Hasta La Ideas

Competition: Dezeen and designer Dominic Wilcox have teamed up to give readers the chance to win one of five copies of his new book that features over one hundred drawings of his “odd yet strangely logical” inventions (+ movie).

A device for popping balloons silently and a four-headed family poncho (below) are just some of the illustrations featured.

He has also made an animation of some ideas (top) to mark the launch of the book.

Wilcox has a solo exhibition running from 6 to 26 September at the KK Outlet in east London, with a private view 7-9pm this evening.

The book will be shown for the first time at the exhibition, alongside other new work such as a pair of shoes that can navigate the wearer to their destination.

A selection of his illustrations are available to buy at Dezeen Super Store, our pop-up shop in Covent Garden, London.

To enter this competition email your name, age, gender, occupation, and delivery address and telephone number to competitions@dezeen.com with “Variations on Normal” in the subject line. We won’t pass your information on to anyone else; we just want to know a little about our readers.

Read our privacy policy here.

Competition closes 4 October 2012. Five winners will be selected at random and notified by email. Winners’ names will be published in a future edition of our Dezeenmail newsletter and at the top of this page. Dezeen competitions are international and entries are accepted from readers in any country.

The post Competition: five copies of Variations on Normal
by Dominic Wilcox to be won appeared first on Dezeen.

British designer Ben Pawle has come up with a condom wrapper for people with disabilities that can be opened with a simple finger-clicking action (+ movie).

The One Handed Condom Wrapper is designed for people with hemiplegia, a condition which paralyses one side of the body, making some everyday tasks extremely difficult. The wrapper requires a simple finger-clicking action to break both the outer layer of foil and the thin plastic lining inside.

“I guess it’s just common sense – why is a condom an obstacle and hinderance instead of enhancing a moment?” says Pawle. “It was born out of a project that looked at a specific condition but it actually had a value that everyone could appreciate or connect with.”

We previously featured a condom applicator which was named the Most Beautiful Object in South Africa by Dutch designer Jurgen Bey.

See all our stories about sex »

Here’s some more information from the designer:

Preserving human dignity

The project concerns hemiplegia, a condition affecting one side of the body with semi-paralysis symptoms similar to that of a stroke, which makes simple daily tasks we take for granted surprisingly difficult. I chose to focus on how indignity manifests itself in these situations, trying to prevent these moments from occurring by providing a designed intervention. I looked at the challenges a hemiplegic faces over the course of their life with particular focus on the experience of growing up and the social anxieties that we feel experience.

Through research I managed to gain insight into the effects of hemiplegia on people’s lives. One of the most common effects is hand dystonia – involuntary contraction and twisting of muscles. This has very obvious physical effects, limiting function, dexterity, manipulation and numbing the senses in the affected side.

Condom

At a time when you perhaps want a moment to run as smoothly as possible, unwrapping a condom can be a stressful experience. With increasing feelings of awkwardness between partners and the added pressure from surrounding social groups, this activity can cause surprising distress.

The design is a one handed condom wrapper to help newly sexually active young adults to avoid embarrassment when using a condom. It is easily opened to boost feelings of confidence, allowing the individual to perform and sustain a mood without the awkward distraction of a difficult wrapper. I wanted to try to exploit the moment of opening, to make it as smooth in real life as the moment that exists inside your head, focusing on the gesture making it charming and cool!

A durable outer layer of foil with perforations protects the thin inner plastic lining sealing the condom. It uses a finger snapping action to exert enough force to break both layers.

It is not a hardcore product design as deep and detailed as materials, glues and welding, but it is a crafted experience, and feasible nonetheless. I have creative barcode protection and have registered the design.

The post One Handed Condom Wrapper
by Ben Pawle appeared first on Dezeen.

In this next movie in our series filmed with Marc Newson in his London studio he tells us about the watches he’s designed, including the first ones that he built himself in the late 1980s.

Flicking through a proof of his new book for publishers Taschen, Newson shows a 1:1 image of a model from 1986 that’s as big as his fist, saying “I pre-dated the trend for large watches by about a decade.”

Newson also talks about jewellery he’s designed, the huge glass Atmos clocks powered by tiny changes in temperature (above) and the hourglass full of ball-bearings that was his last product for the Ikepod watch brand he founded (below).

See all our stories about Marc Newson here, including more movies in this series.

Called Marc Newson – Works, the book comes out in September.

If you’re fond of designer watches, check out our curated collection on www.dezeenwatchstore.com.

The post “I pre-dated the trend for large watches
by about a decade,” says Marc Newson appeared first on Dezeen.

