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I recently hunted down and acquired Braun's classic Sixtant SM 31 razor from a source in Italy. The freaking thing was made in 1962 and it still works perfectly, but finding it wasn't easy. For those of you who don't want to spend your days scouring eBay and Etsy, here's a chance to pick up another Braun design classic without putting in the legwork: They've announced they're re-issuing their iconic ET66 Calculator, designed by Dietrich Lubs and Dieter Rams back in the '80s.

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Photos by Simon Markhof

With the help aerospace engineers at EADS, Somerset, UK-based Charge Bikes have refined and expanded their 3D-printed dropout production since we first came across them last August, as evidenced by a new vid from last week. However, German IDer Ralf Holleis does them one better with the VRZ 2 Track bicycle, developed under the VORWaeRTZ moniker. (Further details on Holleis's practice are scant; from what I can determine, he's connected to the equally mysterious designlab coburg.)

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#37: W.C. Rueck - "Daily Trophies" / #24: Ladies and Gentlemen Studio - "Mirage Shelving" / #36: Todd Isaacs (SPACECRAFT) - "Fir Horns" / #8: Christopher Specce - "Decoy" / #6: Brendan Mullins - "Princess Cut Diamonds" / #2: Andrew Sack - "Skate Wax Candles" / #9: Colleen & Eric - "Bonus Table (Podium Edition)"

For NY Design Week this year, our friends at the American Design Club presented their ninth group showcase, Trophy: Awards We Live With. Per the brief: "A trophy is a memento, token, or symbol, used to commemorate an achievement or victory. Whether they are awarded, stolen, or created, trophy objects can come in many forms." As with Noho Next (which included several of the same exhibitors), the exhibition occupied a basement café/bar space; unlike Noho Next, in which the work was distributed throughout the space, the trophies were cordoned off on a makeshift stage area—an oversized display case, if you will—framed by a kitschy slatwall backdrop.

#11: Craighton Berman - "Daily Aspirations" / #34: Taylor Mckenzie-Veal - "War Trophy" / #30: Muzz Design - "Ring of Approval" / #27: Made in Chinatown - "Stanrey Cup" / #5: Artin Yip + Chris Beatty - "Gnome" / #29: Misha Kahn - "Coatrack" / #35: The Office of Brothers - "Victory Shims" / #13: Egg Collective - "Badges"

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While Amazon had already received City Hall approval to build a new HQ in Seattle, apparently they've had a change of heart with the design, perhaps inspired by the forthcoming Facebook West and the Apple Spaceship. The skyscraper part of Amazon's multi-building plan remains the same, but they're looking to switch up one of their low-rise structures for something a bit more eye-catching. Here's the previously-approved, now-scuttled building design:

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All photos by Kathryn McElroy

It's been quite a year for the MFA candidates in the School of Visual Arts' Products of Design program, not least because the first-year students are also the first ever students in the fledgling program. This past weekend, the first half of their graduate studies culminated with ALSO!, a winsome design intervention at WantedDesign, which the tight-knit cohort of 16 students realized in the three weeks leading up to NY Design Week. They'd originally developed the concept for Sinclair Smith's five-week Design Performance studio intensive, and the NYCxDesign festival (which wrapped up just two days ago) was a felicitous opportunity for them to put their studies into practice.

Through a roving set of mobile interventions, visitors to the show participate in an unfolding narrative around celebration, sustainability, digital mediation, storytelling and scale, each expanding the conversation around design beyond form, function and materiality.

Broadly speaking, each of the six stations (two wearable, three carts and a single immobile station) offered a different perspective on not only the work on view at WantedDesign but also one's fellow attendees and the venue itself. From the uniforms—white short-sleeve button-down (with the logo emblazoned across the back), dark denim, white plimsols and orange socks—to the seamlessly constructed equipment, which remain as the tangible artifacts of the experience, the students crafted a thoughtfully executed body of work.

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In less than a month, Julia Davids will earn her Bachelor of Science in Engineering degree from Stanford University's prestigious Hasso Plattner Institute of Design, a.k.a. d.school. To mark the occasion, she's publishing an e-book about her undergraduate experience—this is an exclusive excerpt of the second chapter.

Imagine you attend one of my design classes in Stanford's d.school at Building 550. Many of the structural elements of the building have been left exposed so that it has the feel of a partially renovated garage: cement floors, bare walls. Strange furniture is scattered about the floor; tour guides are known to explain that decorators chose "deliberately uncomfortable" seats to encourage activity. A smattering of professors and students have questioned the use of foam squares or wood blocks as chairs, but the seats remain.

You enter a classroom on the second floor, where 30 or so students populate gray plastic chairs. The room—in fact, the entire building—embodies the principle that furniture mixing is proportionally related to idea mixing. Utility pipes unabashedly expose themselves to you. You take a seat on one of the chairs, but your table scoots away from you because it is on casters. The rock music fades and class is underway.

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wants a Senior UX Designer
in Seattle, Washington

If you're an interaction designer with strong organizational skills who does not believe in the conventional constraints of print vs. web vs. video and thrives on variety and challenge, Hulu wants you to be their next Senior UX Designer.

The ideal candidate combines a world-class design sensibility and skills; a desire to make a huge impact in the new and rapidly growing online distribution channel for premium video and a passion for working in a fast-paced, chaotic environment with intense, demanding, but fun-loving co-workers.

Does that sound like you? Apply Now

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StokkeAustad - "The Woods"; Image courtesy of Maria Larsson / Home in the Woods

It's always nice to be pleasantly surprised by a serendipitous visit to a strong exhibition, especially during a week when there happen to be dozens of events to visit. (With the launch of NYCxDesign, New York's annual design week was as supersaturated as ever, what with the ICFF expanding into Javits North and Wanted Design nearly overflowing with exhibitors.) As with Field and Various Projects' Here & There, an unassuming exhibition was well worth the visit, and even though most of last weekend exhibitions have been broken down, packed and shipped by now, Home in the Woods will remain on view at 29 Mercer St in Soho (albeit by appointment only).

However, unlike Jonah Takagi's effort, Maria Larsson's exhibition is brimming with New Nordic and Swedish Modern quality, including vintage pieces by Bruno Mathsson and Sven Markelius along with works of art and design. As the sole organizer of the exhibition, Larsson readily admits that her role went far beyond simply curating the exhibition: an architect by training, she oversaw the buildout of the gallery space, as well as the PR and marketing.

Vintage table and chairs by Bruno Mathsson; leather goods by Tigerklo; stool by Lith Lith Lundin

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Summer's nearly upon us, and we here at Core77 will shortly spend a weekend at a cabin rental where we can sit outside and drink nice, frosty beer in between spirited bouts of wrestling. But there's a design problem: While we can wrestle out in the woods as good as we can in the office, having cold beer outside means hauling up a cooler, keeping that cooler well-stocked with ice, and downing the beer faster than we'd like so it doesn't go warm—and that accelerated boozing sometimes impacts the wrestling results. There's gotta be a better way!

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We've seen plenty of excellent work by Washington, D.C.-based Jonah Takagi here and there at various exhibitions and venues over the years, but we finally crossed paths during NY Design Week at a pop-up shop/exhibition for his new-ish retail venture Field. Although he launched the company with childhood friend Daniel Thomas last year, Here & There marked first major event in New York, a collaboration between the D.C.-and-Chicago-based brand and NYC's Various Projects, who stock some of the carefully curated goods at their flagship store in the Lower East Side, Project No. 8.

Billed simply as "an exhibition featuring an array of artists and designers invited to create objects on the theme of travel," the exhibition was a highlight of this year's design festivities.

Posters by Timothy Colmant

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