. The house is a raffle prize that funds higher education at the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey. The Nuevo León is a three-story textured reinforced concrete shell that functions as an interesting shell for the home. The shell was completed in 2022 in San Pedro Garza García.
The Casa del Tec is inspired by the double conditions of castles. “We have always been struck by the double condition of castles. They are fortresses turned inwards, protecting something inside that we cannot see, and simultaneously they are a strong, monumental, abstract presence in the world,” said Elemental.
Elemental continued to say that the house is introverted, but not shy. “[It’s] a place that almost silently takes care of private life and at the same time a place that is inevitably a declaration of principles in public life.” The circular form of the home encourages a connection between the indoors and the outdoors and orients the home in all directions. The interiors open up to the outdoors via arched windows, which also function as a thermal mass for the home’s climate control.
The second floor of the home features the entry, two bedrooms with adjacent terraces, a lounge area, and a four-car garage. An impressive wooden staircase connects to the ground floor, which is wholly glazed, creating a rather light and free-flowing space beneath the concrete shell. The ground floor includes the kitchen and a dining room, which leads to a courtyard with a pool, and an area for barbecue sessions.
The primary bedroom is located on the top floor of the home and is accompanied by a bathroom, a dressing room, and a terrace that provides views of the stunning neighboring mountains via an inverted-arch cutout. The different levels are connected with the help of a glazed vertical void. “A single glance allows you to cover the whole height of the house, from the ground floor to the open sky,” said Elemental. The interiors of the home are marked by stone, marble, and cuéramo wood. Dark grey walls and floors add an elegant element to the house.
Milestone developments in automotive, sound, invisibility and beyond
With another year of technological and automotive innovation behind us, we’ve grown closer to recyclable cars, far-reaching exploration of the cosmos and even an invisibility cloak. Along with time behind the wheels of game-changing vehicles and moments testing future-forward devices, 2022 saw technologies emerge to make the world safer and more empathetic. The following highlights only scratch the surface of what happened around the world and what we covered in 2022, but they give ample reason to be excited about what may emerge next year.
Looking at Apple’s new iPhone 14 generation of devices side by side with the iPhones 12 and 13, snap critics will say there’s not much new about them. While the form factor is essentially the same, there are some serious innovations impossible to miss once you look under the hood. Among the new features, Dynamic Island—an upgrade of the previous phones’ “notch”—is the magic we count on from Apple. We’ve been testing the iPhone 14 Pro models for a couple weeks now and are enamored with this feature. The upgraded camera system, alway-on lock screen, updated material treatments and new emergency features round out the reasons why the 14 Pro is a significant upgrade… Read more.
Founded by Imran Chaudhri and Bethany Bongiorno, two pioneering former Apple employees, Humane has been an innovation initiative in development for several years now. Though the organization has garnered attention for its top talent (Chaudhri invented the user interface on the iPhone and holds thousands of patents, while Bongiorno was responsible for iOS and macOS software project management and held a crucial role in milestone projects like the launch of the original iPad), little has been revealed about what technologies they’re attempting to advance or what product they intend to release. That is, until today, thanks to a powerful, poetic teaser trailer directed by Ryan Staake… Read more.
There’s a commonly held belief that vinyl fans favor mystique over clarity, but Pro-Ject’s new entry-level turntable, the E1 BT, rebukes that—and will ultimately appeal to enthusiasts and those just starting their record collection. Pro-Ject, an Austrian company founded in 1991 that makes some very high-end audio products, will tell you that the E1 BT is for the toe-in-the-water crowd precisely because it’s not priced at a tier that feels like a big commitment—the E1 BT costs around $499. Also, it’s already unorthodox; the “BT” stands for Bluetooth, enabling users to throw in a pair of wireless earbuds or pair their turntable directly to a Bluetooth speaker… Read more.
“I’m excited and nervous,” says SangYup Lee, Hyundai’s design chief and a star within the auto design world. “It’s been three years of hard work.” This is just before the silk slips off of his latest creation: the culmination of a thousand days of countless micro-decisions, renderings, adjustments, collaboration, effort and toil, all tucked under a veil in London’s Shoreditch Studios. The Ioniq 6 arrives on the heels of the Ioniq 5, which won the World Car of the Year for design, as well as overall World Car of the Year for 2022… Read more.
Royal Enfield, a 121-year-old company with roots in England, has been making bikes in India since the 1960s, and the past five years—with managing director Siddhartha Lal at the helm—has seen the company’s sales skyrocket. Most of that success has been within India, but North America is now the company’s biggest export market and, as such, the brand is focusing more on designs that will appeal to a customer who wants a motorcycle for leisure rather than for commuting… Read more.
Mist, leaves, sunlight and shadows all play intrinsic roles in artist and architect Suchi Reddy’s latest work, unveiled today at ICA Miami. While they might not be elements often conjured up when thinking about cars, the project is a collaboration between Reddy (along with her NYC-based studio Reddymade Architecture and Design) and Japanese carmaker Lexus. Informed by movement and emotion, the immersive work—called “Shaped by Air”—is one that Reddy hopes will evoke a reminder of just how enmeshed we are with our environment. “We are one and the same,” Reddy says… Read more.
From launching the world’s first solar jacket that can store and re-emit light to creating the first jacket made from the aerospace material graphene, Vollebak revolutionizes clothing through science and technology. Today, they set a new precedent once again as the creators of the world’s first Thermal Camouflage Jacket, a computer-programmable piece of outerwear designed to make the body disappear in front of infrared cameras. While the development is still a prototype, the jacket lays the foundation for and proves the viability of an invisibility cloak…read more.
General Motors designed the original lunar rover that was used during the Apollo space program of the early ’70s in partnership with Boeing. Now the Detroit-based carmaker hopes to return to the moon with a new rover—or Lunar Mobility Vehicle (LMV)—created in partnership with Lockheed Martin. Together, the two companies have designed a prototype in response to NASA’s call out for an LMV for the upcoming Artemis mission… Read more.
Pure, purposeful and defined by extreme horizontal and vertical lines, Citroën’s new electric vehicle concept car, Oli, is a future-forward family vehicle built for a world with scarce resources. Eschewing metal and steel, Oli’s roof and hood, co-created with BASF, are made from recycled corrugated cardboard that forms a honeycomb structure sandwiched between fiberglass panels. Other elements—including recycled bumpers, textiles and plastic that acts as durable protection—are also radically sustainable, fusing innovative design with a true commitment to the future… Read more.
In August 2021 at TEDMonterey, the inspirational idea-powered organization introduced a brand new headset microphone developed with high-end German audio brand Sennheiser. This week, these discreet but powerful devices make their Vancouver debut, finding a place on the faces of this year’s diverse roster of speakers. This aesthetic and auditory upgrade directly corresponded to a dislike of previous iterations—notably, by Chris Anderson (the Head of TED) and Mina Sabet (TED’s director of production and video operations) who sought something better… Read more.
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