What could make the view from the infinity pool atop the Marina Bay Sands casino, soaring some 55 stories above Singapore, even more surreal? Human bodies jumping off of the roof behind you.
Friends of mine who live/have lived in Singapore have indicated the city-state is not synonymous with taking bold risks, which is perhaps why a stunt-spectacle like base jumping was chosen to promote the casino. (Incidentally, at 1:18 there's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it shot of the Helix Bridge we wrote about earlier.)
File under the time-worn craft category: New Zealand-based woodturner Sören Berger knows his way around a lathe, and—inasmuch as his son Rikki knows his way around a camera—he's pleased to offer "a small glimpse into making one of my [lamp] shades."
It's cool to see the shavings stream from the bit like tickertape, but it seems like an awful lot of scrap for want of a hollow cylinder, beautiful though it may be...
As for Berger's story? For starters, he's spent just under three and a half decades in the business and, as a proponent of the ancient art, he's embraced modern tools and technologies that facilitate the craft.
Last summer, venerable custom bicycle outfit Independent Fabrication relocated to Newmarket, New Hampshire, after spending the first decade and a half of their history in Somerville, Massachusetts. Marty from Geekhouse Bikes (who also just announced that he's moving from the Boston suburb, albeit just a few miles away, into the city proper) documented the last days of the previous factory, though he shared their optimism about the move.
Now, six months in, Indy Fab is doing as well as ever, if this short by Logan Hodson is any indication:
Architect-turned-interaction-designer Nitipak "Dot" Samsen first caught our attention a couple years ago, when he'd just completed his MA in Design Interactions at the Royal College of Art. For the 2009 thesis show, he exhibited series of coin flippers, a diverting exercise in iteration and probability if nothing else.
For his latest project, he's shifted his attention from the element of chance to a sort of economic determinism, exploring the hypothetical evolution of currency in the near future.
The short film TRAIL$, produced as part of Samsen's award-winning project "The Money Trailer," is an all-too-timely tale of capitalism in the digital age:
Charles and Ray Eames were two of the most multi-talented artists of the 20th-century, but since they eschewed the term "artist," considering it pompous, let's instead call them creators. As creators, their creative vision wasn't limited to the furniture for which they're perhaps best known for, but it extended to architecture, landscape, sculpture, painting, ceramics, books, toys, exhibitions, graphics, industrial design and film. "Charles and Ray Eames wanted to bring the most magnificent experience that you could have with your eyes to the largest number of people," said art critic Jed Perl. "I don't think there's anything more important for an artist to want to do."
Perl was one of several critics who appeared in Eames: The Architect and the Painter, a documentary narrated by James Franco that just ended its run in New York. It profiled the Eames as a couple, focusing more on "affection than investigation" and providing a nice counterbalance to PBS' "dutifully dull American Masters series," which aired last month.
Since so much of film has recently focused on telling the Eames' story, I thought I'd take a moment and look at the films the Eames themselves made, especially since so little attention was paid to them in the documentary. We get a little mention from Paul Schrader, who wrote Taxi Driver, a film that was snubbed by the same critics who looked down their noses at the films the Eames were making, but even Schrader isn't all compliments, calling their films a mix of "self-expression and vanity."
The Eames made over one hundred films, yet little is known about them. There's a very logical reason for that. First, they're exceedingly hard to come by; the majority aren't available to the public, though I was happy to see that The Films of Charles and Ray Eames, a 6-disc set with 32 films including "Powers of Ten," is available through Netflix (not Watch Instantly, of course, but I'll take what I can get).
I've been a fencer for nearly 12 years (DCFC, represent). The thing that's always bugged me about the sport is how little or poorly fencing is portrayed on TV and in the movies (Sunshine being the one exception). Sure, we got to see women's sabre at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but you know there's something wrong when there are entire TV channels dedicated to poker.
Luckily, Holly Buechel (who happens to be the #5 women's epeeist in the US) took matters into her own hands and filmed this absolutely gorgeous fencing short. The film shows fencing at full speed, then slows down to show the underlying beauty of the sport. Although spectators never see fencing at this speed, fencers often see their opponent's actions in slow-mo. Buechel has figured out a way to show what fencing truly looks like. Moral of the story: let Buechel film fencing at the next Olympics (unless she's in it)!
