Hasta La Ideas

Apple created a stir in the tech industry with the announcement of Vision Pro headset, and now the news coming in of visionOS software development kit endless possibilities for the VR headset will unearth. The SDK will lend third-party developers the ability to leverage the headset’s hardware for new exciting features.

In the announcement, Apple addressed the global developers community of developers to create an entirely “new class of spatial computing apps that take full advantage of the infinite canvas in Vision Pro and seamlessly blend digital content with the physical world to enable extraordinary new experiences.”

Designer: Moe Slah

Now that the visionOS SDK will have developers getting creative, the new app experiences will serve categories like productivity, design, gaming, and of course UI. Just in time for this announcement comes this conceptualized feature for Apple Vision Pro to elevate the user experience not only for the wearer but also for curious onlookers. Dubbed the “Mode Indicator” this app will beam visual indications of the wearer’s current activity.

For instance, if he/she is playing a mixed reality game, engrossed in a meeting, binge-watching an action series, or calming down with a meditation session. The user can also choose from in-app text or design custom animations to have a more personalized experience. Simple yet effective, the app will automatically detect the mode of activity and change the headset’s outer display content.

For starters, Moe envisions the app with a preset “Gaming Mode” for interactive and gaming experiences, “Entertainment Mode” for multimedia consumption activities, and “Meditation Mode” for times of calm and focused state of mind. Clearly, the Mode Indicator feature for Vision Pro enhances the understanding and engagement with those around the wearer for a harmonious and collaborative environment. This will be important if we foresee a future with VR headsets seamlessly integrating into daily lives.

The post Mode Indicator for Apple Vision Pro beams visual cues of user’s current state of activity first appeared on Yanko Design.

Dezeen Showroom: Spanish brand Missana collaborated with Amsterdam-based designer Jaro Kose on a seating system that uses interlocking hexagonal modules to optimise floor space.

Hex seating comprises a high- or low-back armchair and an upholstered stool, all of which share a rounded hexagonal footprint and seat.

The modules can be used separately or pushed together to maximise space and create bespoke seating configurations for public spaces, including offices, waiting rooms and lobbies.

“The hexagonal shape of its seat is the main element to compose different modular combinations and surprisingly this geometrical figures is the most repeated shape in nature, but nevertheless rarely before used for a seating design,” said Kose.

The two back heights allow for privacy or semi-privacy, with the option to add further enclosing walls on two more sides.

Hex seating can be specified in a range of upholstery options, including fabrics and materials that match existing colour schemes.

Product: Hex seating
Designer: Jaro Kose
Brand: Missana
Contact: press@missana.es

Dezeen Showroom

Dezeen Showroom offers an affordable space for brands to launch new products and showcase their designers and projects to Dezeen’s huge global audience. For more details email showroom@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Showroom is an example of partnership content on Dezeen. Find out more about partnership content here.

The post Hex seating by Jaro Kose for Missana appeared first on Dezeen.

My favorite kind of story is I couldn’t buy the thing I wanted, so I designed and made it myself, and now I run a successful company selling them. Today’s example is Chicago-based Renaissance man Pierre Miller, a former chemist, writer and music instructor who became obsessed with flex-nib* fountain pens.

*As the name suggests, flex nibs can flex, allowing you to adjust the line width by modulating the pressure you provide. This feature is a big deal among pen nerds.

“I wanted to make things I couldn’t buy,” Miller said in an interview with Pen Addict. “I bought lots of flex pens that didn’t work the way I really wanted. The vintage ones that did, were not replaceable in case of any damage or failure. Dip nib holders with reservoirs didn’t quite give me what I was looking for.”

Miller gave piano lessons on the side, and one of his students, a machinist, offered to teach him how to use a lathe. Naturally, Miller learned how to turn pens.

That was about a decade ago, and today Miller runs The Desiderata Pen Company, which sells stunning writing instruments like this:

“In 2016, I purchased an ABSURD quantity of dramatic cast acrylic to use in pens. Most of it was transparent, colored, and decorated with little accents that looked gorgeous. The only problem was I had almost no experience working with it! Without great care and an almost impractical amount of hand finishing, a presentable (not exemplary, just presentable) appearance was not possible. So I put away the material, and every so often picked off little bits of it on which to practice in the hope that one day I might be able to do it justice without undue effort.

“I finally reached that point last year, and I sold the first pilot run of them at the San Francisco in 2022. To be sure, I’ve sold transparent cast acrylic pens before, but they required a beastly amount of work to be presentable.

“These pens are beautiful and I’m extremely proud of them.”

The pens are produced in batches, all hand-turned by Miller on a lathe, as opposed to being CNC’d. Check out the rest of Desiderata’s offerings here.

Designed by US architects Annie Barrett (heads Aanda) and Hye-Young Chung (leads HYCArch), the Centered Home is a stunning Californian home that features a blackened wood facade, a central cube for sleeping and meditation, and dainty rooms that seem to be streaming with light. The home was designed especially for clients who have a major love for art! The entire project was heavily focused on transforming a Spanish-style house in Los Angeles for a couple who wanted their adoration for art and design to be reflected in their home, with a precise attention to detail.

