Assemblés à partir de centaines de plantes et d’animaux découpés dans les manuels, l’artiste Andrea Mastrovito a créé une installation spectaculaire où un vol de papillons pullulent les murs de la galerie, et toutes sortes d’animaux et plantes s’entremêlent à travers le plancher. Plus de détails dans la suite.
News: A team of researchers from Harvard University has developed a team of robots that can build architectural structures based on the behaviour of termites.
Modelled on the way the insects build huge and complex mounds, the little bricklayers individually follow a set of predetermined rules, working without a design plan and without communicating with each other.
Each one has hooked wheels and a front lever to move material, and uses sensors to tell when it’s alongside another robot or a brick in order to negotiate the ever-changing environment of a construction site.
“There is a lot of interest in the field of bio-inspired robotics these days, and I think the possibility of inspiration from termite colonies, which provide such a great example of a giant work force of individually simple and expendable agents, but together comprising a fantastically resilient system, is very exciting,” said the study’s co-author, Kirstin Peterson.
Termites build complex structures without an idea of the overall design by picking up earth and moving it to a location according to a set of rules. If that location is filled, they move on.
Similarly, the robots have no program to tell them what they are building, simply a set of traffic rules telling them which direction to move in. This means that if one of the robots breaks down, they just build around it. They will also never trap themselves inside the building structure.
The Harvard University researchers revealed the results of their research by making the robots build a small castle. Although the work is slow, they say the self-directing robots are ideal for building in dangerous or hostile environments such as earthquake areas, war zones, under the sea or on uninhabited planets.
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to work like termites appeared first on Dezeen.
A Dublin-based graphic designer has developed a digital resource encouraging people to eat insects.
Lara Hanlon came up with éntomo as a project for her design degree at the Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology in Ireland.
Named after entomophagy – the practise of eating insects- the online resource for web and iPad uses research, recipes, events and education facilities to confront the prejudices associated with eating creepy-crawlies.
“Eating bugs is not a modern phenomenon,” said the designer. “Entomophagy has been part of many world cultures for thousands of years and today in Thailand, South America, and China, bugs are considered a great delicacy.”
Hanlon wrote and designed all the content for éntomo, which highlights the sustainability and health benefits of eating insects over other foods. The site also has an online shop where visitors can buy insects such as crickets, grasshoppers and weaver ants that have been seasoned.
“Global warming caused by livestock and an increase in human population means that there is a genuine need for a more sustainable system of food production,” she said. “An important food source for humans as well as many animals, insects can provide us with an efficient, safe, sustainable, and healthy global food supply in response to these growing concerns.”
When designing the site’s logo, Hanlon drew on the Greek word entomon, which means cut in two – like the body of an insect. The designer deliberately divided each letter in two to create the identity for use in both print and video.
The website features close-range, gourmet images of insects in food as well as simple, black silhouettes used for the info-graphics – all shot or designed by Hanlon.
The project won the New Star Award at the Shenzhen Design Awards for Young Talents in China. In association with UNESCO, this prize awards projects for their urban sustainability credentials and ability to improve the standard of living in cities across the world.
There’s been a growing interest in normalising insects for food recently, including an insect-breeding kitchen appliance that we featured recently.
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insects as food appeared first on Dezeen.
Dutch Design Week 2013: Portuguese designer Susana Soares has developed a device for detecting cancer and other serious diseases using trained bees ( + slideshow).
The bees are placed in a glass chamber into which the patient exhales; the bees fly into a smaller secondary chamber if they detect cancer.
“Trained bees only rush into the smaller chamber if they can detect the odour on the patient’s breath that they have been trained to target,” explained Soares, who presented her Bee’s project at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven last month.
Scientists have found that honey bees – Apis mellifera – have an extraordinary sense of smell that is more acute than that of a sniffer dog and can detect airborne molecules in the parts-per-trillion range.
Bees can be trained to detect specific chemical odours, including the biomarkers associated with diseases such as tuberculosis, lung, skin and pancreatic cancer.
Bees have also been trained to detect explosives and a company called Insectinel is training “sniffer bees” to work in counter-terrorist operations.