After some four years in his Allston shop, our friend Marty Walsh of Geekhouse Bikes is pleased to announce that he's outgrown the 1,000 square-foot space: the self-described "bespectacled bike geek" is moving into a massive raw space in downtown Boston and he's hoping to make some new friends in the process. Like his (and our) friends at Fringe, a co-working space in Somerville, Marty and his partners at Headquarters Boston hope to unite creatives of all stripes in his new stomping grounds.
Makers, manufacturers, artists, photographers, graphic designers, programmers, if you are the kind of person who is making something we are looking for you. HQ Boston is the premiere location in Boston for small to medium scale manufacturing. We have tens of thousands of square feet of space ready to be turned into your next workshop, studio, or work space. Space is able to be ordered in increments of 500ft, 1000ft and 2000ft, we can accept anyone from small hand crafted shops, to medium scale semi-industrial facilities.
This is flex space, you will be able to get more as your business grows HQ Boston also boasts two working freight elevators, a shared gallery and conference room, fun community setting, and best of all reasonable rent (for real!). We are also in the heart of the Boston innovation district one of the fastest growing areas in Massachusetts. HQ Boston will be for people who want to make things, people who value being green and bicycle friendly, who know the value of solid quality built products.
For the first GoPro video of 2012, heavy-duty padding purveyors G-Form have put their Extreme Edge iPad case to the test by documenting a 100,000-ft. (to the edge of the troposphere, if you must know) drop.
Still, some are questioning the authenticity of the video:
Yves Béhar needs no introduction here, though a recently posted clip by PBS Arts does a nice job of profiling the star designer. The video, part of the "Off Book" original web series about contemporary art and design, also features Dr. Harvey Moscot of Moscot eyewear and Peter Schmitt of the MIT Personal Robotics Group. Some of the content might be old news to the design community, but it's worth watching as a nicely-produced showcase of the three disparate designers' work.
Meanwhile, the high-culture aficionados at Nowness have paired Béhar with filmmaker Marcus Gaap for an artsy short about his gift picks for this holiday season. We agree on at least one of the objects, and we can't say we're surprised to see another: fuseproject's Jambox—a Core77 Design Awards 2011 Notable for Products/Equipment—is one of Béhar's selections... which isn't surprising, considering that he even built a bike around it at one point.
From the AT&T Archives: a nice clip of Saul Bass's 1969 pitch for the new Bell System Logo.
The first third or so mostly establish the time and place, gradually arriving at the conclusion that Alpha Bell "still looks like we're responding to the needs of the past." The pitch itself starts around the 10-minute mark, and while the pacing seems a little uneven to me (worth noting about the video, which comes in at nearly half an hour), it's a nice piece of mid-century nostalgia.
I'm especially interested in the references to sports—specifically, American football—as a significant cultural touchstone, i.e. in response to the question about "Linemen and installers are generally rugged individualists. How will they feel about wearing uniforms?"
Check it after the jump (it's a bit big to keep it above the fold...):
We've seen plenty of extremeactionsportsvideos before (thanks largely to the GoPro video camera), but jetskier Franky Zapata's ridiculously awesome "Dolphin Jetpack" hit the waves and the web last weekend and it is, as they say, a doozy.
As Kottke notes, the apparatus imparts Iron Man-like superpowers to the otherwise mild-mannered athlete.
Thanks to our Core77 Design Awards intern Marko for the tip.
We were lucky to get a few minutes with Hannes Koch, one of the London-based rAndom international founders who was busy earning his trip to Miami demonstrating the You Fade to Light pixel-mirror, literally to everyone who walked onto the stand. The light wall installation uses Philips ultra-thin Lumiblade OLEDs triggered by a motion tracking camera hidden in the center, and has a range of modes which are controlled by an iPod touch app. The installation is made-to-order and available in larger configurations, the unit on display here represents the smallest version.
Earlier today, our Book Editor Robert Blinn shared his thoughts on the University of Cincinnati's Portfolio Handbook. This short video by director/designer/animator Erica Gorochow and executive producer/writer Karl Sluis (the second CCS'er we've seen today) provides a nice complement to the themes of the book.
