Design diversification: BMW DesignworksUSA, Porsche Design and Mercedes have all expanded their initially auto-based design talents into other sectors, and now Nissan is taking steps in this direction. The number two Japanese automaker has developed a self-healing material for their 370Z, Murano and X-Trail vehicles that they feel would lend itself well to a certain popular consumer product.
Nissan's Scratch Shield iPhone Case is made from a proprietary blend of ABS plastic and polyrotaxane paint that heals itself, depending on the severity of the scratch, in hours or days:
The Nissan Scratch Shield iPhone case has been designed using several automotive engineering innovations to deliver a more durable and long-lasting paint coat, and closely fitting, tight case. The case has three key benefits: the highly flexible and elastic properties of Scratch Shield paint technology allows fine scratches to quickly mend themselves*; its tactile gel-like rather than glossy surface is more scratch-resistant than conventional paint and provides a better grip; and the case itself is made of ABS plastic - a high grade substance widely used in the automotive industry which is more rigid and robust than other plastics. The outer 'paint' is made from polyrotaxane, which means that when damage occurs to the coating in the form of a fine scratch, the chemical structure is able to react to change back to its original shape and fill the gap - 'healing' the blemish.
*Scratch Shield can heal small scratches in as little as an hour, but more severe cases can take up to a week's time to heal.
If beta-testing of the currently-being-prototyped case works out well, Nissan expects to begin selling the product later this year.
This video could've done with some sound (and less distracting editing), but it provides an interesting look at how a carbon-fiber bicycle comes together. France's Time Bicycles uses a manufacturing process called Resin Transfer Molding, which involves drawing the resin into the fibers at the mold, and claims to be "the only cycling designer that has perfectly mastered this fabrication process." The way the video is shot admittedly renders parts of the production quite dull, but at least check out the trippy machines in the beginning that weave the carbon strands together:
David Markus is one of the five lucky design students that we featured in our "Design for (Your) Product Lifetime" series with Autodesk Sustainability Workshop. The young designer is set to complete his in June and he's got several interesting projects to show for his time at the Savannah College of Art and Design, including "Ferrite," an interactive liquid sculpture.
Ferrofluid is an extraordinary material with unique ferromagnetic properties. Although dozens of applications for it have been found—from hard drives to loudspeakers—its most impressive is arguably as an interactive display.
Ferrofluid displays capture the best qualities of ferrofluid, both as a liquid and as a ferromagnetic substance. By applying magnetic fields of different strengths, different shapes and formations begin to appear in this otherworldly black liquid. By suspending it in a clear liquid, even more interactive qualities are exposed.
Lest the renderings and stills fail to convey its elegance, see "Ferrite" in action after the jump:
The original philosophy was to extend the life of the beautiful oak barrels, that would other wise have ended up as landfill, and manufacture solid wood parquet flooring from the staves and lids. Having achieved this to much acclaim we were still left with plenty of usable prime oak from the many staves that were unsuitable for converting into the thin flat strip flooring. We have now introduced Whisky Barrel Cobbles to the Whisky Barrel Flooring range.
Taking inspiration from the gentle curve of the contours of a whisky barrel we noticed the likeness to traditional granite cobble sets that once paved the streets or our native Glasgow. By cutting the staves down to hand sized blocks and applying some finishing and staining we've replicated the cobble look for use indoors utilising the authentic the casks cast off by the Scottish Whisky Industry.
Glasgow's Bruadar bar is among the first watering holes to boast a rustic oaky interior courtesy of McKay's.
To describe the Philip Johnson Glass House as merely that—a glass house—is more than an understatement. As the hub of the 47-acre grounds, the house encompasses much more than simply the minimalist, one room, glass-and-steel structure for which the site is named. The use of glass as a material underscores this broad acceptance of all that surrounds it, simultaneously revealing the interior to the outside (and vice-versa), while also reflecting its surroundings. In this way, Johnson didn't create a singular work of architecture in the Glass House, but a complex of structures that exist in balance with each other and the landscape.
Johnson built the home for himself and his partner of 45 years, David Whitney, an art collector and critic, and they both lived on the property as a weekend home and eventually permanent residence, from when the Glass House was built in 1949 until they passed away just months apart in 2005. As homeowners, especially creatives, are wont to do, over the years Johnson and Whitney continuously adapted and adjusted the property around the Glass House, building and collaborating on structures and elements of the landscape.
