Hasta La Ideas

Swiss architecture firm Bureau A created a seven-storey mobile performance space and street kitchen, mounted it on a tricycle and rode it round the streets of Hanoi in Vietnam (+ movie).

Geneva studio Bureau A designed the project for Tadioto, a local bar and cultural centre, as a multipurpose structure to be used for anything from a vertical street-food restaurant to an exhibition space.

Made from a framework of blue-painted steel tubes, the mobile structure also has a small PVC roof and a battery-powered fan and lights.

The tricycle was originally owned by the steel worker who built the structure and they adapted it to fit in the bottom section.

“When we were there [in Vietnam] we crossed the whole city with it, from the outskirts in the fields where the bike was actually made to the very centre of Hanoi where we had a small party,” said architect Daniel Zamarbide.

“The main purpose of this mobile device was to do a sort of humble ‘performance’ using local know-how and culture,” he added.

There have been a few mobile structures that can be cycled to wherever they’re needed in the city recently, including a group of tiny pedal-powered mobile parks in Baku and a mobile town square that features a miniature clock tower on the back of a bicycle.

Photography is by Boris Zuliani.

Here’s a short description from Bureau A:

Ta đi Ôtô

Everything is dense in Hanoi, including the milk in your coffee. Everything is used. In unexpected ways “things” live different lives, they reincarnate continuously into new functions, passing from one life to another without a moment of respite. In Hanoi, this magic of creativity ends up in everyday life as opposed to art museums. The blue, a vertical Bia Hoi for Tadioto accompanies this creative movement.

Conceived as a support for small pieces of lives, as an ephemeral house or as a vertical street food restaurant, it might deviate from its original yet wide function and become something else, an unexpected urban animal. A mini-concert hall? A poetry podium ? It probably just needs to circulate, to stroll around the busy streets of Hanoi and then it’ll decide by itself which disguise to adopt.

The post Ta đi Ôtô mini-skyscraper on a tricycle
by Bureau A appeared first on Dezeen.

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German design studio Ding3000 has created a high-tech version of the first pedalled bicycle, introducing electric power and plastics to the 148-year-old invention (+ slideshow).

Ding3000 collaborated with chemical company BASF to create the Concept 1865 prototype bike, combining various plastics into a contemporary interpretation of an early bicycle.

BASF was founded in 1865, the year pedals were added to German inventor Karl Drais’ wooden Dandy Horse velocipede bicycle, so this provided the starting point for the new design.

Pedals attach directly to the centre of the front wheel, which is much larger than the supporting back wheel.

The electric motor is concealed beneath a blue disk on the back wheel, designed to protect it from water, dirt and stone chips.

An angular seat protrudes from the long part of the frame, which connects the handlebars to the rear wheel.

The battery is located in the seat, which can be detached and carried away with a handle so no one can ride off on the bike when its left unattended.

The same graphic pattern used over the seat padding is found on the tyre treads and handlebar grips.

Other details include pedals without bearings and LEDs integrated into the sections of frame located either side of both wheels.

Here’s some more text from the designers:

Concept 1865

Ding3000 designs an E-Velocipede made of high-performance plastics.

Conspicuous with its wheels of different sizes, the velocipede was the first pedal-powered cycle in history. Ding3000 and the chemical company BASF have now rebuilt the 19th-century bike as a modern e-bike. But why?

With the Concept 1865, we are taking a trip back to the year 1865, when BASF was founded. This was also the point in time when Karl Drais’ wooden Dandy Horse was given its first pedals, which launched the bicycle on the road to global success. As a tribute to this era of enthusiasm for technology and invention, Ding3000 and BASF have embarked on an unparalleled thought experiment and asked: How would the first pedal cycle have looked if the pioneers of the bike had had today’s advanced materials to work with?

In cooperation with BASF, Ding3000 has developed the E-Velocipede Concept 1865. It is a ready-to-ride prototype with an electric drive and 24 polymer applications, some of which are highly innovative like the bearingless all-plastic pedals made of Ultrason or the light and puncture-proof tires made of Infinergy.

By implementing this design study Ding3000 obviously does not intend to reinvent the bicycle, let alone the wheel. Under the slogan “Rethinking Materials”, the unusual e-bike is in fact an invitation to customers to join the company in developing new applications and product ideas utilising advanced plastics. It is an invitation to question the status quo and create something new – just as the pioneers of cycling did in their time.

The post Concept 1865 electric bike
by Ding3000 appeared first on Dezeen.

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