Hasta La Ideas

You can never have too many wall hooks in your apartment, and mine are always full. But given that your average piece of bent metal will run you $5 a pop at a Manhattan hardware store, I’ve limited my urge to line my walls completely.

If only I lived out in the sticks, I could use sticks.

Etsy seller Gabriel Rutledge makes hers out of green maple twigs mounted to a distressed wooden board.

John Robohm’s Live Wire Farm is a Vermont-based outfit that manufactures goods from local hardwoods, and judging by all of the SOLD stamps on their website, does a brisk business in hooks.

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Berlin-based designer Nicole Schindelholz has managed to weave kinetic interest into what’s ordinarily a rather staid object: The coat rack. What could be mistaken for gears are actually blocks of wood, precision-cut into blocks or trapezoids and glued to either side of a flexible strip, allowing the assembly to bend in a snake-like way.

While the motion of the Respond Mechanical Coat Rack does not provide a functional benefit, that’s not what it’s about—Schindelholz, a former Swiss schoolteacher turned Eindhoven grad, had a different motive:

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To design a new clock, Roshan Hakkim made two observations from the past, one from his own and one from human history’s. The first was that “As kids we were always amazed by the change in our shadow lengths according to the sun position,” he writes. The second was that ancient humans used the position of the sun and shadows to create sundials, the first time-telling devices.

Inspired by these things Hakkim, a fifth-year ID student at India’s DSK International School of Design, came up with the Umbra clock. (That’s the name of the clock, by the way, and no connection to the Canadian manufacturer.)

The [Umbra] clock works on the principle of shadow and lights…. By using TWO LIGHT sources which creates TWO SHADOWS, time can be communicated by altering the shadow length.

UMBRA uses 2 LED strips.

1. Inner Strip – 24 LEDs. Projects minute hand shadow as it is the nearest, hence a longer shadow.

2. Outer Strip – 12 LEDs. Projects hour hand shadow as it is further compared to the inner strip, hence shorter.

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Dr. Robert J. Full is a professor at UC Berkeley’s Department of Integrative Biology, and I guarantee that his job title doesn’t prepare you for what he actually does. “My primary interests reside in the area of comparative biomechanics and physiology,” he writes. “[My research program seeks] general design principles for species which have evolved different solutions to the problems of locomotion and activity in general.”

One of those species is that lizard with the bad-ass coloring up above. The Agama lizard, as it’s called, has a very long tail:

Full’s research observed something surprising about how this particular lizard uses its tail, and realized it could be adapted for a wheeled robotic vehicle needing to pull some crazy stunt-type maneuvers. This video will show you what we can’t in photos, and be sure to check out the slow-mo at 0:45. (You’ll also catch a glimpse, at 2:28, of what I consider to be a terrifying cheetah-based robot by DARPA and Boston Dynamics.)

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We’re big fans of designer Benjamin Hubert‘s ultraminimal contemporary
one of our only regrets from the Salone was missing all four of his new works. Besides the debut of the “Juliet” and “Garment” chairs at the Poltrona Frau and Cappellini showrooms, respectively, and the previewed “Maritime S” chair and “Pontoon” table, we also missed the opportunity to see the new “Plicate” wristwatch in person at the Nava store in Milan.

The watch is characterized by a series of 30 radial pleats—inspired by paper fans—that impart a three-dimensional texture to its face. The strap echoes the implicit tactility of the dial with a series of ridges on its underside “to allow the flow of air between the strap and the user to prevent the build up of sweat,” a common issue for polyurethane watch bands.

The design is a study into a new typology of wrist watch and the challenge of convention is also described through its strap closure. The traditional buckle fixing is replaced with an asymmetrical ‘clasp’ fixing found more commonly in festival wrist bands. This not only allows for a tactile experience when on the users wrist but commands a distinctive silhouette when displayed in store, differentiating it from the crowded timepiece market.

Lastly, Hubert has doubled the length of the second hand, such that it spans the entire diameter of the watch (as opposed to the radius), emphasizing the fact that it is largely a decorative element. (A further implication, perhaps, is that smartphone stopwatch apps are more reliable, or at least more prevalent, than the trusty old analog chronometer.)

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