Hasta La Ideas

pStudy interior/product design with Patricia Urquiola, food design with Marti Guixe, or auto design with Chris Bangle. Milan’s SPD (Scuola Politecnica di Design) is pulling in some seriously heavyweight design talent to lead this year’s Summer Courses. The workshops will be held in English and are tightly compressed into a single week:/p

blockquoteEach workshop starts on Friday with the briefing. Saturday is devoted to cultural activities, Sunday is free. The final designs will be presented on Thursday./blockquote

pSounds like it’ll be quick and intensive./p

pApplicants will need their CV and portfolio. A HREF=”http://www.scuoladesign.com/pages/summer-school-2010/?lang=it” Click here/A for more info on how to apply./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/bangle_guixe_urquiola_head_up_milan_summer_courses_16525.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”0bfic2010.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/0bfic2010.jpg” width=”468″ height=”516″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

p[images courtesy A HREF=”http://www.barefootcollege.org/” Barefoot College/A, first entrant listed below]/p

pBuckminster Fuller would be proud. The annual challenge held in his name is not some pie-in-the-sky design competition where the slickest rendering wins; instead the A HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/” Buckminster Fuller Challenge/A seeks “workable solution[s] to one of the world’s most significant challenges such as water scarcity, food supply, and energy consumption.” 215 entrants from around the world threw their hats into the ring this year, and competition was reportedly stiff./p

pAfter much deliberation six finalists were chosen by A HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/jurors” a distinguished 11-member jury/A including Cores fave John Thackara, IMetropolis/I E-in-C Susan Szenasy, Earth University President Jose Zaglul and others. Said BFI Exec Director Elizabeth Thompson, “Strong themes emerged from this year’s pool involving issues around urban agriculture and the built environment, disaster recovery and transition, community engagement and global ecology, and smart business strategies tied to creative use of technology to improve quality of life in the most impoverished parts of the world.”/p

pThe six finalists are as follows:/p

blockquoteBarefoot Women Solar Engineers of Africa, Asia and Latin America (Tilonia, Rajasthan, India)
Training women in remote towns and villages to solar electrify their own communities and to be the ongoing resident solar engineers, thereby catalyzing the local economy and improving quality of life.

pA HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_CalltoFarm” Call to Farm: FarmShare/A (Brooklyn, NY, US)br /
FarmShare reconnects farmers and consumers as co-producers of the foodscape using urban backyards and an online social network. This is a leading model in the emerging urban agricultural movement./p

pA HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_EcoBlvd” Eco-Boulevards/A (Chicago, IL, US)br /
This remedy re-conceives the Chicago street-grid as a holistic Bio-System that captures, cleans and returns wastewater and storm-water to the Lakes. This model could be instrumental in how cities around one of the largest bodies of fresh water operate as mindful gatekeepers of a critical resource./p

pA HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_LivingBuildingChallenge” Living Building Challenge/A (Seattle, WA, US)br /
One of, if not the most, comprehensive set of design and performance based standards related to the built environment. Their purpose is to effect a paradigm shift in our entire approach to the buildings we design, construct, renovate and occupy and to serve as a catalyst for innovation./p

pA HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_OperationHope” Operation Hope: Permanent water and food security for Africa’s impoverished millions/A (Africa and New Mexico, US)br /
This project demonstrates how to reverse desertification of the world’s savannas and grasslands, thereby contributing enormously to mitigating climate change, biomass burning, drought, flood, drying of rivers and underground waters, disappearing wildlife, massive poverty, social breakdown, violence and genocide/p

pA HREF=”http://challenge.bfi.org/2010Finalist_WatergyGreenhouse” Watergy Greenhouse/A (Berlin, Germany)br /
This project is refining a closed system greenhouse that provides extremely efficient farming capabilities in water-scarce communities. It will allow a dramatic shift in resource efficiency for the supply of water, food and renewable material and can be deployed across urban and rural conditions./p

pThe winner will be revealed at a ceremony in Washington DC on June 2nd, 2010 at the National Press Club and will be awarded $100,000 in prize money to honor and encourage further development of their work./blockquotebr /
/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/buckminster_fuller_challenge_2010_finalists_announced_16485.asp”(more…)/a
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pembed src=”http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1634700375″ bgcolor=”#FFFFFF” flashVars=”videoId=77837410001playerId=1634700375viewerSecureGatewayURL=https://console.brightcove.com/services/amfgatewayservicesURL=http://services.brightcove.com/servicescdnURL=http://admin.brightcove.comdomain=embedautoStart=false” base=”http://admin.brightcove.com” name=”flashObj” width=”468″ height=”397″ seamlesstabbing=”false” type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” swLiveConnect=”true” pluginspage=”http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash”/embed/p