“The bees can be trained within 10 minutes,” explains Soares. “Training simply consists of exposing the bees to a specific odour and then feeding them with a solution of water and sugar, therefore they associate that odour with a food reward.”
Once trained, the bees will remember the odour for their entire lives, provided they are always rewarded with sugar. Bees live for six weeks on average.
“There’s plenty of interest in the project especially from charities and further applications as a cost effective early detection of illness, specifically in developing countries,” Soares said.
Here is a project description by Susana Soares:
Bee’s / Project
Bee’s explores how we might co-habit with natural biological systems and use their potential to increase our perceptive abilities.
The objects facilitate bees’ odour detection abilities in human breath. Bees can be trained within 10 minutes using Pavlov’s reflex to target a wide range of natural and man-made chemicals and odours, including the biomarkers associated with certain diseases.
The aim of the project is to develop upon current technological research by using design to translate the outcome into systems and objects that people can understand and use, engendering significant adjustments in their lives and mind set.
How it works
The glass objects have two enclosures: a smaller chamber that serves as the diagnosis space and a bigger chamber where previously trained bees are kept for the short period of time necessary for them to detect general health. People exhale into the smaller chamber and the bees rush into it if they detect on the breath the odour that they where trained to target.
What can bees detect?
Scientific research demonstrated that bees can diagnose accurately at an early stage a vast variety of diseases, such as: tuberculosis, lung and skin cancer, and diabetes.
Precise object
The outer curved tube helps bees avoid from flying accidentally into the interior diagnosis chamber, making for a more precise result. The tubes connected to the small chamber create condensation, so that exhalation is visible.
Detecting chemicals in the axilla
Apocrine glands are known to contain pheromones that retain information about a person’s health that bees antennae can identify.
The bee clinic
These diagnostic tools would be part of system that uses bees as a biosensor.
The systems implies:
– A bee centre: a structure that facilitates the technologic potential of bees. Within the centre is a beefarm, a training centre, a research lab and a healthcae centre.
– Training centre: courses can be taken on beetraining where bees are collected and trained by beetrainers. These are specialists that learn beetraining techniques to be used in a large scope of applications, including diagnosing diseases.
– BEE clinic: bees are used at the clinic for screening tests. These insects are very accurate in early medical diagnosis through detection on a person’s breath. Bees are a sustainable and valuable resource. After performing the diagnose in the clinic they are released, returning to their beehive.
Bee training
Bees can be easily trained using Pavlov’s reflex to target a wide range of natural and man-made chemicals odours including the biomarkers associated with certain diseases. The training consists in baffling the bees with a specific odour and feeding them with a solution of water and sugar, therefore they associate that odour with a food reward.
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“in ten minutes” says designer appeared first on Dezeen.
Dutch Design Week 2013: graphic design graduate Evelien Crooy has made her own ink from insects and used it to screen-print the cover of a book about the creatures.
Evelien Crooy produced the ink from cochineal, a small insect native to tropical and sub-tropical regions including parts of South America.
The bodies of female cochineal have been used for centuries to produce a crimson dye called carmine, which is commonly found in food and cosmetics as a colouring agent.
Having discovered that the colour was also used by Rembrandt in his painting, The Jewish Bride, Crooy set about researching other products containing cochineal and compiled them in a pocket-sized book.
“Because I’m not a painter but a graphic designer I wanted to use the colour to silkscreen and develop an ink,” Crooy told Dezeen. “I also think there is a dark side to the whole idea of using an insect but I wanted to show her beauty and all the colours she can produce.”
By mixing the colour with salt and natural acids such as lime, Crooy was able to produce different shades and a consistency that is suitable for silkscreen printing.
She used the ink to print a cover for her book and plans to produce further experiments including silkscreened posters.
“Right now it’s an expensive material but who knows, maybe it can be used for industry in the future,” said Crooy, who recently graduated from Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands.
The project was presented alongside a plastic made from pressed insect shells at the Klokgebouw building in Eindhoven during Dutch Design Week earlier this month.