Curator Justin McGuirk tells us why his Golden Lion-winning installation about a community living in a vertical slum in Caracas could set an example for new forms of urban housing, in this movie we filmed at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

“Why should the majority of the poor in countries like Venezuela be forced to live in the slums around the edge of cities if there are empty office towers in the city centres?,” he says.

McGuirk teamed up with architects Urban-Think Tank and photographer Iwan Bann to create the Torre David/Gran Horizonte exhibition and restaurant, which presents the findings of a year-long research project.

The 45-storey Torre David skyscraper was designed for a financial organisation in the 1990s, but construction was abandoned following the the death of the developer and squatters began moving in. The building is now home to around 3000 residents, who have adapted the concrete shell by partitioning off rooms to suit their needs.

“When you look inside you will find that the apartments are actually like any middle class apartments in the world,” said Urban-Think Tank founder Alfredo Brillembourg at the preview on Monday. “So this is not a slum; the slum is in your head.”

Photographs by Iwan Bann displayed in the Arsenale exhibition show how businesses and groups also occupy the building, including factories, hairdressers a gym and even a church. ”We’ve mapped how people have built a whole infrastructure and city themselves,” said Baan.

The pop-up Venezuelan restaurant brings a flavour of Caracas to the exhibition, illustrating the team’s belief that “sharing a meal is the best way to establish common ground for a discussion.”

We also reported on the project earlier this week, when it was awarded the Golden Lion for best project at the biennale.

See all our coverage of the Venice Architecture Biennale »

Photography is by Iwan Baan.

Here’s some more information from Urban-Think Tank:

Torre David, a 45-story office tower in Caracas designed by the distinguished Venezuelan architect Enrique Gómez, was almost complete when it was abandoned following the death of its developer, David Brillembourg, in 1993 and the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in 1994.

Today, it is the improvised home of a community of more than 750 families, living in an extra- legal and tenuous occupation that some have called a vertical slum.

Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner, along with their research and design teams at Urban-Think Tank and ETH Zürich, spent a year studying the physical and social organization of this ruin-turned-home. Where some only see a failed development project, U-TT has conceived it as a laboratory for the study of the informal.

In this exhibit and in their forthcoming book, Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities, the architects lay out their vision for practical, sustainable interventions in Torre David and similar informal settlements around the world.

They argue that the future of urban development lies in collaboration among architects, private enterprise, and the global population of slum-dwellers. Brillembourg and Klumpner issue a call to arms to their fellow architects to see in the informal settlements of the world a potential for innovation and experimentation, with the goal of putting design in the service of a more equitable and sustainable future.

In the spirit of the Biennale’s theme, Common Ground, the installation takes the form of a Venezuelan arepa restaurant, creating a genuinely social space rather than a didactic exhibition space. The residents of Torre David have similarly created a variety of common grounds—for sports, leisure, worship, and meetings—that reinforce the cohesive nature of this settlement.

Even before its opening, this installation has become controversial in the Venezuelan architectural community. Many are dismayed that the nation’s architectural accomplishments are “represented” by a never-completed and “ruined” work; others argue that the exhibit condones the Venezuelan government’s tacit and explicit support of illegal seizure and occupation of property. In fact, none of these positions reflects the true nature and purpose of the exhibit.

Above: the installation at the Arsenale

It, and its creators, avoid taking political sides, arguing that Torre David represents not Venezuelan architecture but rather an experiment in informal/formal hybridity and a critical moment in the global phenomenon of informal living.

Above: the restaurant

With the aim of developing the debate over Torre David and similar sites in other cities, the installation includes many of the letters and newspaper articles that have appeared in response to the announcement of this exhibition.

The post “Why should the poor live in slums if there are
empty offices in the city?” asks Justin McGuirk appeared first on Dezeen.

Industrial designer Marc Newson has famously tried his hand at designing pretty much everything. In the second of five movies Dezeen filmed to coincide with the publication of a major book on his work by Taschen, Newson talks us though a range of his projects that takes in mobile phones, knives, beds, clothes, packaging and a surf board so slick it was sold as a sculpture.

In particular he talks about the Talby Mobile Phone that was the best-selling phone in Japan when it launched in 2003 and a custom-made hollow nickel surf board (above) that he created for American surfer Garrett McNamara in 2007, which was exhibited at the Gagosian Gallery and sold at auction as a sculpture for over $200,000.

As he flicks through his new book entitled Marc Newson – Works, Newson shows how it presents his meticulous documentation of the process behind products, including his camera for Pentax (above).

Marc Newson – Works is published by Taschen and comes out in September.

See all our stories about Marc Newson »

The post Movie: Marc Newson on designing
nearly everything appeared first on Dezeen.