Hasta La Ideas

News: a flying car capable of vertical takeoff and landing is being developed by the makers of a two-seater aircraft that turns into a car (+ movie).

Massachusetts-based company Terrafugia has announced it is working on a concept for a four-seater vehicle with motorised rotors, which can take off without the need for a runway.

Dubbed TF-X, the vehicle’s wings and rotors are designed to fold into the side of the car when it’s on the road, making it small enough to park in a standard garage.

The ability to take off from standstill would allow owners to take to the air from their driveways. Once in the air, it is expected to be able to fly nonstop for 500 miles.

The TF-X probably wouldn’t be suitable for escaping traffic jams, however, as it requires a 30-metre-wide clear space around it during takeoff.

A working model of the aircraft is expected to become available to purchase within eight to 12 years.

Meanwhile Terrafugia’s earlier flying car concept, the Transition, which last year flew for eight minutes at an altitude of 420 metres during its test flight, is set to become available to buy within two years, priced at £190,000.

In 2010, Terrafugia worked with Danish industrial designers KiBiSi on the second generation redesign of the Transition.

Other hybrid vehicles we’ve featured include a car shaped like a catamaran and designer Ross Lovegrove’s idea for bubble-shaped cars powered by solar canopies – see all transport.

Here’s more information from Terrafugia:

Terrafugia Shares TF-X Vision

Terrafugia Inc., the developer of the Transition street-legal airplane, announced its vision for the future of personal transportation. Building on its experience with the Transition program, Terrafugia has begun feasibility studies of a four-seat, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) plug-in hybrid- electric flying car, the TF-X. Incorporating the state-of-the-art in intelligent systems, fly by wire controls, and currently available technology, the TF-X will further increase the level of safety, simplicity, and convenience of personal aviation.

“This is the right time for us to begin thinking about the future of the company beyond Transition development,” says Terrafugia CEO/CTO Carl Dietrich. “We are passionate about continuing to lead the creation of a flying car industry and are dedicating resources to lay the foundations for our vision of personal transportation.”

Terrafugia’s design team is excited to be looking ahead to TF-X development activities as the Transition programme shifts from research and development to certification, production, and customer support activities. The Transition serves as a Proof of Process for TF-X development and commercialisation through the many technical, regulatory, and usage challenges it has overcome.

By directly addressing congestion and other transportation challenges currently being faced internationally, widespread adoption of vehicles like the Transition and TF-X could result in significant economic benefits and personal time savings. Preliminary conversations with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the TF-X concept have demonstrated their willingness to consider innovative technologies and regulatory solutions that are in the public interest and enhance the level of safety of personal aviation. Terrafugia is excited to be nearing production of the Transition and continuing to push the envelope of personal transportation.

Terrafugia (terra-FOO-gee-ah), based in Woburn, MA, is a growing aerospace company founded by pilot- engineers from MIT and supported by a world-class network of advisors and investors. The company name is Latin for “escape the earth.” Terrafugia’s mission is to build practical flying cars.

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concept unveiled appeared first on Dezeen.

Eindhoven designer Paul Heijnen presented an articulated lamp like a huge wooden insect at Rossana Orlandi’s Bagatti Valsecchi 2.0 exhibition in Milan (+ movie).

Called Hyperion Spotlight, the piece is assembled from many components of CNC-cut oak. Joints allow it to be posed in various positions ranging from a low crouch to stretching up on tip-toes, as seen in the stop-motion animation by Niels Hoebers.

“Hyperion is finding a way of putting the world around us together in a unconventional but stimulating way,” says Paul Heijnen. “Instead of concealing and hiding a product’s constructional and mechanical functions, this three-legged spotlight celebrates them.”

The piece is the first in a series of installations at different scales and Heijnen hopes to create a six-metre-high one in steel to sit atop Piet Hein Eek‘s Eindhoven headquarters, in a former ceramic factory, for Dutch Design Week in October.

“This is merely in the planning stage but I would like to put a super-strong laser inside it that beams over the city,” says the designer. The project is named Hyperion after the Titan god of light, whose name means “watcher from above”.

Curator Rossana Orlandi presented the piece as part of her exhibition at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, a 19th century family house converted into a museum to preserve its interiors and display the family’s decorative arts collection. Other pieces on show included a solid marble chair by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny.

See all our stories about Milan 2013 »
See all our stories about lighting »

Movie credits

Concept and set design by Paul Heijnen and Niels Hoebers
Hyperion by Paul Heijnen
Stop-motion animation by Niels Hoebers
Music and sound design by Fab Martini

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by Paul Heijnen appeared first on Dezeen.

