Hasta La Ideas

Urbio is a wall-mounted magnetic gardening kit that represents an interesting solution to the physical limits of the modern urban home, a twist on the skyscraper’s promise of building vertically.

The modular pucks and tiles accommodate two sizes of pot—the “eco-plastic” emulates ceramic—using neodymium magnets, which are “strong enough to hold almost anything to the wall.” Of course, they can be removed with a firm tug, not least in order to water the plants under the sink (pumice at the bottom of the pot absorbs the excess).

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Of the hundreds of sites I have to trawl through before my Core77 masters will unchain me from my desk, there are a few totally unique standouts. One of those is Emma’s Designblogg, a well-curated and well-kept blog featuring beautiful photographs of Scandinavian interiors.

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For ages, fanboys have pumped out concept renderings of different products and stamped a well-known corporate name on them to lend an air of legitimacy. The worst of these have been pure flights of fancy with no attention paid to “design DNA”—some of the more ridiculous faux-Apple-branded concepts come to mind—while the best have incorporated well-recognized design elements, using a certain angle here, the proper font there, to suspend disbelief.

Good or bad, these concepts have largely been ignored by the companies themselves. But now we’re seeing something interesting, an actual Nokia-branded blog displaying the concepts prominently. It’s only after carefully reading the descriptions (or recognizing images from earlier Engadget/Gizmodo posts) that readers discover the concepts were not done in-house, but were in fact culled from around the internet.

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Festool’s new, bad-ass CXS Compact Cordless Drill has a lot of thoughtful design built into it, from the ergonomics to the variety of quick-release elements, including a right-angle-driving attachment that I wish I had at least once per installation project. When I first saw the trigger-guard form factor it put a question mark over my head, but after seeing this demonstration video, all doubt melted away. Also peep the brief look at their nifty Systainer storage system at 3:00:

At $275 it ain’t cheap, but Festool’s stuff never is. I’m gonna start saving up now.

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Industrial designer Debbie Glassberg has got, hands down, the most stylish shipping container house we’ve seen yet. Erected in Kansas City, Missouri, the five-container house was designed by Glassberg and an unnamed partner. It encompasses 2,600 square feet kept toasty by geothermal heating and is decked out with design touches throughout, as seen in this extensive slideshow, which also features construction shots.

Here’s a video on the house shot by a local news crew:

Glassberg considers the house a prototype and is aiming to create future versions for $125 per square foot.

For those with a particular interest in shipping container construction, check out Dekalb Market’s “Not Just a Container” competition: it’s down to the wire for submissions, which is just two days away, but an expert panel will select the five top finalists by April 19th, at which point the public will have the chance to vote on the winner through the end of the month.

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