On one hand, the "Fundamental Elements of Design" is a step back, offering a general introduction of the all-too-often overlooked facets of branding that are within the domain of design. On the other hand, the video suggests that a strong brand is nothing if not coherent, the forest to the trees of specific projects (i.e. a portfolio). While the takeaway message doesn't have a direct bearing on crafting a pitch-perfect portfolio, the clip is a short, sweet look at how graphics become a brand.
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.
London-based designer and artist Thomas Forsyth recently fabricated "ten bespoke brass nuts, each weighing in at just over half a kilo. Made using ancient metal-working techinques, with a 21st Century twist. Accompanied by a short film to show the entire process."
I'm conflicted about highly-produced videos that tell "the design story" of certain products, like this eight-minute doc on the Nokia's Windows phone, the Lumia 800. On the one hand I'm thrilled that corporations are trying to engage the public by discussing design at all, which simply wouldn't have happened ten or twenty years ago; on the other hand I'm put off by the stilted readings of teleprompter scripts obviously penned by marketers. You can almost hear the BLAM of the clearly proscribed bullet points, and as the speakers struggle to get the lines out I keep expecting to hear someone shout "CUT—okay let's try this again, just relax, have fun with it."
Still, as industrial designers we are used to being on the glossed-over end of things, and we sadly become accustomed to taking what we can get. While the first three minutes of this vid are more of a commercial than anything, they do start to go into some actual design discussion around 3:30; at approximately 5:04 there's brief talk about materials and production methods; and around 6:00 some UI discussion.
Last week, Artek Design Director Ville Kokkonen was in town to introduce the new White collection, Artek's first lighting collection since Alvar Aalto's classic forms were put into production in the '40s and '50s. Two years in the making, the White collection moves Artek's current lighting offering into the present by considering the possibilities of using fluorescent instead of incandescent lightbulbs—the collection rethinks the typology of the lamp and includes a medically-certified bright light therapy solution.
Using 15th and 16th century architecture as a starting point, each piece in the collection is designed to reflect light. "We studied ancient architecture—when there was no artificial light and walls were thicker—and examined the parameters of the windows and where they were located to bring light into a particular space," Kokkonen explains. "We looked at that from several different perspectives and that partly influenced the formal language of the superbright rectangular surface."
The Bright White 1, a rectangular table lamp that has been medically certified for bright light therapy, was created as a solution for the notorious winter blues. It can also serve as a functioning tabletop work lamp. In the research process, Kokkonen realized that many users of bright light therapy lamps tend to store their lamps after each use. The Bright White 1, "shifts [these lamps] from technical device to permanent fixture." Fluorescent bulbs are mounted to the back of a deep plywood casing to create a more narrow light cone. The front surface diffuses the light, allowing 97%-98% of light to pass through. A dimmer allows for users to adjust the lamp according to usage and needs.
Amidst a flutter of black-clad designers, the Prince of Denmark and the sounds of a 4-piece live jazz band, there was much to celebrate at the grand opening of the Carl Hansen & Son New York City Showroom. The Danish Fusion event showcased Carl Hansen & Son seating and tables, lighting by Pandul, silver collectibles and table objects from Georg Jensen and Kvadrat Soft Cells acoustic textiles on display. But the most interesting happening at the showroom was going on behind the scenes. Danish craftsmen from Carl Hansen & Son were busy hand-weaving the seat of the iconic Wishbone chair, designed by Hans Wegner and in uninterrupted production since 1950.
The Wishbone chair, which is produced in Denmark using steambent wood, has over 100 production steps all carried out by hand. In the video below, we see the process of hand-weaving the seat using 120 meters of papercord, a highly durable material used since 1950 at Carl Hansen & Son. It is constructed with 3 pieces of paper twisted together and then entwined again. At Carl Hansen & Son, the papercord is kept in a special temperature and humidity controlled room in order to maintain the same finish on every chair. The technique you see takes about 3 months to learn. Each wishbone chair takes about 45 minutes to weave compared with the CH25 easy chair takes about 8 to 9 hours.
The dinging in the background is from a craftsman demonstrating the precision and work that goes into hand-hammered silver.
By now you've heard Cape Town has won the bid to be the World Design Capital for 2014. ICSID conferred the honor on the South African provincial capital over its fellow finalists Dublin and Bilbao, two other cities that seemed to have a decent shot.