News: a tiny robotic insect that hovers in the air like a fly has been built by scientists at Harvard University (+ movies).

The robot, which weighs just 80 milligrams and is the size of a small coin, can hover in the air for up to 20 seconds.

Its Harvard University developers modelled the robot’s movement on real flies, which flap their wings around 120 times per second.

The researchers made the wings with piezoelectric material, which contracts when a small electrical charge is passed through it.

Switching the voltage on and off at high speeds produces a rapid contracting effect that mimics the movement of a fly’s tiny wing muscles.

For now, the robots have to be tethered to thin copper wires that provide electric power and navigation information, but the researchers hope that a battery will one day be lightweight enough to be attached to the robot itself.

The team suggests the robots could be used for search-and-rescue operations, monitoring environmental damage, tracing chemicals or pollinating crops, while their discreet size could also make them suitable for military surveillance.

The RoboBee project was reported in the journal Science this week by Dr Robert Wood and his team at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard.

Last year we reported on robot helicopters programmed to lift and stack polystyrene bricks into a six metre-high tower, while other machines we’ve featured include a duo of robotic bartenders and a robotic 3D printer that builds architecture from sand  – see all robots.

Photographs are by Kevin Ma and Pakpong Chirarattananon.

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takes flight appeared first on Dezeen.

UK studio Universal Everything motion-captured a dancer to make this animation, which is projected onto the world’s highest-resolution screen (+ movie).

“We choreographed a contemporary dancer in a motion capture studio,” Universal Everything founder Matt Pyke told Dezeen. “We then transformed the motion capture data into a digital sculpture, formed from the trails of human movement.”

The hundreds of white light points that form the dancing figure become strands that glow yellow, then red, before solidifying into blue as the dancer moves across the screen.

Universal Everything produced animations at a highly detailed 16K resolution for the 25-metre-wide by four-metre-high screen in the Hyundai Vision Hall, located at the South Korean motor group’s Seoul campus.

“The film was produced at such a high resolution to achieve a life-sized dancer moving through the space,” said Pyke.

The studio and various collaborators created 18 short films for the hall to turn it into “a space that inspires leaders, engineers, scientists, workers and designers to learn, rethink, and collaborate.”

More digital installations on Dezeen include Arik Levy’s interactive screen that uses visitors’ movements to mutate computer-generated crystals and a wall of digital animals that distract children on their way to surgery.

See all our stories about installations »

Universal Everything sent us the following information:

Hyundai Vision Hall

Euisun Chung, Vice Chairman of the Hyundai Motor Group (HMG), has a vision for the company that he leads. His aim is to align HMG with the best contemporary art, sculpture and digital design in the world. Artistic invention and innovation will be at the heart of both Hyundai and Kia’s future vision.

“The Vision Hall at Hyundai Motor Group’s Mabuk Campus is a symbolic space for presenting employees with Hyundai Motor Group’s values, providing them with a sense of pride, and sharing with them its dreams. The media wall, the central focus of the Hall, screens three video artworks that convey the vision and core values of the group.

An interactive artwork ‘Who Am We’ by world-renowned artist Do-Ho Suh was designed to develop pride and solidarity among the group’s employees and was produced through the participation of employees throughout the world. A metaphorical film series ‘Mobius Loop’ by Universal Everything expresses the group’s vision, management philosophy and core values. The third film, ‘Documentary’ depicts the last 10 years of Hyundai Motor Group’s history.

The Vision Hall – through continuous development of diverse creative content in collaboration with the group’s employees is a digital media archive that conveys and communicates the vision of Hyundai Motor Group” – Euisun Chung

To date HMG have collaborated with leading exponent and practitioner of Korean art Do Ho Suh, architect Elho Suh, and Peter Schreyer – Chief Design Officer for KIA, one of the world’s leading automotive designers (and a fine artist in his own right). The latest talent to be invited on-board are Universal Everything (UE) – an internationally acclaimed, UK based multidisciplinary studio working at the crossover of digital art and design.

The HMG Vision Hall

The Vision Hall is the first physical manifestation of E.S. Chung’s thinking. A contemplative and Zen like space at the entrance to Hyundai’s Mabuk University Campus – Elho Suh’s minimalist masterpiece that sits high in the verdant hills outside Seoul. Measuring around 900sqm the Hall is stripped of superfluous decoration, allowing visitors to appreciate its rich palette of materials and more importantly to concentrate the eye on its focal point and crowning glory – a 25m wide, 4m tall, 44k resolution screen seamlessly constructed from 720 micro tiles.