Designer: Annie Barrett and Hye-Young Chung

The clients have almost reached semi-retirement, and they had their eyes on a long-term home that could adapt and support their changing lifestyle. “They approached the design process less as a means towards an end and more as an opportunity to deeply consider how their constructed environment would participate in shaping ‘phase two’ of their life,” said Chung. The single-story rectangular house occupies almost 2200 square feet, and the facade of the home is clad in a wooden rain screen that was charred via shou sugi ban – the popular Japanese technique.

The interior layout was “informed by a balance of meditative solitude and exuberant communal living,” said the team. The home features a unique and introverted central portion, which is formed like a cube. This section is maintained for private usage, while the front area of the home is appropriate for communal activities, and faces the landscape and the city. “While inside the house, one is either within the cube or living between it and the visually porous exterior envelope of the building, creating direct connections to nature and amplifying the sense of the cube as a volume within a volume – or, a home within a house,” said Barrett.

The central cube of the home houses the main bedroom, which showcases a vaulted ceiling clad in white oak. The impressive ceiling features a skylight as well. A wardrobe with CNC-cut panels amped with soft grooves that create a “crenulated texture of shadows” lines one of the bedroom walls. “Informed by an interest in unexpected details, this millwork is sized to fit the couple’s wardrobe with precision. For instance, individual shoes were measured to ensure ample and accurate spacing,” the team concluded.

The post Unique Californian home features a central cube for sleeping & meditation + playful skylights first appeared on Yanko Design.

This off-grid compound is proof-of-concept for how we can live with climate change

London-based brand Vollebak conceives of future-forward clothing—like a graphene-based jacket, an invisibility cloak and shirts that can endure for 100 years—and now, they’ve designed an island. The ever-innovating brand teamed up with the prolific Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to design the plans for Vollebak Island, a roughly 11-acre compound off the coast of Nova Scotia that will be completely run by clean energy.

Carbon neutral and off-grid, the island will be an exploration of how to live in a world that can no longer deny climate change—and proof that this type of life is not only possible but can also be luxurious. When the plot of land and the design vision were presented together for auction earlier this month, through Sotheby’s, the reserve was not met. As such, the project is still available for purchase and in our opinion, needs to come to fruition as a proving ground, statement piece and reference point for how to live well in the future.

Ingels makes a natural partner for Vollebak given the architect’s acclaimed portfolio championing “hedonistic sustainability.” But even beyond that, BIG has already been asking how they can design a world that survives climate change. Vollebak Island is proof-of-concept for the architect’s answer to that question, which they dub the “Plan for the Planet.” The masterplan (already finalized before Vollebak approached them with this project) is a step-by-step guide to creating a carbon neutral Earth that is inhabited by 10 billion people, a population that we are expected to hit by 2058. BIG’s solution involves first converting all energy into clean, carbon-neutral energy by electrifying transport and buildings and creating synthetic e-fuels for anything that can’t be electrified. Then, renewable energy will become local and decentralized yet work on a global and interconnected scale.

When it comes to resources, the plan imagines drawing back from nature and fossil fuels, using land for clean energy, turning crop residue into biomethane and relying only on sustainable agricultural practices to create more livable land, which could then be divided up equally among the billions of people so that each group of four receives a homestead of around a hectare.

Vollebak Island is the first real test of Plan for the Planet. Run entirely on geothermal energy, offshore wind, solar power and ground source heat pumps, these can all be stored within the walls of the island’s buildings. Earth House, the main hub, is set to be a cluster of nine interconnected buildings akin to a small village. Part architecture and part land art, it rises from the ground organically (BIG intends to raise the topography of the land to keep the buildings partly hidden). It will be made from a range of ancient local materials as well as innovative new ones that represents another synergy with how Vollebak makes their clothing. Featuring a bathhouse made with 3D-printed concrete, a living room that uses thatch as its main material, a dry storage area utilizing the island’s abundance of seaweed and a sunken stargazing room and meditation space created using hempcrete (a bio-composite material made of  hemp shives, lime and sand). The material is also used to create one of the building’s bedrooms and another is made with boulders.

The building will be carefully constructed to work in tandem with the land which bursts with a lush ecosystem. The roofs, in addition to carrying solar panels, feature shrubs and other flora, reducing storm runoff and easing the strain on water and waste management systems.

The other building on the island will be Wood House, a bunker-like annex that lies on the island’s eastern shores. It is proposed to be made with cross-laminated timber from trees on the island. “Laminated in different directions, it’s a relatively new technology,” says Ryohei Koike, lead architect of the project. “So, it can be as thick as possible and almost as robust as concrete.”

The proposal makes clear that food grown will be grown in the island’s greenhouse (made of brick-shaped glass that’s dyed emerald green) and will be bountiful enough to sustain those living there. Chanterelle mushrooms already grow there, and sea scallops, lobster, crab and sea kelp are abundant in its surrounding waters.

Perhaps as an effort to put new spiritual energy into the place or maybe just to continue researching the seasonal dynamics of this unique location, Vollebak is now taking applications for those looking to stay on the island before its buildings are built. Those residing on Vollebak Island will need to know how to live off-grid, without leaving a footprint behind. Rent will cost $1 per night.

Vollebak Island shows how we can exist reciprocally with the environment. While it may only be a small, isolated test, it offers a model that can be scaled and replicated for towns, villages and cities, emphatically denying that a fatalistic apocalypse is our only inevitability.

Images courtesy of Bjarke Ingels Group