Yesterday we published a story about a book that’s printed in squid ink, while other projects using animal parts in new ways include electronic products made of crab shells and goggles made from fish scales.
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by Evelien Crooy appeared first on Dezeen.
Dutch Design Week 2013: design graduate Aagje Hoekstra has developed a plastic made of pressed insect shells.
Aagje Hoekstra took the armour of dead Darkling Beetles, which grow from larvae known as mealworms, to create the Coleoptera bioplastic that she showed at the Klokgebouw building during Dutch Design Week earlier this month.
“In the Netherlands mealworms are bred for the animal food industry but they transform into beetles,” Hoekstra told Dezeen at the show in Eindhoven. “After laying its eggs the beetle dies, so insect farms in the Netherlands are throwing away 30 kilograms of dead beetles every week.”
Before the beetles are disposed of, Hoekstra peels them so she is left with just the shells, which are made of a natural polymer called chitin that is also found in crab and lobster shells.
She uses a chemical process to transform the chitin into chitosan, which bonds better due to a variation in the molecular composition.
The material is then heat-pressed to create a plastic, with the oval-shaped shells still visible. “I wanted to keep the structure of the beetle in the plastic so you know where it has come from,” said Hoekstra.
She claims the plastic is waterproof and heat resistant up to 200 degrees centigrade.
Items Hoekstra has already produced from the material include jewellery and decorative pieces, but she hopes to develop the plastic for more practical applications. “In the future I want to make functional products such as plastic spoons and cups,” she said.
Hoekstra recently graduated from Utrecht School of Arts in the Netherlands.
She is one of several graduates experimenting with ways to make plastics from animal products that are normally thrown away, with other examples including electronic products made of crab shells and goggles made from fish scales.
She is one a number of graduates experimenting with ways to create bioplastics from animal products that are normally thrown away. Other examples include a
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by Aagje Hoekstra appeared first on Dezeen.
This collection of 3D-printed jewellery by Royal College of Art student Dorry Hsu was inspired by the designer’s own fear of insects.
Dorry Hsu 3D-printed The Aesthetic of Fears collection in clear resin using stereolithography (SLA) before attaching latex straps.
She then coloured each piece by dipping it into boiling dye, adding one hue at a time.
The forms of the jewellery are based on insects with lots of legs.
“My collection is about the aesthetic and the attraction of fears,” she explained. “In many cultures people wear masks to scare evil away, so the masks are decorated with frightening images from the wearer’s own fears.”
“I recorded and wrote down my fears in 40 days, and the bug with many legs was one of the fearful objects on my list,” she told Dezeen.
To create the 3D files to be printed, Hsu used a tool called a haptic arm that allowed her to draw the shapes as though sculpting in clay.
“It’s a way of drawing in 3D, like building up clay in a computer program,” she explained. “The haptic arm functions as a computer mouse and you can feel the tension of dragging clay.”
“It’s more like hand-drawing or hand-building clay and is really different to traditional computer drawing like Rhino,” she added.
Dorry Hsu is studying an MA in Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery at the Royal College of Art in London and developed the project with the college’s RapidformRCA digital design, prototyping and manufacturing department.
She was one of four finalists in the International Talent Support awards last month.
Other 3D-printed fashion on Dezeen includes jewellery made up of ball-and-socket joints, 3D-printed sunglasses by Ron Arad and sculptural pieces by Iris van Herpen.
More jewellery design »
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More insects »
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by Dorry Hsu appeared first on Dezeen.
The Farm 432 project explores growing the other white meat: BUGS! Named 432 for the number of hours it takes 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs to turn into 2.4 kilograms of delicious larvae protein, the device makes it possible to harvest up to 500kg of larvae per week (roughly two meals) for those who can stomach it! Hit the jump to see how it works and watch designer Katharina Unger fry up some bugs!
Designer: Katharina Unger
Farm 432: Function from Katharina Unger on Vimeo.
Farm 432: Eating Insects from Katharina Unger on Vimeo.
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Graduate designer Katharina Unger has designed a table-top insect breeding farm that allows people to produce edible fly larvae in their homes (+ slideshow).
