News: billionaire technology tycoon Elon Musk has unveiled his vision for the future of design, with modelling software controlled by hand gestures linked to 3D printers.
In a movie published this week, Musk demonstrates a variety of motion capture, virtual reality and 3D printing technologies that his space transport firm SpaceX has been combining to improve their design and production methods for making rocket components.
“I believe we’re on the verge of a major breakthrough in design and manufacturing in being able to take the concept of something from your mind, translate that into a 3D object really intuitively on the computer and then take that virtual 3D object and make it real just by printing it,” Musk says in the movie.
Wireframe model edited using Leap Motion
The entrepreneur says that present methods of interacting with computers feel uncomfortable: “We try to create 3D objects using 2D tools, which just don’t feel natural.”
He explains that SpaceX has integrated sensor and visualisation technologies to develop a more natural and efficient method for designers to view and modify designs using gestures.
CAD model edited using hand-gestures
“If you can just go in there and do what you need to do – just understanding the fundamentals of how the thing should work, as opposed to figure out how to make the computer make it work – then you can achieve a lot more in a lot shorter period of time,” he says.
In the film Musk demonstrates an interactive technology called Leap Motion that allows users to control visuals on a computer screen. He grabs, rotates and spins a wireframe model of a rocket engine by making simple hand movements in mid-air such as pinching and swiping.
3D projection on glass
He also shows the 3D wireframe technology projected onto glass, like the technology seen in sci-fi movie Iron Man. In a final demonstration, Musk shows how SpaceX has used Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets to edit a digital model of an engine in virtual space.
News: the creator of an anti-diarrhoea pack for the developing world that was named product design of the year for the way it fits inside Coca-Cola crates has admitted that “hardly any” kits have been shipped this way, and has dropped the strategy in favour of more conventional packaging and distribution.
“Putting the kits in the crates has turned out not to be the key innovation,” admitted social entrepreneur Simon Berry in a radio interview broadcast last weekend.
Instead, he said he is now focussing on creating a “value chain” to incentivise distributors and retailers across Africa. “That pack, sitting in that Coca-Cola crate, gets everyone very excited but it is quickly becoming a metaphor for what we’re doing.”
Berry travelled to the village of Kanchele in Zambia, where the product is being trialled, with BBC global business correspondent Peter Day as part of the programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
“I have to say Simon though, this is a bit of a con,” Day said on discovering the innovative strategy had been dropped. “You got this award for the design product of the year, very ingenious, very clever, because it fitted into a crate of bottles. You’ve abandoned the crate of bottles distribution now, so it comes in very conventional, ordinary packs. You’re nothing to do with cola now. In other words, the design is almost incidental.”
Berry replied: “We are piggybacking on Coca-Cola in the sense that we’re using their ideas, we’re using all their wholesalers, who are very well respected and know how to look after stuff, but putting the kits in the crates has turned out not to be the key innovation.”
“In the end, hardly any of our kits have been put into [Coca-Cola] crates,” he said. “Instead, what has worked is copying Coca-Cola’s business techniques: create a desirable product, market it like mad, and put the product in a distribution system at a price so that everyone can make a profit. If there is demand and retailers can make a profit, then they will do anything to meet that demand.”
Kit Yamoyo means “kit of life” in several African languages. The pack contains oral rehydration salts and zinc to treat diarrhoea, and a bar of soap. The plastic outer shell, which was originally designed to fit in the gaps between bottles in a Coca-Cola crate, doubles as a measure and cup for the medicine.
Diarrhoea kills more children in Africa than HIV, malaria and measles combined. Last April, Berry’s kit was named winner of the product design category in the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year awards.
News: architect Rafael Viñoly has admitted he knew the facade of his curvy Walkie Talkie skyscraper in London would focus an intense beam of sunlight onto a neighbouring street, but says that he “didn’t realise it was going to be so hot”.
“We made a lot of mistakes with this building,” he said, “and we will take care of it.”
The architect claims to have identified the problem during the design stages, but says he was without appropriate tools or software to analyse the precise effect.
“When it was spotted on a second design iteration, we judged the temperature was going to be about 36 degrees,” he said. “But it’s turned out to be more like 72 degrees. They are calling it the ‘death ray’, because if you go there you might die. It is phenomenal, this thing.”
