Hasta La Ideas

One more from the graduating class of RCA: Marjan van Aubel, “a product designer with an inquisitive, almost scientific perspective,” presents “The Energy Collection,” a set of solar glassware that discharges through a matching bookshelf, which serves as a rather large battery. It’s a vaguely biological ecosystem: the tableware ‘drones’ gather energy during the day, ‘feeding’ the shelf, which can be used to power a lamp or charge a phone… but the real magic lies in the physics:

Within each glass is a photovoltaic layer of dye Synthesized Solar Cell. This means that the properties of colour are being used to create an electrical current. This technology was invented by Michael Graetzel at EPFL. It is a technique based on the process of photosynthesis in plants. Like the green chlorophyll which absorbs light energy, the colours in these cells collect energy.

Graetzel uses a porous Titanium dioxide layer soaked with photosensitive dye—a natural pigment extracted from the juice of blueberries or spinach. He discovered that the dye that gives the red or blue colour to berries, gives off an electron when light strikes it. One side of the glass is positive, the other negative and when the cell is exposed to light, the dye transmits its electrons to the titanium dioxide and releases an electronic current.

Sounds like pretty heady stuff; I’d be curious as to whether the technology can be implemented at scale, especially given the material advantages of the dye (as opposed to traditional silicon cells): “The glassware uses sunlight as a sustainable source of energy, but can also work under diffused light. This makes them much more efficient for use inside the home compared to standard solar panels, which only work in direct sunlight and are not suitable for indoor use.”

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In 2007 the Palacio de Sal, a 16-room hotel, went up on the eastern “shore” of Bolivia’s Uyuni Salt Flats. Because timber and other building materials are not locally abundant, the building is constructed primarly of salt. Roughly one million salt blocks comprise the floors, walls and ceiling, as well as beds, tables and seating surfaces.

In addition to lodger’s rooms, the Palacio de Sal is kitted out with lounging areas, a spa, dining facilities and even a golf course.

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Bamboo is often presented as a green wonder material, showing up in everything from flooring to bicycles to laptop cases; but it’s important to understand that while the material itself is fast-growing and renewable, the processes needed to transform it into a finished product can negate the sustainability factor.

When outdoor gear company Patagonia needed to design a warm-water wetsuit—something more in line with the temperatures in their native SoCal than, say, the frigid Dungeons of South Africa—the green-minded company looked into bamboo to provide the fiber. But research showed that roughly half of the solvents needed in the production process would end up as waste. Then they struck upon a novel material for a wetsuit: Recycled polyester. There’s plenty of the stuff, and it’s a sign o’ the times that we can (and should) start seeing used plastic as a valid raw materials alternative to something that grows out of the ground.

In the video below—which is filled with enough beautiful surfing shots to make you hate your job—Brett Krazniewicz, Patagonia’s Technical Material Developer, explains around 1:37 why bamboo got the boot and polyester got the props:

via coolhunting

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We typically use the term magnum opus to refer to pinnacles of artistic achievement.

His best body of work

But that Latin phrase was originally a term tossed around by alchemists, the materials scientists of medieval times.

They’ve got great chemistry

Specifically, magnum opus referred to the alchemical quest, believe it or not, to create the lapis philosophorum or “Philosopher’s Stone, which wasn’t a stone at all but a theoretical substance that would purportedly transmute lead into gold.

Box office gold

The magnum opus had four stages of creation: Nigredo, which turned the substance black; albedo, which turned it white; citrinitas, which turned it yellow; and finally rubedo, which turned the substance red. The term rubedo thus came to mean success in alchemical slang, if you can picture a bunch of alchemists standing around saying “Dude that is so rubedo.”

So why are we telling you all this? Because this year Tiffany & Co., to celebrate their 175th anniversary, has created a new jeweler’s metal and it’s called Rubedo.

Tiffany’s new RUBEDO metal, which marries the richness of gold, the brilliance of silver and the warmth of copper. Metallurgists experimented with different ratios over a long testing period until they achieved the desired color, radiant with the glow of “first light” that awakens a sense of wonder and ennobles the spirit. In addition, this unique alloy is lightweight yet strong, polishes to a smooth luster and is exceptionally flattering to the skin.

We probably could have just told you about the new metal without showing you pictures of a shirtless Tom Selleck, pre-game mock joust preparations and a poster of a movie about child wizards, but it’s a Friday. In any case, you can check out some rubedo jewelry here, or hit the jump for more eye candy.

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Where do famous designers go when they retire? In Neal Small’s case, a tiny town in Maine. “I wanted to get away from the tumult of Manhattan,” the native New Yorker explains.

ID grads and design cognoscenti among you will recognize Small’s name, and work, the former from our History of Industrial Design classes and the latter from the MoMA and Smithsonian. The so-called “Prince of Plastic” opened his own design firm in Chelsea in the 1960s and was an early proponent of the plastic family; notably, rather than merely using it as a replacement for wood and metal, Small was known for exploiting the specific properties of plexi, Lucite and acrylic and incorporating that into the design. This is perhaps best illustrated by his Cocktail Table from 1968, below, made from a single square sheet with just four cuts and some heat bending to make the legs.

Back in 2009 Material Connexion held a Small retrospective showcasing his lighting and furniture; since then we’ve heard nary a peep on the man. But a small-town paper in Hancock County, Maine, has stumbled across the retired design celebrity living in their midst and run a piece and video on him.

While the video below is not exactly a professional documentary in terms of quality and content, Small begins to discuss design and his career at about the halfway mark:

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