This is a space that will greet the majority of HMG’s 80,000 worldwide employees over the coming months – a space that will allow leaders, engineers, scientists, workers and designers alike to learn, rethink, collaborate and be inspired.

Universal Everything’s brief

Universal Everything were commissioned to fill the world’s highest resolution screen with content that would simply ‘inspire’. Such creative freedom is indeed rare. Matt Pyke, UE’s founder and Creative Director, was specifically asked not to include any brand related slogans or logos – furthermore he was requested not to feature Hyundai or Kia cars currently in production.

The sole ‘commercial’ request was to nod at the ‘mobius loop’ concept that underpins HMG’s whole ethos and production process. This loop symbolizes the infinite cycle of resource circulation and serves to connect all the innovative, creative activities and events of the Group into an organic whole. As an illustration HMG make steel to make cars, and then the cars are recycled to make more steel.

“The sheer scale of the vision hall, and the freedom that the HMG granted us gave us the power to create powerful, immersive audio-visual experiences which had never been seen or heard before. The commission allowed us to push our ambitions, transforming familiar subjects and materials into hyper real beautiful abstract expressions” – Matt Pyke

The intention is to allow Hyundai and KIA’s staff to digest the work openly and personally – to allow a deeper connection and to arrive at their own interpretations of the artworks – possibly seeing the familiar in the unfamiliar. The shear scale and resolution of the onscreen content combined with an immersive sound system would instill HMG’s staff with a sense of shared pride and solidarity – making them realize that they are indeed an integral part of the ‘bigger picture’.

Why ask UE?

UE were asked on board at the inception of the Vision Hall project as HMG’s ‘digital artists in residence’. The invitation came on the back of artistically pioneering and challenging work created for (amongst others) La Gaite Lyrique – Paris’ brand new Digital Art Museum, Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong HQ and Coldplay’s sell out world tour of 2012.

UE’s response

The project has been the studio’s most ambitious project to date – requiring the core staff of 4 to swell to over 30 for the duration of the project. Matt Pyke and long term collaborator, director Dylan Griffith’s response to the challenging brief has yielded 18 films in total, ranging in duration from 00’40” to 02’45”. Created exclusively for their architectural context, the films allow the giant screen to become a ‘stage’ – a performance space that is often filled with life size humans and abstracted production processes.

The films mix a myriad of animation styles and live action – building upon UE’s trademark ethos of ‘maximum innovation’. Abstraction is pitted against familiarity to engage all types of viewer – whilst themes such as nature, technology and mans relationship with them feature heavily. All areas of HMG’s activity are explored with hyper real vision and audio – from steel creation to architecture, construction, future technologies, the corporation’s diverse multi-talented workforce to car design and production.

GGI studios in London, sound engineers in Germany and the UK, Korean programmers, an Italian Director of Photography and Film Directors from Amsterdam and Hong Kong were choreographed from UE’s home base of Sheffield, UK.

The post Made by Humans
by Universal Everything appeared first on Dezeen.

Fetishistic suits of armour, orthopaedic braces and wearable tusks all feature in an exhibition of prosthetics at the SHOWcabinet space in London (+ movie).

Curated by Niamh White, associate director of fashion film website SHOWstudio, the exhibition opened on Thursday and contains pieces intended to enhance, protect or deform the body.

The name of the showcase derives from the Ancient Greek word “prosthesis”, which means “to add”, but the collection also incorporates the modern understanding of prosthetics as replacement limbs.

Above: Fragmented Figure by Úna Burke

Designer Úna Burke created original pieces for the show made from leather straps joined with rivets, which encase limbs like a suit of armour.

Above: RE.TREAT #4 by Úna Burke

A black leather outfit is made up of one piece that covers the neck, arms and shoulders, and another that fits over the legs up to the waist, leaving the chest and abdomen exposed.

Above: RE.TREAT #8 by Úna Burke

Similar tan coloured pieces include a bodice extended over the shoulders and up the neck, fingerless gauntlets and a restraining device that forces the arms into a submissive position by encasing them together in front of the body.

Above: RE.TREAT #6 by Úna Burke

Burke and SHOWstudio collaborated on a film titled Bound, in which the black attire is warped as if a wearer is moving in it – watch a teaser at the top of this page or the full movie here.

Above: Infundibulum White Brace by Kat Marks

Other items in the collection include legs worn by American athlete Aimee Mullins at the London 2012 Paralympics opening ceremony, adorned with golden wings that flow up each shin.

