Hasta La Ideas

Local designers from Toronto, Canada have teamed up to produce Heavy Metal, a collection of works that “explore the formal properties of cast metal in design.” The result is nine new objects, ranging from domestic products to conceptual explorations. All pieces seem to hearken back to an artist-craftsman tradition, which has much significance in a maker-driven, discovery-based design process.

Chromoly’s “New and Improved,” a highlight of the show, infills segments of existing furniture pieces to, well, make them new again. Though not the first one to devise infills or prosthetics as furniture repair mechanisms, the use of cast metal lends a permanent feel to the patchwork.

Also pictured are Joy Charbonneau and Ed Zec’s Great Lakes, which reveal the topography of the bottom of each body of water, upturned on the table, in, we’re guessing, silver. Highly detailed, this piece is yet another example of blending digital fabrication methods with old-school techniques like casting, capturing the best of both worlds.

There’s much more to see, so click through to the other pieces after the jump, and if you’re in Toronto, be sure to stop by the gallery. Find in-process photos of each piece at the show’s website.

Heavy Metal: New Cast Objects
January 20th-30th
Paul Petro Special Projects Space
Toronto, Canada

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In the perfect world, we would donate our extra money to charitable organizations. At least Go Welsh thinks so. Craig Welsh, principal of this small graphic design studio, based in Lancaster, PA, created Society of Design (SOD), a non-profit that is “dedicated to multidisciplinary design education and community service.” The broad strategy for SOD aims at “elevating the discourse about design” in Central Pennsylvania by organizing an annual speaker series, exhibitions, and design outings. SOD is not trying to cushion its bottom line. Its goal is to give as much money as possible to other non-profits.

Society of Design started in September 2009 and it receives a majority of its income through membership fees. Members are also eligible to compete in design competitions and exhibitions and they help to decide which non-profits get SOD’s donations. Guest speakers also have a say. Past speakers from Wieden + Kennedy and Design Army have already chosen where to donate money. Modern Dog will decide closer to their March 4th talk. Also, they will be giving away half of the net proceeds from upcoming SOD merchandise.

As its membership increases, so will SOD’s ability to give money to other non-profits. Its goal is to spend the same amount of money on events, trips and exhibitions as it gives away, which is likely to reach $20,000 in the first year. More than that, SOD asks that its members volunteer their time to a non-profit for at least ten hours each year.

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Last week I got an email from Tekserve, a local Mac repair shop, about an e-recycling event they were holding in conjunction with the Lower East Side Ecology center. I had a box full of old power adapters, obsolete ’90s cell phones, various electronic bric-a-brac and even a Zip Drive I’d been meaning to get rid of, so I didn’t need Tekserve’s offer of a free MacBook Air raffle ticket to sweeten the deal. When dropping my stuff off, it was heartening to see the amount of people that showed up, and all of these huge industrial laundry bins filled with computers, monitors, and electronic junk that otherwise would’ve gone into a landfill.

The University of Illinois is taking e-recyling one step further with its International E-waste Design Competition 2010:

The spirit of this competition is to prompt the industrialized world to dialogue about product designs for environmentally responsible green computing and entertainment. The goals of this competition are to learn about ways to re-use E-Waste for new and productive means, explore your own ideas for how to address E-Waste problems and contribute to the body of knowledge that advances the practice of environmentally responsible product design for current and future computing technology products.

We invite you to create a broad range of design concepts and innovations for technology products that demonstrate fresh approaches and responsible solutions for green computing technologies. Engineering, design, sustainability, or business knowledge will be helpful but not required for success in this competition.

Registration opens January 31st, but in the meantime you can bone up on the competition requirements here.

via dexigner

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Dornbracht, who brought us the awesome Global Street Food project back in 2009, are preparing to open their next exhibition on January 18th, coincident with IMM Cologne.

Curated by Mike Meiré, Revolving Realities is an installation by Interpalazzo, a media artists collective and composer Marcus Schmickler. All we can really tell you is that it’s interactive, complexly described in the press release excerpted below:

‘Revolving Realities’ is an autoreactive installation, one that plays with our sense of reality by continually causing us to perceive and experience a place and an object in new ways. Its surfaces projected with different images, textures and animations, the object becomes a mirror of changing realities. As a result, a kind of real virtuality arises to confront virtual reality. A modular light installation issuing from the sculptural object reworks the space. Cords of light pass through the 600 m2 of surrounding space, intertwining the surrounding area with the centre. Ideas are seized upon and returned; the space is transformed into a sound box that enters into a reflexive dialogue with the sculpture. The object, the space and the beholder form a communicative unit.

Dornbracht Edges 2010: ‘Revolving Realities’
January 18th -24th, Daily 11 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Meiré und Meiré Factory
Cologne

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Guest post by John Cantwell

The fact that electric motors and battery arrays can be mounted differently than gas engines has allowed car designers to begin experimenting with new passenger configurations and body shapes. With most of the big manufacturers’ presentations done after the first day of NAIAS, day two was an opportunity for upstarts and newcomers to show their wares.

The Tango, a two-seat commuter car that goes 0-60 in about four seconds, was one of the most radical rethinkings of automotive form and function on display. About as wide as a freelance writer, the Tango takes advantage of California’s lane-splitting rules, allowing drivers to weave in and out of the spaces between gridlocked cars like a motorcyclist. The Tango’s $150,000 pricetag, however, means it’ll mostly be CEO’s zigging and zagging for the foreseeable future; George Clooney is currently one of the car’s few owners.

For the past few years, Michelin has been working on an in-wheel electric motor and suspension system. Placing the motor and suspension within the wheel itself opens a range of possibilities for passenger configuration and body design that traditional suspensions preclude. Nissan’s Mixim, which features Michelin electric motors mounted on the front and rear axles, utilizes a wide-open 1 x 2 passenger configuration. The in-wheel motor also reduces weight, thereby increasing efficiency; the Mixim tips the scales at just under 2100 pounds, while a 2010 Prius weighs more than 2700 pounds and the Tango, beefed up to prevent rollover, is the porker of the bunch, at more than 3300 pounds. (Extra interior space is another advantage of the in-wheel motor. MIT’s CityCar, which also uses in-wheel motors, is about as long as a SmartCar but has the passenger volume of a BMW 3-series.)

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