The property is now home to a collection of 13 additional structures, including the Brick House; an art gallery; a sculpture gallery; and a gate house. The Glass House sits shielded from public view by a waist-high stone wall, down the hill from a quiet road in lush New Canaan, CT. It is surrounded on three sides by a forested area that constitutes much of the 47 acres, overlooking the valley of the small Rippowam River.
Within the Glass House, and in the structures surrounding it, Johnson composed a series of "asymmetric sliding rectangles" and circles which balance and play off of one another. The Glass House (rectangle) is sited at the edge of a relatively flat, rectangular plane surrounded by hills and valleys. Several yards and directly across from it in the plane sits a round pool (circle). Next to and in alignment with the pool (but several yards away) sits the Brick House (rectangle), which, at 56’, is the same length, but half as wide (16’) as its glass counterpoint. And finally, next to and in alignment with the Brick House (but several yards away) sits a Donald Judd concrete installation (circle), Untitled, commissioned by Johnson in 1971.
Donald Judd's Untitled, 1971
Donald Judd and Philip Johnson were friends, which led to the commissioned piece at Johnson's home in 1971. For Johnson and Whitney, Judd created the site-specific piece, his first ever in concrete. The installation is a concrete ring, and in approaching the Glass House from the entrance road, it is the first element in Johnson's "asymmetric sliding planes" and circles that one encounters. Unfortunately, very little documentation exists on how much Judd and Johnson went back and forth on the development of the work.
You know you were disappointed at the end of Signs when it turned out the sophisticated alien race could be defeated by... water. An enemy to our species becomes a lot less scary when it can be vanquished with a bottle of Evian.
Still, water ruins stuff for us too: Outdoor barbecues, a box of photos you stored on the basement floor, that smartphone you never should have brought into the bathroom. On that latter point, a company named Liquipel is aiming to render our electronic devices completely waterproof with a proprietary, hydrophobic nanocoating they've developed.
Liquipel is a revolutionary process that applies a waterproof coating to your electronic device to protect them in the event of accidental exposure to liquids. It is not visible to the human eye, virtually undetectable and...will not compromise the look, feel, and performance of your electronics. [It] penetrates the entire device as a whole, including all of the vital components inside and out to provide optimal protection against accidental contact with liquids.
The video demonstration is dramatic, though counterbalanced with that lawyerish disclaimer that basically says "Oh by the way, don't try actually doing any of this stuff to your phone":
During the early part of her career, RCA-educated designer Inghua Ting worked in Japan "developing innovative, futuristic fabrics" before an interest in sustainability drew her towards old materials rather than new. One of the results of this shift is the now London-based designer's leather flooring created from discarded men's belts, reworked into 12- and 18-inch square tiles.
[The belts] create a beautiful, glossy and hardwearing surface...suitable for table and bar tops, walls and feature areas, as well as floors.
Each belt is hand selected to ensure a high grade of leather and then the belts are stripped of their metals, hand cleaned with chemical free substances and prepared for use. The vintage belts for each tile are carefully designed in-house as the colour and patterning on the belts is sensitive to each tile. This means no two tiles will ever be the same.
"Ask any welder, woodworker, or tailor where their products are most
likely to fail," writes craftsman Noah Lambert. "They'll point to the weld, the joint, or the seam—anywhere two pieces of material are fastened together."
Karl Knauer is a Germany-based company that makes paper, cardboard and cartonboard packaging and advertising media. They've come up with a proprietary way to glue paper sheets together to make their Design Paper Cube, a sort of flexible Post-It stack, available with customized printing on both the face and sides, that doubles as a desktop plaything:
As I have the attention span of a terrier, I'd definitely have to keep these off of my desk in order to remain productive.
If Photojojo's iPhone Lens Dial is too bulky for you, they've also got a brilliantly compact solution for adding a macro lens: The Macro Cell Lens Band, where the glass is embedded in a rubber band. You can store it on your wrist and "install" it when the photographic situation warrants it.