He also suggested that the problem could be down to changing climate. “When I first came to London years ago, it wasn’t like this,” he said. “Now you have all these sunny days. So you should blame this thing on global warming too, right?”
This week developers installed a two-storey netted shield to cover the facade of the building, now nicknamed “Walkie Scorchie”, while city officials have suspended three parking bays until a more permanent solution can be found.
“That was a completely different problem,” Viñoly told the paper, stating that the brief for that project had called for curvy towers. “We pointed out that would be an issue too, but who cares if you fry somebody in Las Vegas, right?”
The Walkie Talkie is scheduled to complete next year.
News: Swiss design brand Vitra has acquired Artek, the Finnish furniture company co-founded by Modernist architect Alvar Aalto in 1935.
Vitra succeeds Swedish family-owned investment company Proventus, who took over majority ownership of the brand from the founders’ families in 1992.
Artek CEO Mirkku Kullberg said the buy-out is intended to give the brand a more international presence. “The international dimension, which was a clear goal already in Artek’s founding manifesto of 1935, needed to be revitalised,” he said. “That arena is where we want to be, and alliances or ownership arrangements are one way of building the future. In our judgment, having an owner from the industry was the best choice for Artek.”
“Vitra has held Aalto and Artek in high regard for decades,” said Vitra chairman Rolf Fehlbaum. “Like Vitra it is a commercial-cultural project which plays an avant-garde role in its sector. For Vitra it is important that Artek can continue and further develop this role.”
Further details of the deal have not been disclosed. A spokesperson from Vitra told Dezeen that Artek will continue to operate as a separate company, with no changes in management or manufacturing for the moment. “Artek and Vitra are both very creative companies so any crossover is likely to be in creative collaborations,” she added. Artek is already the distributor for Vitra’s furniture in Finland.
Artek was founded in 1935 by Aalto and his wife Aino, art promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl. The company’s core archive comprises Aalto’s birch wood furniture designs including Armchair 41 created for the Paimio Sanatorium he completed in 1932 (pictured) and Stool 60, the much-copied classic that’s been in continuous production since 1933. The brand is extending its range and has recently acquired the rights to Finnish designer Ilmari Tapiovaara’s furniture.
In recent years the brand has also been collaborating with high-profile contemporary designers including Shigeru Ban and Naoto Fukasawa.
On 6 September 2013, Vitra acquired the Finnish company Artek
A renowned design company founded in 1935 in Finland by architect Alvar Aalto and his wife Aino, art promoter Maire Gullichsen and art historian Nils-Gustav Hahl, Artek was built upon the radical business plan to “sell furniture and to promote a modern culture of habitation by exhibitions and other educational means.” Artek has become one of the most innovative contributors to modern design, building on the heritage of Alvar Aalto.
“Vitra has held Aalto and Artek in high regard for decades,” explains Rolf Fehlbaum, a member of Vitra’s Board of Directors. “The Finnish design company is more than a collection of furniture; like Vitra it is a commercial-cultural project which plays an avant-garde role in its sector. For Vitra it is important that Artek can continue and further develop this role.”
Artek will continue as a separate entity. Synergies between different operations will be explored. They primarily relate to manufacturing, distribution and logistics.
Mirkku Kullberg, Artek’s CEO, says: “The international dimension, which was a clear goal already in Artek’s founding manifesto of 1935, needed to be revitalized. That arena is where we want to be, and alliances or ownership arrangements are one way of building the future. In our judgment, having an owner from the industry was the best choice for Artek.”
Kullberg continues: “This is a great opportunity for the Finnish design industry and a major move for Artek, lifting the company to the next stage.”
The core of the Artek product range consists of Alvar Aalto’s furniture and lighting designs. Under its new portfolio strategy, Artek is extending the range and has acquired the rights to Ilmari Tapiovaara’s furniture collection. In parallel, Artek also continues to work in close collaboration with prominent international architects, designers and artists, such as Eero Aarnio, Shigeru Ban, Naoto Fukasawa, Harri Koskinen, Juha Leiviskä, Enzo Mari and Tobias Rehberger.
