Hasta La Ideas

Finding good roommates is hard, because most people have domestic idiosyncrasies that a) they’re unaware of and b) they can’t shake. I’ve had roommates that turned the kitchen garbage can into a game of Jenga, stacking and balancing one piece of trash onto another rather than taking it out. Me on the other hand, I’m a garbage compressor, a habit I picked up in Japan.

When I was working in a school there, after lunch I observed each student cleaning up after themselves as taught to do. Each and every one took their regulation milk carton and folded it completely flat before placing it in a clear recycling bag in the classroom. When all the bags schoolwide were gathered up for collection, it became obvious why they flattened the cartons: The entire school’s worth of discarded milk cartons fit in just a few tidy bags. Less plastic bags were used, saving some plastic there, and this also made more room in the recycling truck. District-wide this resulted in less trips made by the truck, less gas used, and less exhaust fumes. These savings were achieved by hundreds and then thousands of students performing a ritualistic two-second act after their meals.

I was reminded of this when I saw the Smash Can, a kitchen garbage can that has a sort of accordion built into the lid. Press it down and it compresses your trash without getting your hands into contact with the refuse. Not as efficient as hundreds of thousands of students folding something completely flat, but a good start.

via inhabitat

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With the support of the Jaap Bakema Fellowship, Thomas Kong, Director of the Ungraduate Architecture and Interior Architecture Programs at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, has been researching emptiness in the midst of large Asian metropolises. Entitled Zero Project, Kong’s research investigates the value of the void. He asks, “what can ZERO offer as we live through the Great Recession, when the myth of continuous economic growth is shattered and the assumption of ready capital for development can no longer be guaranteed?”

Kong’s interpretation and portrayal of zero is not the one of zero-energy buildings, but of emptiness. What is the value of blankness? What happens there? For him, this translates to “new attitudes in a post economic bubble age,” collected here. They include: “Think and act Micro,” “Be Tactical,” “Make Do,” and “Celebrate Contingency.”

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Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin’s Hövding bicycle helmet blew our minds this morning—it works like an airbag, inflating immediately before impact from a shawl-like collar worn around the neck. The name translates to Chieftan. after the headdress-like form the helmet evokes when open. In our opinion, it’s got a fantastic Hussein Chalayan thing going on as well.

You’re probably feeling skeptical right about now. Does it open reliably? What happens if you have a hoodie on? Does it provide enough protection? Well, concerning inflation and protection, at least, they’ve been dilligent, providing the following test video of a 20km collision between a car and a crash test cyclist. We admire that the two have come so far in making this thing real.

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TYTHEdesign is working on a one-page, illustrated, ikea-esque guide to the construction of emergency shelters with sticks, string, stones and tarps.

According to Tythe, because disaster response is, by its very nature, disorganized, delayed, hurried and inadequate, victims will be required to construct their own shelters from limited materials, most often plastic sheeting or tarpaulins donated in large supply by AID organizations.

Despite the large knolwedge-base concerning appropriate, safe, and secure construction of tarpaulin-based emergency structures, TYTHEdesign noticed that instructional materials are missing from the aid process. In response, they created a single-page guide illustrating the basics, to be distributed among displaced populations with shelter materials.

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Drahtbank, top, and Kleiderstiele, bottom.

Berlin-based Johanna Dehio has released a series of furniture based on makeshift solutions, playing up our tendency to stack, lean and perch in a series of participatory products. A favorite is “Wandwinkel,” or wall-angles, a sideboard and mirror that lean against the wall at an angle that makes them just stable. A similar gesture, “Kleiderstiele,” or clothing-sticks, is a boiled-down coat rack—a broomstick to hold garments.

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