Selecting the WDC is a complicated and multilayered task requiring assessment of a multitude of factors, but one easily digestible factor we can present here are the video bids put forth. These are essentially 5-10 minute commercials produced by each city advertising why they are an ideal site for a global design capital. First off let's check out the winning video bid by Cape Town, herein dubbed "The New York of Africa:"
As you can see it's a very basic, talking-head-style video using static camerawork, relying on the things being said to provide the dynamism.
Contrast that with Bilbao's high-production-value pitch, and you'll immediately notice a sharp contrast:
We had the pleasure of attending Talk to Me: A Symposium at MoMA over the past two days, and we hope that some of you did too. A full recap is forthcoming, but it's worth sharing one of the highlights from Tuesday evening's kickoff keynote with Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich of Radiolab, who sat down with special guests Steven Johnson and Zach Lieberman, both of whom should be familiar to our readers. Curator Paola Antonelli led the discussion, which broadly addressed artificial intelligence in the past, present and future.
While a summary of the discussion will follow, one of the several videos they included—from 2009, no less—is worth sharing here: "Hi, a Real Human Interface" by Multitouch Barcelona. (It's from 2009, but in case you missed it as we did...)
The premise is simple: what if, contrary to the notion that machines might eventually become "intelligent" (whatever, as the panelists noted, that might mean), computers were actually inhabited by human operators?
On occasion of the "Year of the Superconductor," here's a duly infinite variation on a recent theme.
I don't know where to start paraphrasing this:
As part of the MOSEM² project a group of students at Vestfold University College, Norway, has developed and produced a unique Möbius-shaped track for a superconducting levitating train. This is an extension of the MOSEM "High-Tech Kit" which contains a straight track for demonstration of two types of levitation; with the Meissner effect and with flux pinning.
The Möbius track employs the flux pinning phenomenon to keep the train "on track" while it zips around the track. The geometry of a Möbius band allows the train to keep going in circles while also turning around its own axis. This proves that levitation with flux pinning is highly stable and different from magnetic levitation by simple magnetic repulsion using electromagnets (used by commercial full-size levitating trains) or permanent magnets (used by some model trains) that can only work on a horizontal track.
This model demonstrates a completely new concept that inspires a vision for the future of transportation.
Shop talk aside, it's definitely an upgrade from Escher's ants or stop-motion wizardry:
"Pendola," their contemporary take on the classic grandfather clock is rather technically complicated—the outcome, however, looks very simple. The clock convincingly meets their design objective of creating something that counteracts the busy lifestyle of our current times. It was part of the Slow Tech: Designs for Digital Downtime exhibition curated by Protein and Henrietta Thompson (Wallpaper Magazine) for London Design Festival. Check out our exclusive video with the designers explaining more about the design of the "Pendola" clock.
Early photography was used for one thing: To freeze time. You've probably heard the story of how in 1872, California Governor Leland Stanford hired early photographer Eadweard Muybridge to capture still shots of a galloping horse to settle the bet of whether all four feet would ever be simultaneously in the air.
Nowadays we increasingly blend photography into time-lapse footage, with a goal opposite to freezing time: We try to blend discrete moments into fast-forwarded video, greatly increasing the speeds at which an event appears to unfold. In 30 YouTube seconds puppies turn five years older, dieters get skinnier, you go through a season's worth of outfits. As it once titillated 19th-Century folk to see something in motion frozen still, we now get a kick of seeing frozen moments advanced into rapid motion.
Here are three of the most recent time-lapse vids to catch my eye, in order of grandeur:
At this year's IDSA International conference we not only got to enjoy the lineup of speakers, but we also engaged with the great community of beautiful New Orleans. On our way back from a muffuletta lunch at Central Grocery, we came across something that was "more than meets the eye."
Check out some more highlights of our trip including pics from the Core77 + 3dvia party after the jump.
Live music from the Glen David Andrews Band at the Core77 + 3dvia party!
DESIGN MIAMI 2011
TOKYO DESIGN WEEK 2011
DUTCH DESIGN WEEK 2011
VIENNA DESIGN WEEK 2011
Bright White 1
Live music from the Glen David Andrews Band at the Core77 + 3dvia party!
