Salvaging Creativity Takes an Industrial Compressor Scroll (and Other Objects) Full Circle

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Here’s some more nice work from Patrick Sells and Casey Tyrrell, the guys behind Pennsylvania-based Salvaging Creativity, whom we first looked at back in January. To refresh your memory, Patrick and Casey (with the assistance of Matt Shober) turn industrial and institutional scraps into beautiful and useable stuff, like this bench made from a school stage.

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While walking us through some of their pieces, Patrick describes the benefits of being based in Yorkville, an area he jokingly refers to as “Central Nowhere, PA:”

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Nelly Ben Hayoun’s Micronations Revolution or "Experiential Futurism"

micronations_1.jpgLeaving the marble pool. Photo by Nick Ballon

Designer, performer and now director Nelly Ben Hayoun (featured in our Starting Out series) has just completed the production of Micronations Revolution, “a series of interactive experiences and experiments” hosted by Shunt in London. The two-day program comprised a series of designed interactions exploring imaginary geopolitics—hence the Micronations moniker.

Over March 11th and 12th, the Shunt Lounge, located under the London Bridge, was broken up into four imaginary nations, each with a different sequence of workshops and performances. For example, in “Sea-Salt Park,” scuba instructors gave diving lessons (without water). In the “Marble Kingdom,” citizens floated on a pool filled with 60,000 marbles. “Ice Break Mountain” was home to a speed dating event in Yeti territory, and simple machines were manufactured and auctioned off nightly in “Iron Scape.”

micronations_2.jpg“An Extract from A Declaration of Principals and Intentions,” by Dot Howard. Photo by Ludovic des Congets.

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RP Dicemaster on Shapeways

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Chuck Stover uses Shapeways’ RP tech to crank out some intricate and seriously geeky Dungeons-&-Dragons-type dice, available in a variety of materials but best purchased in stainless steel. “Stainless steel has the heft to roll correctly and feel right in your hand,” he writes.

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Geeky though these are, they’re a great example of something that would take you forever to make using conventional methods, if you even could at all; and ones like the spiky pyramid below go for a reasonable six bucks and change.

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Cyclehoop: Kitting Cities Out for Bikes

Cyclehoop is a UK-based design firm dedicated to “[encouraging] cycling by increasing bicycle parking infrastructure and tackling bicycle theft, at the same time improving our streets by reducing street clutter through intelligent design.” Check out three of their innovations:

Their eponymous Cyclehoop is designed to be easily retrofitted to existing street signs and parking meters, obviating the need to spend city money on installing a new structure.

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The Public Bicycle Pump could replace one of the sidewalk pylons you see around government buildings or be integrated into its own bike rack, providing free sips of air to deflated tires.

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Kickstart Diatom’s SketchChair: Furniture Designed by You

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SketchChair marks the first Kickstarter project by Diatom, a design studio based in London and Lisbon. The project consists of an open-source software design tool that allows anyone, tech-savvy or otherwise, to design—and, if the project is Kickstarted, build—his or her own bespoke furniture.

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Principals Greg Saul and Tiago Rorke met while studying industrial design at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Diatom represents their interest in “the possibilities of interaction, digital fabrication and computational design.”

The SketchChair, then, represents a step towards making advances in digital fabrication available to the general public. Saul and Rorke acknowledge their debt to IKEA even as they hope to move beyond the mass-market business model:

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Chairs that Start with a B: The Bachelor’s Chair

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It’s weird to think there was an 18th-Century chair designed specifically for unmarried men, but then again, unmarried men in the 18th Century were themselves considered weird.

Presumably single men in the 1900s lived in garrets and other space-tight structures, hence we have this early example of space-saving furniture: A combination chair, step-stool and ironing board. You might be a single loser too short to reach the top shelf on your own, but that’s no reason not to continue wearing crisp shirts that you press yourself.

If you’re lucky you’ll see one of these on eBay, and Woodworker’s Woodshop sells plans for the chair if you want to build your own. We question their repetitive use of the heart motif, though; perhaps meant to be hopeful, it just comes off as sad.

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Vincent Kohler’s "Billon" Tree, Ready-Made for Woodworking

It would be a woodworker’s dream if trees came like this:

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Alas, it’s not real; it’s not even real wood. It’s a polystyrene and resin piece by Switzerland-based artist Vincent Kohler, shot by Geoffrey Cottenceau. I guess receiving trees in that form would be cheating for a true craftsman, but I can’t help thinking of all the sawdust I wouldn’t have to vacuum up.

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Cora Classic Rucksack by IGNOBLE

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Los Angeles-based black backpack designers IGNOBLE—that’s right, they specialize in black backpacks, “the essential carryall for the modern man”—have just released Cora, their second style. The rucksack strikes a nice balance between form and function for stylish yet practical urbanites who might appreciate details such as the classic hooded form factor, 400D high-density nylon, fully adjustable body and solid construction.

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A full list of features and more images after the jump…

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Adam Cramer on "The Can-Do Spirit"

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I’m drawn to that breed of machine that will outlast its owner. I love those rare things that were built without any obsolescence in mind, and that are so intrinsically well-made and durable that they continue to hum long after everyone involved with their original manufacture is in the ground, and multiple generations can continue to reap the benefits of the machine.

For me those machines are vintage Singers, and for Adam Cramer they’re vintage motorcycles. Even the best-made machines will see natural wear and eventually “go out of tune,” so to speak, and then you need someone who knows how to put them back together. Thus Cramer runs Liberty Cycles, a vintage motorcycle repair shop in Philadelphia. Etsy’s got a vid on him for part of their Handmade Portraits series:

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More Great Concept Work from Mac Funamizu: The Zimmer Phone, the Peel Notifier

It still rankles me when I think of the ignorant blogger who months ago insisted Apple had “reached the limits of industrial design” with the iPhone 4, his idiotic assertion being that Cupertino’s glass rectangle could sustain no further modifications.

What a tool.

Case in point, check out Mac Funamizu’s latest concept phone, which manages to breathe life into a perfect little rectangle by the means of some subtle curves in all the right places. (For the record, Funamizu’s design is not branded “iPhone-” anything, it’s just a concept design of his called the Zimmer.)

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I want to touch this thing so bad it pains me to watch the animation:

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