Hasta La Ideas

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pemGuest post by Zachary Weiss./em/p

pThis year at BKLYN Designs, manufacturer and design house a href=”http://www.rammetals.com”RAM Metals/a and its subsidiaries (a href=”http://tideshome.com”Tides/a, a href=”http://planterworx.com”Planter Worx/a and a href=”http://raineheidenberg.com”Raine Heidenberg/a Interior Design) put forth a strong selection of expertly crafted metal furniture and planters. /p

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pemTop: Crankenstein. Bottom: Tides Chair./em/p

pThe work stood out from the crowd by placing an emphasis on faceted and sculptural forms. They also had a very eye-catching centerpiece (an adjustable height table built around an elaborate mechanism) that the designer playful referred to as “crankenstein.”/p

pTheir Shard Planter Bench (pictured top) was of particular note, as its pointed and slender features, inspired by ocean jettys, shifted dynamically as you walk around it. Also featured was a new chair released under their outdoors line, Tides. The chair, made of white powder-coated aluminum, reinforced their fascination with atypical geometry executed with an attention to cleanliness./p

pMore shots after the jump./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/bklyn_designs_ram_metals_16532.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”joy_mini_gabrielle.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/joy_mini_gabrielle.jpg” width=”468″ height=”351″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pemNext month, a href=”http://www.designinquiry.net”DesignInquiry/a convenes on the Maine island of Vinalhaven to investigate the topic of JOY. Gabrielle Esperdy sheds some light on the topic./em/p

pbr /
Although Thoreau called it “the condition of life,” there is something faintly embarrassing about joy. Like sex, its necessity may exist in direct proportion to our lack of interest in discussing it. Or maybe this reticence is caused by our uncertainty about an emotion that is difficult to define. We know, for example, that joy is distinct from happiness. While happiness implies placid contentment, joy is more textured and intense, a vivid combination of exultation and delight. But this is still vague. Perhaps, then, joy is like the Supreme Court’s notorious definition of obscenity: “I know it when I see it.”/p

pThus, subjectivity comes into play when seeking a definition: one person’s joy could very well be another person’s sorrow. In describing the phenomenon of sound in 1945, Le Corbusier observed that it could be either “a conveyor of joy (music) or of oppression (racket).” Though Corbusier’s purism favored absolutes, his distinction is relative. Think of the contrast between Beethoven’s 9th and Glenn Branca’s 13th, between “the ode to joy” of woodwinds and brass and “the mighty racket” of 100 electric guitars. Le Corbusier mentions joy only in passing, in an essay on “ineffable space.” But this context is useful: one wonders if joy itself is somehow ineffable, that to speak of it is to destroy its effect./p

pBMW doesn’t think so. In a recent advertising campaign, the automaker aligns itself with joy. In video voice-overs and flash animations, it throws a long list of modifiers in joy’s general direction: timeless, freedom, innovation, aesthetic, moving, youthful, inspiring, collectible, defiant, impatient, and dynamic, concluding in gushing terms that joy is “the greatest and most human feeling of all.” If the descriptors are unsurprising, the tag line is more significant: “What you make people feel is just as important as what you make, and at BMW we don’t just make cars, we make joy.” Here, the automaker deploys joy as an emotional state that is attainable through a material product as a 1:1 connection. Drive a BMW, the ad copy implies, and experience a surge of pleasure and delight. /pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/driven_to_joy_by_gabrielle_esperdy_16533.asp”(more…)/a
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pemThis guest post from a href=”http://uncommonprojects.com/site/”Tarikh Korula/a. Thanks Tarikh!/em/p

pGot hack? In advance of their upcoming a href=”http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/”Disrupt Conference/a, Techcrunch is hosting an a href=”http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/hackathon/”Open Hack Day/a, May 22-23 in New York City. It will be a marathon session of hacking for creatives to gather and build. The Hack Day will mix 200 hackers, coders, developers and hardware geeks, with a whole lot of Red Bull and pizza, then let it all ferment overnight. Participants will have 12 hours to hack and 90 seconds to present their masterpiece. A recent Hack Day hosted elsewhere turned out a toaster that printed news headlines on bread before turning it into breakfast./p