Above: Infundibulum Black Brace by Kat Marks

Following her experience of wearing a back brace as a teenager, designer Kat Marks created three vacuum-formed thermo-plastic braces in 2009.

Above: Crown of Thorns with Mirror by Patrick Ian Hartley

A headdress formed from pipette-shaped glass tubes that fan out from a metal head brace complete with screws is by designer Patrick Ian Hartley, as are a range of restored artificial hip joints.

Above: Animal – The Other Side of Evolution #4 by Ana Rajcevic

Horns and tusks from London College of Fashion graduate Ana Rajcevic‘s Animal: The Other Side of Evolution series are also on display.

Above: Animal – The Other Side of Evolution #3 by Ana Rajcevic

The SHOWcabinet gallery space and shop are situated in Belgravia, west London, and host new exhibitions every couple of months. The Prosthetics exhibition is on display until 31 May.

Above: Splint #1 by Patrick Ian Hartley

SHOWstudio recently streamed a live project during which photographer Nick Knight captured water thrown at model Daphne Guinness. His images were used by Dutch fashion designer Iris van Herpen to create a dress – more information in our previous story.

Above: Splint #2 by Patrick Ian Hartley

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See more architecture and design exhibitions »

The information below is from SHOWstudio:

The term ‘prosthetic’ is now attributed to the branch of surgery dedicated to replacing missing or defective limbs, but to the Ancient Greeks it was an altogether more assertive concept meaning ‘to add’, ‘to advance’ or ‘to give power to’. For April’s SHOWcabinet, our re-imagined gallery space, we embrace this original meaning and display a range of artefacts that engage directly with prosthetics’ ability to adorn, equip and enhance.

Above: Splint #3 by Patrick Ian Hartley

Una Burke’s leather sculptures create the foundation for the installation. Her inanimate bodies engage the language of the physical gesture. Each limb is constructed from countless, beautifully bound leather straps and resemble orthopedic braces or suits of armour. While offering protection or support, they also suggest that the encased body is a fragile system. This constant interplay between empowerment and restriction creates a fetishistic dialectic between invisibility and visibility, as well as denial and disclosure. Burke will also release an exclusive film directed by SHOWstudio’s Head of Fashion Film Marie Schuller to coincide with the launch of the cabinet. The film sees her ordinarily motionless figure brought surreally and subtly to life.

Above: Chimere by Yiqing Yin

Alongside Burke’s work sit a variety of objects and artefacts which explore ideas surrounding prosthetics. Created during a dynamic collaboration between Aimee Mullins, Betony Vernon and Dorset Orthopeadics, the prosthetic legs that Mullins wore as a Chef de Mission for the Paralympic Opening Ceremony will be on view in the cabinet. With the legacy of last summer’s Olympic games still fresh, the imagery on Mullins’ sculptural legs is powerful. A full set of wings run the length of each shin – a reminder of Icarus, and a nod to intrepid innovation. Mullins herself competed in the Atlanta Paralympic Games in 2006 sporting a pair of the then newly developed cheetah style prosthetics and has painstakingly spent her career giving a more positive and empowered face to disability.

Above: Brand New Smile by Kyle Hopkins

Also featured in the cabinet is Kat Marks’ artefact collection ‘The Braces’. Inspired by her own experience of having to wear a Boston Back Brace to redirect the curvature of her spine in her adolescence, Marks has created 3 vacuum-formed thermo-plastic braces in various colours and styles. Remaining true to the original function of the brace, these stylised pieces hold the waist in tight and accentuate the hips, exaggerating a shape which echoes an hour glass figure. No longer does the brace read as medical accoutrement but rather speaks to fashionable ideals of beauty and sexuality.

Alongside these powerful anchors, we present an array of items from innovators in fashion and art who embrace augmentation and aesthetics in tackling the idea of bodily enhancement and extension. Medical anomalies and instruments were often housed in early nineteenth century curiosity cabinets, but we’ve chosen to include artwork by Una Burke, Aimee Mullins, Betony Vernon, Kat Marks, Patrick Ian Hartley, Dai Rees, Kyle Hopkins, Ana Rajcevic, Naomi Filmer, Tara Dougans and Yiqing Yin as a means to probe the potential in prosthetics.

The display will be accompanied by a series of events and discussion geared towards exploring the creative industries’ capabilities to expand perceptions of prosthetics.

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at SHOWcabinet appeared first on Dezeen.