As you can see below, it appears to offer a crazy amount of magnification. Unfortunately, while it rings in at a manageable 15 bucks, you can probably forget about putting one under the tree this year—it's currently sold out.
I am sometimes asked about a rumored "cork shortage" which has fueled the popularity of synthetic bottle closures such as plastic stoppers and screw caps. There is a 20-acre paved lot in the Portuguese city of Coruche, 100 km NE of Lisbon that answers the question in a rather awe-inspiring way.
Standing along the elevated perimeter of the site, one looks across a vast landscape of cork bark, piled high in mountain after mountain. Some of the hills glow with the intense orange of freshly harvested bark. Others have been sitting outside, uncovered for a year, their color turned a slate gray.
It is in this lot that a portion of the yearly cork harvest awaits the sorting, boiling and trimming necessary for it to be made into billions of stoppers for wine bottles. The facility is one of several in the area belonging to Amorim & Irmaos, the world's largest producer of cork stoppers and related products.
Quality control classifications at Amorim. The left column indicates thickness, the right indicates quality.
As the leading manufacturer of cork products, Amorim's industrial facilities exemplify the many layers of re-use and value-adding that typifies the industry. Touring their factories throughout Portugal I found an industrial system comprised of closed, interlocking loops, where a sustainably sourced raw material becomes a product (wine stoppers) then is repeatedly transformed into new objects of value. Moreover, what remains after these loops have run their course is still not considered waste, but biomass: a source of energy to power the factories that keep the loops in motion.
Prior to the mid-1990's the natural cork industry controlled 95% of market share for wine bottle closures. With the advent of synthetic closures the market dominance was cut by nearly one third in less than a decade. This trend is rapidly turning around however. In 2010 preference for French wine producers was 87% for natural cork closures and in Italy it was 90%. Bottle closures are still by far the most profitable use for the cork. However, the market shake-up has led to significant investment in alternative uses for cork and in the environmental optimization of the industry.
Left: a stack of cork awaiting sorting. Right: hand-cutting to size.
Broadly, the cork industry is predicated on the concept of repeated value-addition into what would otherwise be waste. There are numerous profitable applications for the material after stoppers are made, such as flooring, wall covering, insulation and home accessories. This diversity of application has led to factories that are built around using material as efficiently as possible.
Most wine corks are made by hand. Sections of bark roughly 5x5x40 cm are conveyed to a technician that operates a power-assisted punch, punching out stoppers one at a time. The process is rhythmic and highly skilled. Speed is key, but equally so is accuracy and material quality. Watching the cork-maker is like watching a percussionist, simultaneously operating the punch with his foot while moving the material along with his hands and using his eyes to find the best sections of material. While robotic sorting machines and stopper punches are humming away nearby to produce lower-quality corks (and higher reject ratios), it is still profitable to engage trained eyes and hands to read the bark and choose where to strike.
VIDEO 1: Hand-punching bottle stoppers from bark. The physical process involves a foot operation of a power-assisted punch, along with quick and skilled hand-eye coordination to select which sections of bark will produce the best quality and yield. Depending on quality, a stopper ranges in price from a few cents to a few euros per piece, so it pays to have a skilled puncher. VIDEO 2: A robot feeding sections of bark to the robotic punch. VIDEO 3: A robotic stopper punch. This machine does not read or select for quality. Therefore the level of "waste" is quite high, as a high percentage of the stoppers produced will have air cavities. These are sent directly for grinding and re-use.
Brooklyn-based performance apparel mainstay Outlier is pleased to present their first foray into bags: the minimally-titled "Minimal Backpack" is a medium-sized roll-top style that is made from an exotic-sounding tech fabric called "nonwoven Dyneema."
Like many Outlier products, this adventure started with the material. In one of their many fabric hunts, the guys stumbled across something so different it was almost alien. Nonwoven Dyneema is startlingly lightweight, fully waterproof, and ten times stronger than steel. When they saw it, they knew they would have to do something with it, they just didn't know what.
When Outlier encountered the elegantly understated, nonwoven Dyneema packs of Hyperlite Mountain Gear, they knew they were the right partners to work with. The premise was clear: to build the simplest and lightest pack suitable for daily use. Nonwoven Dyneema is extremely difficult to sew, so producing a simple design is crucial to making this stuff work.
