Hasta La Ideas

Uganda is home to five million people with disabilities, whether from birth defects, malnutrition, disease or injuries sustained during the violence-wracked internal conflicts. Whatever the cause, Ugandans without the use of their legs have, in the past, been unable to use bicycles. And as Uganda is one of the poorest countries on this Earth, the bicycle is a crucially important method of transportation there. Without it, some cannot earn a living.

Nelson “Kio” Mukiika has a machine shop of sorts in the Kasese district of western Uganda. I say “of sorts” because he does not have access to basic measuring tools. Nevertheless, Mukiika is able to disassemble old bikes and re-weld them together into creations of his own design: Three-wheeled hand-powered bicycles.

At the very top of this entry is a woman named Gatrida sitting in Mukiika’s first completed trike. Since then he’s produced 50 more, funded by the CanUgan Disability Support Project, which renders material assistance and vocational training to disabled Ugandans.

It was through CanUgan that Dean Mellway, Director of Carleton University’s READ (Research, Education, Accessbility and Design) initiative, caught wind of a Mukiika’s trikes; Mellway then brought it to the attention of a team of fourth-year Industrial Design students at Carleton, and they’re now working together with Mukiika in an effort to improve the designs.

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Uganda is home to five million people with disabilities, whether from birth defects, malnutrition, disease or injuries sustained during the violence-wracked internal conflicts. Whatever the cause, Ugandans without the use of their legs have, in the past, been unable to use bicycles. And as Uganda is one of the poorest countries on this Earth, the bicycle is a crucially important method of transportation there. Without it, some cannot earn a living.

Nelson “Kio” Mukiika has a machine shop of sorts in the Kasese district of western Uganda. I say “of sorts” because he does not have access to basic measuring tools. Nevertheless, Mukiika is able to disassemble old bikes and re-weld them together into creations of his own design: Three-wheeled hand-powered bicycles.

At the very top of this entry is a woman named Gatrida sitting in Mukiika’s first completed trike. Since then he’s produced 50 more, funded by the CanUgan Disability Support Project, which renders material assistance and vocational training to disabled Ugandans.

It was through CanUgan that Dean Mellway, Director of Carleton University’s READ (Research, Education, Accessbility and Design) initiative, caught wind of a Mukiika’s trikes; Mellway then brought it to the attention of a team of fourth-year Industrial Design students at Carleton, and they’re now working together with Mukiika in an effort to improve the designs.

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We all know the value of bringing in an outsider to shake things up creatively, just as we know that there are spectacularly talented engineers who are well-capable of doing industrial design, even without any of our training. But here’s a reminder that sometimes that combination just goes spectacularly wrong.

Robert J. Rumpf was an aerospace engineer who worked on missiles, and in the 1960s Ford brought him in to work on experimental auto designs. What he came up with was this crazy two-handed “Wrist-Twist” steering system, shown here in what I believe is a 1965 Mercury:

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This ingenious bike sharing system, designed specifically for the city of Seoul, focuses on the problem of parking capacity in the urban environment where limited space is available. The minimal T-Bikes are contained in vending machine-like, compact modular stations that can be easily relocated to popular areas or even transported as a permanent installation on a truck for mobile delivery. Simply locate and check out bikes directly from a smartphone!

Designer: Jung Tak

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(Super Smart Bike Sharing was originally posted on Yanko Design)

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1. Super Green, Super Dangerous, Super Bike
2. Sharing Water
3. Super Cool And Super Cute!

Surprising news: Italy, home of the mighty Ferrari and the sprawling Fiat empire, is now a country where people are buying more bicycles than cars. The numbers are a little too round (and close) not to take with a grain of salt, but according to the Detroit Free Press, last year 1,750,000 cittadini Italiani purchased bicycles, versus 1,748,000 who ponied up for a car. The first figure has not been higher than the second since World War II.

So what’s behind the trend? Exciting bicycle commercials? A bold push into green living by the government? Citizens increasingly interested in their health? Sadly, the truth is darker: It’s about economics. With Italian unemployment now above 10% and high petrol prices, a people-powered two-wheeler suddenly looks a lot better than a gas-powered four-wheeler. The rise of bicycles and the decline of cars in Italy is not the willful result of environmentalists, but rather, an alarming symptom of a diverging society.

“The middle class …is basically disappearing,” said Gianluca Spina, dean of the business school at Politecnico de Milano in Italy. “It is something really new for this country.”

…Fiat’s strength is in small to midsize cars for the European market — precisely the cars that Italy’s middle class buys. “For the middle class, there is really no money in their pockets,” Spina said.

For all our wishes of a greener future where bicycles play a more important daily role in people’s lives than cars, personal poverty is not the way we’d like to see that aim achieved. Is there a different way? Perhaps—stay tuned.

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