pThe TC50 conference has launched more than a few startups, but it’s typically been a West Coast affair. It’s a promising sign for New York that they’re looking East. While New York has its fresh crop of startups (e.g. a href=”http://foursquare.com/”Foursquare/a), it also has a host of world class art and design schools. The creative co-mingling of software, hardware and design might be unique to the city and we wonder if that’s the reason we have so many creative hardware prototypers here–a href=”http://www.buglabs.net”Bug Labs/a, a href=”http://www.makerbot.com/”Makerbot Industries/a, a href=”http://www.adafruit.com/”Adafruit Industries/a and a href=”http://www.nycresistor.com/”NYC Resistor/a–to name a few. It even seems the event organizers are looking to prime the hardware pump by having the folks from a href=”http://www.scrapyardchallenge.com/”Scrapyard Challenge/a set up a workshop./p

pOf course the Hack Day isn’t limited to just hardware, it’s open to anyone who wants to mash up a software API. Projects will be shown on stage Sunday, and awards will be given. All presenters get a free ticket to the three day Disrupt conference. The judges’ favorite hacks will be covered by TechCrunch and other attending media, but they’ll also present alongside the top startups chosen during Disrupt–in front of the event audience of 2,000 people./p

pTechCrunch Disrupt Open Hack Daybr /
May 22 23, 2010br /
570 Washington Street (between Houston and Clarkson Streets)br /
New York, NY 10014/p

pLearn More and register here: a href=”http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/hackathon/”http://disrupt.techcrunch.com/hackathon//a/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/calling_all_prototypers_-_open_hack_day_16526.asp”(more…)/a
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pimg alt=”kiransethited.jpg” src=”http://www.core77.com/blog/images/kiransethited.jpg” width=”468″ height=”314″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” /br /
emKiran Bir Sethi, at the 2009 TED India Conference, photo by a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/drona/4094838356/”Vasudev Bhandarkar/a/em/p

pJust out on a href=”http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=13508″Design Observer/a, William Drenttel’s got a fantastic profile of Kiran Bir Sethi, founder of the a href=”http://www.schoolriverside.com/”Riverside School/a and brainchild of the a href=”http://www.designforgivingcontest.com/designweek/default.html”Design for Giving Contest/a, an initiative sweeping across the globe this year. Here’s a quick excerpt:/p

blockquoteIn early 2009, Sethi launched her biggest initiative to date, a national campaign that encourages schoolchildren across India to participate in a one-week project to change some aspect of life in their own communities. With only a few months’ lead time, she bravely vowed to involve 20,000 schools and 100,000 students. In fact, 32,274 schools across India participated in the “Design for Giving School Contest”, and hundreds of thousands of school kids were involved. Participants entered as student teams represented through a classroom, grade, or school. Having been invited to “redesign” their communities, winners were chosen based on their projects’ impact according to the number of people affected, quickest impact, maximum potential for long-lasting change, easiest to replicate, and most environmentally friendly. A special Gandhi Prize was also awarded#151;all projects take place the week of October 2, the revered leader’s birthday./blockquote

pand/p

blockquoteThe thousands of projects submitted to the “Design for Giving School Contest” ranged across nine languages and diverse imperatives. Among them: /emSave Our Mangroves, Help Reach the Unreachables, Avoid Transgender Discrimination, Care for and Protect the Homeless, and Stop Child Marriages. Also proposed were Collect Plastic Bags Week, Playground for Children, Dignified Attire, and a Stop Spitting Campaign./em My favorite proposal came from a village where the crematorium was located next to the schoolyard. Children who had clear sightings of burials during recess organized to petition the town council to erect a wall blocking their view. The wall doubled as a space for posting public announcements. Per the contest’s stipulations, a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyBTVBc9Tn8″this project/a too was accomplished within a week./blockquote

pRead Bill’s complete post a href=”http://changeobserver.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=13508″here/a, and watch last year’s award ceremony below. I am privileged to be a jury member on this year’s competition, and will share some favorite projects in the fall. (TEDtalk a href=”http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/kiran_bir_sethi_teaches_kids_to_take_charge.html”here/a.)/p

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pimg alt=”sva_carnival.jpg” src=”http://s3files.core77.com/blog/images/sva_carnival.jpg” width=”468″ height=”600″ class=”mt-image-none” style=”” //p

pThe first year students of the School of Visual Arts a href=”http://design.sva.edu/site/home”MFA Designer As Author Program/a are putting on a “Candy-Coated Carnival of Controversy” opening on May 10th in New York City. Oh my! The spectacle will include “games of skill and chance, feats of strength and design marvels!” /p

pWe’re in it for the prizes./p

pSVA Gallery Visual Arts Museum, 29 E. 23 St., New York, N.Y., thru May 31st. All info is a href=”http://design.sva.edu/carnival/”at the site/a./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/events/sva_mfa_designer_as_author_carnival_16512.asp”(more…)/a
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