The Outlier team tapped Mike St. Pierre of Hyperlite Mountain Gear to collaborate on the design—St. Pierre has been working with the material for years, and the "Minimal Backpack" is produced at his small factory in Biddeford, Maine.
Download it now and you and the kids can have a great holiday project for the weekend. No lugging around a whole tree, no cleaning of messy pine needles. You can thank us later.
Thom Fougere is a Winnipeg-based designer who recently unveiled a pair of new table designs that will be be debuting at IDS12 in Toronto next month. The "Tyndall Table," in particular, caught my eye: it's a low-profile coffee table that takes its name from its material, "locally-quarried Manitoba Tyndall stone." Fougere notes that it's "not found anywhere else in the world—except 20 km from my studio," and that "Tyndall stone is commonplace amongst the Canadian prairies, and is an historic building material embodying a certain vernacular of prairie architecture and building practices."
According to Wikipedia, the distinct lacing of the stone is actually evidence of where marine creatures burrowed into the lighter-gray limestone; the darker mottling is composed of dolomite. The contrast is quite beautiful indeed, though I must admit that I was immediately struck not by the geological phenomenon itself (revealed through further research) but by its resemblance to Nike's iconic "cement" pattern.
For his part, Fougere is concerned with the 'memory' of a surface as it develops a patina during its lifetime:
Taking cues from the topography of Canadian prairies, the top is planed relatively smooth allowing the stone to retain its unique character. Left unfinished, substances and casual wear will slowly degrade the stone top, exposing fossil fragments and revealing layers of stories embedded within the material. Over time the accumulation of puddled water marks, a splash of wine and scribbles of past dreams will meld into the material's already varied past—creating a nostalgic condition.
2011 has been a hard year. Global Revolution! Natural disasters! Bankruptcy! What's next? We're not hedging bets for 2012 just yet, but in case things don't turn out the way you'd expected, we've got you covered. Core77's Ultimate Gift Guide has everything you need to get through these hard times and survive through the... end times?
Today's pick is from Matt Wolfe: Matt Wolfe fell in love with the internet at the tender age of 11 and is now an Interaction Designer at Teague.
Rapid Prototype with the power of your own two hands using ShapeLock Plastic! "Mold plastic with your hands (and some hot water) and amaze and bewilder other wasteland humanoids with your "magic" abilities to establish tribal dominance. Trust me, I saw this in a movie once." If that's not convincing enough, maybe the fact that it's reshapeable, non-toxic, lightweight, machine-able and paint-able will get you to pickup your own bag.
First things first: I've always been a bit put off by Vibram FiveFingers, the form-fitting, toe-splitting footwear that's intended to approximate bare feet. And by "a bit put off," I mean that I find them borderline criminal.
That said, I'm intrigued by a new offering from a Spanish company called 01M OneMoment, who recently launched their flagship product, a slip-on shoe that is intended to challenge Vibram's monopoly—or pentaphalangy, if you will—on the quasi-barefoot market. It's essentially an ultralightweight latex sock that is distinct from other footwear—five-fingered or otherwise—not only in terms of its appearance but also for its conceptual and technical approach.
01M OneMoment was originally inspired by native Amazonians, "who painted their feet soles with natural latex, obtained on the Hevea trees," as a natural "shoe" that eventually wears off and degrades into the environment. Their shoe comes in at just 1mm thick for the upper and 2mm for the sole, "at least 3mm less than the traditional shoe, which allows for "higher comfort, skin tight feeling and correct breathing all at the same time."
This shoe has been purportedly been years in the making, the brainchild of a "multidisciplinary team of architects, product designers, shoemakers and podologists." The major breakthrough lies in the materials itself, which is molded in a carbon-compensated polymer-injection process (in Spain):
01M collection is developed from state of the art high-tech materials as biodegradable plastics, and extremely innovative production techniques, brought from other fields not related to the shoe industry, giving the product high resistance level, elasticity and environmental respect.
Our friends at Palo Alto's Lunar are always up to something, and they're happy to share their insights. Their most recent video presents the inspiration behind their forthcoming "SANDBOX" table design.
