Hasta La Ideas

Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Dave Hakkens’ concept for a mobile phone made of detachable blocks has gone viral, attracting over 16 million views on YouTube and garnering almost a million supporters online (+ movie + interview).

“I put the video online and in the first 24 hours I had like one million views on YouTube,” Hakkens told Dezeen. “I got a lot of responses to it.”

Dutch designer Hakkens, who graduated from Design Academy Eindhoven this summer, presented his Phonebloks concept at the academy’s graduation show in Eindhoven today at the start of Dutch Design Week.

Phonebloks is a concept for a phone made of swappable components that fit together like Lego, with each component containing a different function. This means that components can be replaced or upgraded without having to throw away the phone.

“Usually a phone is integrated into one solid block and if one part gets broken you have to throw away the entire phone,” said Hakkens. “But this has different components, so if  your battery is broken you can replace the the battery or if you need a better camera you only upgrade the camera component. So you don’t throw away the entire phone; you keep the good stuff.”

Last month Hakkens uploaded a video explaining the concept to YouTube, where it went viral and has now been watched over 16 million times.

He then put the idea on “crowdspeaking” site Thunderclap, where instead of donating money, supporters donate their social reach. He now has over 900,000 supporters on the site, and when the campaign closes on 29 October a message about Phonebloks will automatically be sent to each supporters’ social media contacts, giving Hakkens a total audience of over 360 million people.

Hakkens said: “That’s the whole point of this idea; to generate lots of buzz so companies see there’s a huge market and realise they really need to make a phone like this.”

The Phonebloks concept features electronic blocks that snap onto a base board, which links all the components. Two small screws lock everything together. Users can choose components from their favourite brands or make their own modules.

“You can customise your phone, replacing the storage block with a larger battery if you store everything in the cloud, or replace advanced components you don’t need with basic blocks like a bigger speaker,” says the video explaining the concept.

Hakkens hopes Phonebloks will lead to fewer phones being thrown away, thereby reducing waste. “Electronic devices are not designed to last,” the video says. “This makes electronic waste one of the fastest-growing waste streams in the world and our phone is one of the biggest causes.”

Here’s the interview conducted at Design Academy Eindhoven today:

Marcus Fairs: What is Phonebloks?

Dave Hakkens: Phonebloks is a phone made to upgrade and repair; it’s a phone worth keeping. Usually we throw it away after a couple of years. But this one is made to last.

Marcus Fairs: How is it made to last?

Dave Hakkens: Usually a phone is integrated into one solid block, and if one part gets broken you have to throw away the entire phone. But this has different components, so if for instance only your battery is broken you can replace the the battery, or if it’s slow after a couple of years you can change just the speed component. If you need a better camera you only upgrade the camera component. So in this way you don’t throw away the entire phone; you keep the good stuff.

Marcus Fairs: Tell us how it went viral.

Dave Hakkens: The idea with this whole project is I’m just one guy at the Design Academy; I can’t make this phone by myself. I can go to a lot of companies and pitch, ask them if they’d like to make my phone, but I thought I’d do it the other way around; so I gathered a lot of people who told companies they really wanted this phone. So I put this video online and in the first 24 hours I had like one million views on YouTube. I also gathered supporters so currently I have 900,000 supporters, and they all just wanted this phone. So now I have all this attention and I get a lot of nice emails from companies who want to work on this.

Marcus Fairs: How did you spread the message?

Dave Hakkens: You have this site called Thunderclap. On Thunderclap instead of crowdfunding you crowdspeak people; people don’t donate money but instead they donate their friends and family. You say you’re interested in a project and want to support it, so you donate your friends – their Facebook followers and Twitter followers – and on the 29 October automatically a message is sent out by those people saying “We want phone blocks”. That spreads to all their friends and families. So currently I have like 900,000 supporters but on 29 October we will reach 300 million people. So that’s the whole point of this idea; to generate lots of buzz so companies see there’s a huge market and realise they really need to make a phone like this.

Marcus Fairs: What is the next step?

Dave Hakkens: My idea succeeded from day one; I got a lot of responses to it. I’ve got a lot of people interested in developing it: engineers, technicians and companies. So right now I’m thinking what would be a logical next step. Crowdsource it on the internet? Work together with a company? That’s what I’m thinking about now; how to realise the phone the best way.

The post Phonebloks mobile phone concept
by Dave Hakkens appeared first on Dezeen.

Dutch designer Aldo Bakker has curated an exhibition at Gallery Libby Sellers in London that presents his products alongside complimentary pieces from the gallery’s inventory.

Gallery Libby Sellers invited Aldo Bakker to select works from its collection that share materials or details with his own and present these as a way “to create interesting conversations, connections and juxtapositions between the two.”

Bakker chose pieces by Formafantasma, Max Lamb, Julia Lohmann, Peter Marigold, Jonathan Muecke and Lex Pott, and says that he was interested in seeing his work alongside that of designers such as Lamb and Marigold because of their contrasting working methods.

“Both Max and Peter work in the moment, their works comes to existence by doing,” Bakker told Dezeen. “In my case, the moment is dissolved in the whole, and you do not see many traces of the process of making.”