As an important player in the modernist movement and in the spirit of its radical founders, Artek remains in the vanguard as it searches for new paths within and between the disciplines of design, architecture and art. “There is definitely a comeback of Nordic design and there is a renewed appreciation of Aalto’s work. Tapiovaara of course is much less known internationally, and it is high time that he be discovered,” Rolf Fehlbaum adds.
The partnership between Vitra and Artek is based on shared values. Proventus CEO Daniel Sachs, former owner of Artek, explains the decision of the transaction: “Vitra has the ideal corporate culture, know-how and industrial resources to take Artek to the next level.”
News: the world’s vainest skyscrapers have been revealed in the latest report from the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, which reveals the unnecessary “vanity space” added to the top of the world’s tallest buildings.
Of the top ten tallest buildings in the world at present (pictured), at least 27 percent of each structure is superfluous, according the report.
Without its 244-metre spire, the 828-metre Burj Khalifa – currently the tallest building on earth – would drop to a substantially smaller 585-metre height without any reduction in usable space. As the report states, the spire “could be a skyscraper on its own”.
“We noticed in Journal 2013 Issue I’s case study on Kingdom Tower, Jeddah, [currently under construction] that a fair amount of the top of the building seemed to be an unoccupied spire,” reads the report. “This prompted us to explore the notion of ‘vanity height’ in supertall buildings, i.e. the distance between a skyscraper’s highest occupiable floor and its architectural top, as determined by CTBUH Height Criteria.”
Vanity heights, organised by country, date of completion, and architectural height.
The Ukraina Hotel in Moscow, Russia, is revealed as the world’s vainest skyscraper, with 42 percent of the building’s 206-metre height identified as useless space. Meanwhile the vainest “supertall” building – a term given to structures over 300 metres – is identified as the 321-metre Burj Al-Arab in Dubai, whose curving spire makes up 39 percent of the overall height.
The report identifies the United Arab Emirates as the nation with the highest number of vain skyscrapers, with an average of 19 percent useless height across all of its tallest buildings. However it also contains the world’s humblest skyscraper, as the 328-metre Index in Dubai has a vanity space of just four metres.
News: New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) has appointed Glenn Adamson, the present head of research at London’s V&A museum, as its new director.
Adamson, who started his career as an intern at the New York institution, will take up the post next month. He succeeds former director Holly Hotchner, who stepped down in April.
“Glenn has incredible vision and depth of knowledge in the field,” said MAD board chairman Lewis Kruger, who announced the appointment yesterday. “As we celebrate the fifth anniversary in our building at Columbus Circle, Glenn’s appointment marks an exciting new chapter in MAD’s trajectory, expanding the role the museum plays in New York, in the US, and around the world.”
“I am honored to have been selected to serve as the next director of MAD,” said Adamson. “I began my career in museums at this institution, working as an intern just after graduating from college, and I have closely followed MAD’s development and expansion in the years since.”
MAD, which explores “the intersection of art, craft and design today,” moved to its new home on Columbus Circle in Manhattan in 2008. The building was designed by architects Roche-Dinkeloo with interiors by Fox & Fowle Architects.
Boston-born Adamson joined the V&A in London in 2005. Besides heading the museum’s reseach department he co-curated the 2011 exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970 to 1990 as well as the forthcoming exhibition The Future: A History, which will inaugurate the V&A’s new temporary exhibition galleries when they open in 2017.
Craft theorist and historian Glenn Adamson has been tapped to direct the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. He comes to MAD (beginning October 15) from London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, where he serves as Head of Research, a role that has encompassed initiating and shaping major exhibitions (he co-curated the V&A’s recent Postmodernism show), managing partnerships with museums and universities, and leading academic fundraising, among other responsibilities. Adamson succeeds Holly Hotchner, who stepped down at the end of April.
It’s a pivotal moment for MAD. In addition to a directorial changing of the guard, chief curator and VP of collections David Revere McFadden will retire from his position at the end of 2013, capping off a 16-year tenure at the museum. Meanwhile, plans are well underway for next year’s fifth anniversary celebration (can it be that long since MAD moved into its quirky Columbus Circle home?), which will include “Inspired,” an exhibition showcasing works that have joined the museum’s collection since the opening of its new building in 2008.