As Senior Industrial Design Alex Rochat relates in the video clip, it all started with an encounter with sand that's used for shell molding. From his initial experiments, he arrived at a series of distinct, vaguely organic surface patterns that were the basis of a form study and, ultimately, an article of furniture.
Back in the day at the Pratt ID studios, a truck would occasionally pull up, front-loaded with raw materials. If you were in the vicinity of the shop manager when this happened, you'd often be pressed into service to help unload stuff and manhandle it up to the fifth floor. Worst thing to unload: 4×8 sheets of plywood. Best thing: Those massive pieces of blue foam. Ever since then, I've always loved carrying huge things that are light as a feather because you feel like Superman.
Last week, it was announced that researchers at HRL Laboratories have developed a new material 100 times lighter than styrofoam, consisting of "micro-lattice cellular architecture" that is 99.99% air. Though technically a metal comprised of nanotubes, the material has surprising elasticity—"including complete recovery from compression exceeding 50% strain"http://www.handeyesupply.com/making it ideal for shock absorption, dampening, and whatever else HRL client DARPA can dream up for the stuff.
Dr. Bill Carter, manager of the Architected Materials Group at HRL, lays out the vision for these micro-lattice materials by drawing parallels to large structures: "Modern buildings, exemplified by the Eiffel Tower or the Golden Gate Bridge, are incredibly light and weight-efficient by virtue of their architectures. We are revolutionizing lightweight materials by bringing this concept to the materials level and designing their architectures at the nano and micro scales."
NeverWet is a truly amazing "superhydrophobic" coating that, once applied, completely repels water. Developed by Ross Nanotechnology, the coating's applications seem endless: It makes things super-easy to clean; it completely prevents rust, as water never actually comes into contact with the surface of the material; it prevents ice from sticking to things like power lines or airplane wings; it even reduces friction of water flowing through pipes coated with the stuff, meaning less energy would be needed to pump that water. Check it out:
I'm digging the Dual Cut chair/ottoman combo designed by Kitmen Keung. Global citizen Keung, who's lived in Hong Kong, Canada and Italy, designed the piece for Belgian manufacturer Sixinch.
Splitting a raw rectangular foam block with only two L-shaped cut lines, Dual Cut is a transformable furniture piece that employs the simplest production processes true to the materials in use with minimal wastage. It features two ergonomically comfortable seat back angle options of 6° and 23°, and the multi-formation ability to form a one seater with a side table, a chaise lounge or a corner table. It also easily forms a neat, compact parcel for convenient storage and transportation.
Here's a rather thorny issue taking place at the intersections of recycling, materials technology, business, and human behavior that we just read about in Packaging Digest.
Recycling would work well—if everyone did it. Since not everyone does, a governing body called the Plastics Environmental Council wants to standardize additive ingredients going into plastic bottles, with the idea being that these additives would help the bottles break down as they sit in piles of landfill.
The problem: Those in the business of recycling have invested millions of dollars setting up machines that turn post-consumer waste back into raw materials. And it turns out those very additives that help untended bottles break down in landfill tend to gum up the works in a recycling facility.
According to one PET recycler, Ed Byrne, CEO of Peninsula Packaging, who was quoted in the San Jose Mercury News: "Even in small percentages, like one-tenth of one percent, these are just catastrophic for us. They melt at different temperatures. They ruin our product."
So while the PEC backs the additives, NAPCOR (The National Association of PET Container Resources) is against them. Once again our society has proven to be so complicated that you've got two groups who essentially want the same thing--no wasted plastic—and yet they're at odds.
American pottery manufacturer Heath Ceramics has had their kilns burning for more than half a century, employing craftsmen at their Sausalito, California factory to produce tableware and tile. In recent years, Heath has been creating focused, hand-crafted collaborations with a carefully curated list of designers and artists including Christina Kim (Dosa), Roy McMakin and chef Alice Waters. "Our collaborations are inspiring for those of us working on design at Heath, as well as the artists and designers with whom we collaborate," explains Creative Director Cathy Bailey. "They are true collaborations where we all are learning something new and opening our minds to different possibilities in our work. They are also inspiring on many different levels, from new techniques to new perspectives offered by the artists and designers we're working with to create and craft on an entirely new level."