“Farm 432 enables people to turn against the dysfunctional system of current meat production by growing their own protein source,” said Unger.
As part of the project, she bred and ate black soldier fly larvae in a prototype system, then designed a machine to replicate the process on a domestic scale. “I ordered larvae and built up my own fly colony to see if the process works,” she told Dezeen. It was very exciting to watch the larvae migrating up the ramp, new flies emerging, mating and laying eggs.”
In her design for the farm, soldier fly larvae are dropped into a chamber at the top of the appliance, where they develop into adult flies and move to a larger chamber. Here they mate and produce larvae, which fall down into a “kindergarten” area, mature and become trapped in a harvesting pot, ready for consumption. A few of the harvested larvae are selected to be dropped back into the top of the machine and start the cycle again.
“Black soldier fly larvae are one of the most efficient protein converters in insects, containing up to 42% of protein, a lot of calcium and amino acids,” the designer adds. After 432 hours, 1 gram of black soldier fly eggs turns into 2.4 kilograms of larvae protein, so Unger predicts that people could harvest approximately 500 grams of larvae a week, producing two meals.
“The larvae I bred have a very distinctive taste,” she told us. When you cook them, they smell a bit like cooked potatoes. The consistency is a bit harder on the outside and like soft meat on the inside. The taste is nutty and a bit meaty.”
Her favourite recipe with the insects so far is larvae and tomato risotto: “I like to mix parboiled rice with wild rice together with the larvae, put a lot of tomato sauce in it and a bit of parmesan cheese. A bit of parsley or basil on top and you have a perfect meal.”
Above movie shows breeding of fly larvae in the prototype system
“With my design I am proposing a new lifestyle,” the designer told Dezeen. “It’s about a potential new western culture of insect eating and breeding… It is really about making people see that there is a great variety of food on our planet that we rarely consider.”
Unger explained that by 2050 meat production will need to increase by 50 percent to meet population increase, predicting that because we already use one third of croplands for the production of animal feed, it will be necessary to develop alternative food sources and production methods.
Above movie shows cooking and eating insects
She added that her system so far uses just one out of 1000 edible insects in the world and she wants to develop the idea further in collaborations with manufacturers and researchers.
Above movie shows how the proposed appliance would work
Unger completed the project whilst studying Industrial Design at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, and was taught by Hartmut Esslinger of Frog and Fiona Raby of Dunne & Raby.
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by Katharina Unger appeared first on Dezeen.
Eindhoven designer Paul Heijnen presented an articulated lamp like a huge wooden insect at Rossana Orlandi’s Bagatti Valsecchi 2.0 exhibition in Milan (+ movie).
Called Hyperion Spotlight, the piece is assembled from many components of CNC-cut oak. Joints allow it to be posed in various positions ranging from a low crouch to stretching up on tip-toes, as seen in the stop-motion animation by Niels Hoebers.
“Hyperion is finding a way of putting the world around us together in a unconventional but stimulating way,” says Paul Heijnen. “Instead of concealing and hiding a product’s constructional and mechanical functions, this three-legged spotlight celebrates them.”
The piece is the first in a series of installations at different scales and Heijnen hopes to create a six-metre-high one in steel to sit atop Piet Hein Eek‘s Eindhoven headquarters, in a former ceramic factory, for Dutch Design Week in October.
“This is merely in the planning stage but I would like to put a super-strong laser inside it that beams over the city,” says the designer. The project is named Hyperion after the Titan god of light, whose name means “watcher from above”.
Curator Rossana Orlandi presented the piece as part of her exhibition at the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, a 19th century family house converted into a museum to preserve its interiors and display the family’s decorative arts collection. Other pieces on show included a solid marble chair by Tomáš Gabzdil Libertíny.
See all our stories about Milan 2013 »
See all our stories about lighting »
Movie credits
Concept and set design by Paul Heijnen and Niels Hoebers
Hyperion by Paul Heijnen
Stop-motion animation by Niels Hoebers
Music and sound design by Fab Martini
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by Paul Heijnen appeared first on Dezeen.
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