The artist, who goes by the forum username Bobdobbs, anticipated that the curvaceous facade of the 37-storey tower at 20 Fenchurch Street could at certain times of the year create light reflections up to 600% brighter that its surroundings buildings, using a simple 3D mock-up of the volume.
“A clear hot late September/October day may throw up some very interesting lighting effects,” he wrote on a thread at website SkyscraperCity. “I’m fairly confident that the difference, from measurement, is about 600% brighter! I know where I wouldn’t want to stand!”
3D mock-up of the reflection created by Bobdobbs
Comparing the project to nearby skyscraper The Shard, which is reported to have dazzled train drivers, Bobdobbs added: “The Shard’s death ray will be nothing compared to this.”
The news emerges as developers Land Securities and Canary Wharf take emergency action to prevent more damage being caused by intense glare from the nicknamed “Walkie Scorchie”, which is said to have melted vehicles, cracked pavement tiles and even started a small fire.
“Following approval from the City of London, we will be erecting a temporary scaffold screen at street level on Eastcheap within the next 24 hours,” said a spokesperson. “This solution should minimise the impact on the local area over the next two to three weeks, after which time the phenomenon is expected to have disappeared.”
They added: “We are also continuing to evaluate longer-term solutions to ensure this issue does not recur in future.”
Philip Oldfield, a tall buildings expert from the University of Nottingham, has suggested that amendments to Rafael Viñoly’s initial concept could be to blame. “It seems the original design included small horizontal balconies on the south facade rather than the continuous glass facade as built now,” he told The Independent. “This would have surely mitigated any significant glare like we are seeing at the moment.”
Other preventative measures that could be taken include adding small fins to the exterior or applying a special coating that reduces the impact of the reflections.
News: today’s Google doodle in Japan celebrates what would have been the 100th birthday of Japanese architect Kenzo Tange.
Kenzo Tange, who passed away in 2005, was a twentieth-century Modernist and the designer of the Yoyogi National Gymnasium, which hosted gymnastic and swimming events during the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. This building is pictured alongside Tange in the Google Japan doodle.
Yoyogi National Gymnasium
The architect founded his studio in 1946 and his best-known buildings include the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and the Kagawa Prefectural Government Hall. He also gained recognition for the design of his own home. Tange Associates continues in his legacy.
Other prolific architects to have featured in Google’s changing logo illustrations include Antoni Gaudí, who would have celebrated his 161st birthday this June, and Mies van der Rohe, whose doodle featured the Crown Hall campus in Chicago. Graphic designer Saul Bass was also recently highlighted.
News: a complex of Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg designed by Hitler’s favourite architect will undergo repairs costing €70 million (£60 million) to prevent the crumbling structures endangering tourists.
Around 200,000 visitors flock to the site in Nuremberg, southern Germany, each year but the monuments, designed by Nazi architect Albert Speer to last as long as Roman structures, have been gradually deteriorating since the end of the Second World War and are in danger of collapsing.
Nuremberg mayor Ulrich Maly told German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that the only other available choices are to fence off the grounds, which would “certainly not be an appealing story for the city”, or to renovate the site and prevent future accidents.
Some parts have previously been demolished, but Maly says this is no longer an option as the site is now listed as a historically significant memorial.
“It’s not about prettying up the city” he said. “We won’t be searching for true to original sandstone.”
The six-square-mile site featured as a backdrop for Nazi propaganda movie Triumph of the Will and includes 24 towers and a “Zeppelin Tribune”. It was used to host six Nazi party rallies between 1933 and 1938.
The first section of repairs are set to include a structural examination of the Zeppelin Tribune, including the mosaic-lined “Golden Hall” that the Fuehrer used for private audiences. It is understood that graffiti left on the walls by Allied soldiers after the war will be left intact.
Speer designed the buildings of the Reich to outlast the regime and used materials like granite and marble instead of steel and concrete in the hope that they would prove as enduring as classical monuments. In his “Theory of Ruin Value”, Speer wrote: “By using special materials and by applying certain principles of statics, we should be able to build structures which even in a state of decay, after hundreds or (such were our reckonings) thousands of years would more or less resemble Roman models.”
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