The newest edition to their artist roster is the Los Angeles-based illustrator and graphic designer Geoff McFetridge. Best known for his abstract, hand wrought line illustrations that depict everything from land- and cityscapes, fantastical creatures to crowds of people, McFetridge's work has been featured on products from Nike, Pepsi, Stüsy, Burton, Patagonia and in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are and Adaptation. The collaboration with Heath is McFetridge's first foray into the medium of clay, although not his first work for interiors—he creates graphics for his wallpaper and fabric company Pottok prints. This collaboration marks a first for Heath Ceramics as well, "the first type of collaboration that is very graphical and where the artist is doing the illustration himself."
A natural extension of a long friendship between McFetridge and Heath LA Studio Director and potter Adam Silverman, the resulting collection was a true conversation between brand and artist. Bailey shared that the process, "was a deeper level of collaboration... Adam worked with Geoff on the general concepts. We then all worked together to figure out what a good merger would be—how Geoff's work and shapes would translate to clay. We also had to take into account how a piece is made (slip cast or jiggered for example) and whether or not it was appropriate to paint on or carve into the surface and even if we needed to consider throwing a new shape of pot. What was so gratifying about this collaboration was the exploration of technique and process."
This exploration resulted in a complete custom-painted dinnerware set, hand-carved vases and hand-carved teapot and cup sets for the collection, My Head Disappears When My Hands Are Thinking.
We sat down with Geoff to learn more about his illustrations and carvings for Heath—read on for more info about coin-hunting, yoga-skateboarders in leotards and making art for the masses. If you're in Los Angeles, you can see the pieces for yourself—the show opens tomorrow.
My Head Disappears When My Hands Are Thinking
Heath Los Angeles
7525 Beverly Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Through December 31st, 2011
Core77: Can you share a bit about your approach to this collaboration? Why did you choose the specific characters and drawings for Heath?
"Silversmith" sounds like a stodgy profession steeped in history and the old way of doing things, but UK-based Charlotte Tollyfield has made a career out of breathing new life into the craft. Tollyfield—whose official job title is "Designer Silversmith"—pushes silver to its limits, using traditional techniques of press-forming and spinning to create modern forms intended more for utility than decoration. As she writes:
My current work is designed for the interactive environment of the dining table where the silver is not just on display but also something to be actively used. The work has both a visual and tactile appeal, causing the viewer to look with their hands as well as their eyes. To me an object is not complete until it has fulfilled its role so a sugar bowl is not a sugar bowl until it has had sugar dispensed from it.
In just a few weeks you'll be able to bid on the Two Nuns bicycle designed by Ron Arad, which I can only describe as "Freaking amazing." On December 1st it goes up for bidding at the WOW Bikes charity auction to benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.
As you can see, the bike's wheels are made out of sprung steel. And yes, it works—have a look:
One of our favorite designers from this year's New York Design Week is Brooklyn-based Chen Chen. The recent Pratt grad shares with Sight Unseen a step-by-step guide on how to recreate his "Metamorphic Rock" bookends currently sold through Philips dePury. Check out the full profile on Chen Chen and detailed directions on Sight Unseen.
When it comes to 3D Printing, Objet is continuing to set the standard when it comes to material options and flexibility. With the addition of a new High Temperature Material, this brings the choice to well over 60 different material options available for their line of 3D Printers—not to mention the transparent VeroClear, and ABS-like digital material, bio-compatible material and the rigid and opaque VeroWhitePlus. With this newest addition the actual possibility of functional testing and real world applications has broken through to an incredible new level.
High Temperature Material or (RGD525) combines two areas that are vital when it comes to testing prototypes thermal resistance and dimensional stability. As this new material is fully capable of simulating the thermal performance of engineering plastics it is ideal for testing of static parts. The High Temperature Material has an initial heat deflection temperature of 63-67 °C (145-153 °F) when removed from the printer but through some post processing it can be increased to 75-80 °C (167-176 °F).
DESIGN MIAMI 2011
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2011
DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2011
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2011
Quality control classifications at Amorim. The left column indicates thickness, the right indicates quality.
Left: a stack of cork awaiting sorting. Right: hand-cutting to size.
Air conditioning automotive part
Part of hot water central heating system