Materials that recur often in Bakker’s work, including metal, wood, glass and ceramic, are also prevalent in the works that he chose for the show.

“Contrary to a solo exhibition, a group show offers more entrances to the different works, and most likely enables the viewer to see the objects more clearly and precisely because of the oppositions,” Bakker explains. “I hope that the differences between the works will help visitors understand them better.”

At the 2010 Milan Furniture Fair Bakker presented a series of copper objects, including a tubular watering can that features in the exhibition.

Spaces in Between is at Gallery Libby Sellers until 14 December 2013.

Here’s are some more details from the gallery:

Spaces in Between
15 October – 14 December 2013

Gallery Libby Sellers is pleased to present Spaces In Between – a group show curated by the award-winning designer Aldo Bakker.

Contemplation and communication are at the heart of Bakker’s practice; his works in wood, metal, glass and ceramic are rigorously considered and purposely provoke reaction from the end user. By way of highlighting this, and to initiate a dialogue with the gallery, Bakker was invited to select objects from both the gallery’s existing works and his own extensive repertoire in order to create interesting conversations, connections and juxtapositions between the two.

Having had free access to the gallery’s entire inventory, Bakker’s choices confirm his position as an arbiter of materials, detail and form. His final selection comprises works by Formafantasma, Max Lamb, Julia Lohmann, Peter Marigold, Jonathan Muecke and Lex Pott – and each will be presented as counterpoints with specific designs from Bakker’s own works. While Bakker will introduce these interchanges between objects, it will be left to the visitor to bring their own interpretations and translations to the conversations.

Bakker (b.1971) views his designs as the work of a ‘vormgever’, which in Dutch literally means ‘giver of form’. As he says, “both in my language and in my form, I choose to approach ‘authenticity’ and ‘originality’ very precisely and I allow my designs to acquire physical shape only when I deem them to be ‘autonomous entities’”. His work can be found in international public collections, including Vitra (Germany), the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (Rotterdam), the Zuiderzee Museum (Enkhuizen) and the Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum (New York). He has collaborated with clients including Thomas Eyck, Izé, Sèvres, Nodus and Wallpaper*. Bakker was the recipient of the 2012 Z33 Architecture Competition Award, and has also won Wallpaper* Design Awards for ‘Best Stool’ and ‘Best Use of Material’ (2011). He lives and works in Amsterdam and is a tutor at the Design Academy Eindhoven.

Opening times: Tuesday – Friday, 11am – 6pm Saturday, 11am – 4pm

The post Spaces in Between by Aldo Bakker
at Gallery Libby Sellers appeared first on Dezeen.

Beijing architecture studio Elevation Workshop completed a freestanding structure made from strips of strengthened bamboo for Beijing Design Week 2013.

Elevation Workshop was one of thirteen practices invited to create an installation using bamboo steel, a laminated and treated material that is formed using bamboo and produced in China.

Designed and assembled by the practice, the structure is formed from vertical members that stand at angles to zig-zagging horizontal planes. Visitors interacted with the piece by sitting or lying on the benches, or by walking through a hinged upright element that opens like a door.

All the installations were exhibited at the 751 D-Park, a former industrial facility in northeast Beijing.

Beijing Design Week 2013 featured a few of installations, including a pattern of strings through a Beijing hutong and a pavilion surrounded by 1200 vertical brass tubes.

See more information from the architects below:

ELEV installation for Beijing Design Week

The installation is a freestanding system that contains space for human activity and interaction.

The design generates an ambiguous space by creating a set of floating horizontal surfaces that offer functional need for visitors.

They are invited to lie, sit, stand and walk through the installation, constantly shifting between being enclosed and being exposed.

The suspended edge condition provides a gradual and soft connection to the surrounding area.

The boundary between inside and outside is blurred.

The elegant vertical element resembles the material quality of bamboo, lean yet strong.

The post Clue installation by
Elevation Workshop appeared first on Dezeen.

Product news: New York designer Karim Rashid has created a faceted glass bottle and visual identity for American vodka brand Anestasia.

Karim Rashid referenced the angular strokes of the letters V and K in the word vodka when designing the asymmetric form of the Anestasia bottle, which he first began work on in 2012.

“The bottle’s faceted form grew out of the gustatory feelings for the vodka – but also I actually played with the letters of vodka,” Rashid told Dezeen. “The V’s and K’s made for great faceted forms.”

Rashid was also responsible for the typography and logo for the product.

Zaha Hadid released a design for a curvaceous wine bottle for Austrian winemaker Leo Hillinger earlier this week and Nendo has previously created packaging for coffee-flavoured beer.

The post Vodka bottle by Karim Rashid
for Anestasia appeared first on Dezeen.

Ai Pioppi est le nom du restaurant de Bruno, situé en pleine forêt de Battaglia en Italie. Afin d’attirer une clientèle plus importante, le patron du restaurant pense et réalise lui-même depuis plus de 40 ans des manèges et autres balançoires à l’arrière de l’établissement. Un mini-parc d’attractions, œuvre d’une vie.