pLast week, a href=”http://www.risd.edu”RISD/a was the first art and design school to compete in a href=”http://moonbuggy.msfc.nasa.gov/”NASA’s 17th Annual Great Moonbuggy Race/a in Huntsville, AL and they didn’t disappoint. The team of industrial design students took home the a href=”http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1848327/winners_of_17th_annual_great_moonbuggy_race_announced/index.html?source=r_space””Rookie Award”/a (for fastest course completion by a new team) and third place overall out of over 70 teams from around the world.br /
br /
“Sponsored by the US Space Rocket Center, the annual competition challenges students to design, build and race lightweight, human-powered vehicles that can whiz across a simulation of the rugged lunar landscape. Teams are judged by how quickly and easily their vehicles negotiate the twisting curves, treacherous gravel pits and other obstacles of a half-mile course riddled with some of the same challenges faced by Apollo-era astronauts in their lunar rovers.”br /
br /
The most interesting anecdote from the event, however, was not the impressive result by the RISD team but rather the commentary and the overall attitude presented by the interviewers in Huntsville. Throughout the entire video (above) the commentators continued to express their doubts in the team and their continued surprise that the team “had no engineers!”(and was doing so well?)/p

p img alt=”nasa spread.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/nasa%20spread.jpg” width=”468″ height=”303″ class=”mt-image-center” style=”text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 10px;” /blockquotesmallSPR (Small Pressurize Rover) Storage Concept. a href=”http://www.erikaskin.com”Erik Askin/a, RISD ’10./small/blockquote/p

pThis experience is a testament to the continued sentiment that design is still largely regarded as an aesthetic discipline and that true innovation is to be left to engineers. Finally, the video closes with a great line (nearly muffled out by laughter) by one of the commentators that NASA should “consider hiring some Rhode Island School of Design graduates” with his partner sarcastically adding “why not, it could work.”/p

pimg alt=”nasa_2.JPG” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/nasa_2.JPG” width=”468″ height=”312″ class=”mt-image-center” style=”text-align: center; display: block; margin: 0 auto 20px;” /blockquotesmallEvaluation of spacesuit maintenance station concept. a href=”http://matt-cav.com”Matt Cavallaro/a, RISD ’10. a href=”http://www.portfoliotwentytwo.com/”Bryan Cloyd/a, RISD ’11/small/blockquote/p

pIronically, RISD industrial students have been consulting for NASA for years in the annual a href=”http://www.risd.edu/sponsored_research_nasa.htm””NASA Studio”/a and several students and graduated have been hired as a href=”http://www.erikaskin.com/index.php?/design/9-nasa-spr-storage/”interns/a and a href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/designing_for_space_core77_visits_nasas_industrial_design_team_by_glen_jackson_taylor_11565.asp”full-time employees/a to join the NASA design team year after year. So… maybe it does work?/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/risd_on_the_moon_16420.asp”(more…)/a
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Bananagrams, a clever brain game suitable for any age level, essentially works like Scrabble without the board. Two recently-introduced similar games—Appletters and Pairs in Pears—add to the fun.

Like Banangrams, the point of Appletters is to be the first to use up all of your letters while Pairs in Pears challenges players with racing to create the most word pairs. Appletters is also designed to be three games in one—with Applescore and Appleturnover as additional (and a tad more difficult) activities. Challenging, silly and addictive, the games come in handy as educational exercises, as well as just for fun.

Winner of the 2009 Toy Fair‘s “Game of the Year,” Banangrams provides infinite amusement and Appletters and Pairs in Pears is no different. Pick them up online from Amazon for about $15 each.

div style=”align: right;”img src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/2010/04/coten.jpg” width=”468″ height=”118″ alt=”coten.jpg”//div

pThe Hochschule Luzern presents a href=”http://www.creativewaves-coten.com/”Creative Waves COTEN/a, a seven week, collaborative project researching service design and its role in higher education. They are currently seeking participants; students, academics and practitioners will each take a different role in the project. The entire collaboration will unfold online via the a href=”http://omnium.net.au/software/”Omnium/a interface. Essays, lectures, and discussion forums will be provided to the participants, who will work in teams./p

pHere’s the brief:blockquote Over the past decade a great deal of attention has been paid to the structure, nature and design of the school curriculum across many countries. In many cases the results have been less than inspiring, if not deeply damaging, especially in the area of the arts. Yet there have been some bright lights, such as Sir Ken Robinson and others, who have passionately argued for a fundamental re-think in the way we educate our children. Whilst this is to be applauded and encouraged, much of this innovative thinking ends at the beginning of higher education. Universities and colleges are under many pressures to be run as profitable businesses, yet with a publicly funded responsibility. Additionally, they tend to be very slow to react to the massive changes sweeping through contemporary culture and, in many cases, have remained structurally the same as they were decades ago. Across Europe, the attempts of the Bologna Process to re-structure and align higher education institutions have ranged from average to disastrous./p

pAn army of politicians, bureaucrats, auditors, managers and administrators have failed to offer an innovative vision for higher educationmdash;we invite you to apply your most innovative design thinking to the problem.br /
/blockquote /p

pFor more information, read the a href=”http://www.creativewaves-coten.com/faq/”FAQ/a. To apply, click a href=”http://www.creativewaves-coten.com/apply/”here/a. /pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/coten_a_collaborative_online_research_project_on_service_design_16327.asp”(more…)/a
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