Hasta La Ideas

“These were little plates of ice, very flat, very polished, very transparent, about the thickness of a sheet of rather thick paper… but so perfectly formed in hexagons, and of which the six sides were so straight, and the six angles so equal, that it is impossible for men to make anything so exact.”

The philosopher Rene Descartes made that observation when he attempted to catalogue snowflakes back in 1635, and wound up with a fairly thorough description of snowflake shapes, especially since all he had was the naked eye. See drawings above.

And we’ve experienced the same astonishment as Descartes when we wrote about platinum crystals. There is something about crystals that just looks too unreal.

It needs to be around freezing for water vapor in clouds to form ice crystals and this is when they skip the raindrop phase altogether (although the warmest snow is pretty wet and is the best kind for snowballs.) When the temperature drops below freezing snowflakes become smaller and lighter, and feel more like powder.

But the key to a snowflake’s amazing shape is hexagonal symmetry. Ice crystallizes in a form that is scientifically known as Ice 1h, this means that its base shape is a hexagon, but the interesting part is that if you turn the crystal 60 degrees it maintains a hexagonal shape.

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More on BASF’s premium penny-farthing below…

Core77 2013 Year in Review: Top Ten Posts · Furniture, Pt. 1 · Furniture, Pt. 2
Digital Fabrication, Pt. 1 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 2 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 3 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 4
Insights from the Core77 Questionnaire · Maker Culture: The Good, the Bad and the Future · Food & Drink
Materials, Pt. 1: Wood · Materials, Pt. 2: Creative Repurposing · Materials, Pt. 3: The New Stuff
True I.D. Stories · High-Tech Headlines

If industrial designers are unsung, materials scientists are even more unsung. You don’t know the name of the person who shaped the handle on your coffeepot, and you darn sure don’t know who invented the plastic it’s made out of.

We don’t always know their names, but we know the fruits of their labor. So what stuff did the guys in white lab coats come up with that made the news this year? The hands-down Materials traffic winner was “Kinetic Sand,” which results from mixing regular sand with an ingredient from Silly Putty. If you haven’t already seen it, peep the video, be amazed.

A material nearly as humble as sand, cement, also caught rec’ this year. Not regular cement of course, but the pollution-killing, smog-eating variety first developed by Italian manufacturer Italcementi. Once the magic ingredient of titanium oxide is added to the mix, everything from Roman churches to sidewalks in Chicago to Dutch roads do the environment a good turn—while remaining self-cleaning, as mere rainwater rinses them off.

Speaking of rainwater, it never seems to fall in a consistent schedule, which farmers know only too well. That’s why Mexican engineer Sergio Jesus Vaelasco created Solid Rain, which is essentially instant water. Vaelasco’s invention can let farmers dodge droughts, and make greenery possible in environments where it was not previously viable.

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Over in Japan, we saw Michael Haefliger, Anish Kapoor and Arata Isozaki collaborate on creating the Ark Nova, an enormous, traveling, inflatable concert hall made of polyester.

Core77 2013 Year in Review: Top Ten Posts · Furniture, Pt. 1 · Furniture, Pt. 2
Digital Fabrication, Pt. 1 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 2 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 3 · Digital Fabrication, Pt. 4
Insights from the Core77 Questionnaire · Maker Culture: The Good, the Bad and the Future · Food & Drink
Materials, Pt. 1: Wood · Materials, Pt. 2: Creative Repurposing · Materials, Pt. 3: The New Stuff
True I.D. Stories · High-Tech Headlines

In 2013 we saw plenty of examples of old, common materials being used in new, exciting ways. For starters, metalworking artist Anthony Howe’s Real World Screensavers caused quite a stir.

We were also treated to these videos of three different artists—Taras Lesko, Dimi and Jonathan Brand—creating amazing renditions of cars out of paper.

Using something close to paper—Tyvek—RCA student Jule Waibel created an impressive line of collapsible/expandable goods inspired by Mary Poppins’ magical bag.

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I hate lifting a coffee cup and finding the coaster has stuck to the bottom of it. It’s minor and merely annoying, yes, but on some level that’s a design fail. Similarly, I find it absurd that I have to use two hands to de-dock my iPhone, to prevent the dock from coming up off the table with the phone.

That’s why this next product sounds crazy but actually makes sense, or at least highlights the central flaw in the iPhone dock’s design. Hanover-based Mac accessories manufacturer Hardwrk’s Massive Dock is made out of concrete.

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While it might not be in time for this year’s festivities, but it’s definitely a contender as next year’s centerpiece. A candelabra this ornate can hold its own on a table year-round, so don’t even bother waiting until the next holiday season. Luka Pirnat, a Slovenia-based industrial designer, has taken the classic Zippo silhouette and incorporated it into a bold metal menorah.

It comes off a bit steam-punkish (and would look right at home at similarly themed coffee joint Truth Coffee), but the gold and silver accents throughout give off quite a bit of “eye candy” appeal that would mix into any home without much effort. But it’s the idea of it that’s more intriguing that it’s decor potential.

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