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Studio Bullitts : August
2002
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Alusion is a form of Stabilized
Aluminum Foam (SAF), manufatured by, you guessed it, Alusion,
a division of Toronto based Cymat Corp. The patented process for
creating Alusion starts with a metal matrix composite an aluminum
alloy to which ceramic particles have been added. Once melted, the
aluminum alloy is poured into a foaming box. Gas bubbles exiting
immersed rotating impellers (a component of the air injection system)
form the foam. The foam collects on the surface of the molten material,
where it can be continuously drawn off to form a sheet. The foam
structure is predominantly closed cell. The cell size is controlled
by the gas flow rate, impeller design and impeller rotational speed.
The rate and means by which the gas is introduced can be varied
to produce foams with varying densities.
The panels can be easily cut, painted, coated, laminated, and can
be used in a wide variety of applications, from insulation to furniture
to housewares.
http://www.alusion.com
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O2 France, a French eco-design and sustainable product and
service consultancy, has recently teamed with the ADEME (the French
Environment and Energy Agency) and the town of Saint-Etienne to
launch the www.ecodesign.fr website. The site has been created for
the 2002 international biennial design festival of Saint- Etienne.
The main aim was to conceive an information platform on eco-design
and to provide the basis for initiate an eco-design project. It
exposes in a simple and clear language the principles of an ecodesign
process and illustrates it with a gallery containing more than forty
examples of ecoproducts. The site also provides a lexicon and a
links page.
http://www.ecodesign.fr
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New from Urbana, Illinois-based Inventables is their product,
the DesignAid - a physical and online library of interesting, unique,
new and emerging technologies, materials, mechanical parts, and
manufacturing processes. Delivered in a rolling toolchest, the library
can be physically accessed in the office, with supporting details
available through a custom website. The searchable website contains
information on each of the items in the library, including price,
manufacturer, and ideas for applications. The whole system can be
easily expanded by each customer as their library grows.
Thr product is available on a subscription basis, allowing Inventables
to expand the collection for the customer. Alternately, customers
can add to their own collection by inputting new information into
the database directly. The library can be obtained as a basic unit,
but better is to have a collection custom-built for you. The Inventables
team will travel to a firm to gather information on their projects,
processes, and challenges, and then configures a collection of items
specific for your needs.
http://www.inventables.com
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Bresslergroup was awarded a Bronze IDEA award for the Deluxe
Digital Tire Gauge developed for Measurement Specialties, Inc. (MSI).
Bresslergroup and MSI have, over the last 7 years, developed five
unique tire gauges. Developed exclusively for Radio Shack Stores,
the latest model features an easily accessible button to light up
the nose of the device so the user can easily find and engage the
stem of the tire. Bresslergroup handled concept through engineering
for production and worked seamlessly with MSI's manufacturing facilities
in Asia, using a truly paperless process, which reduced the development
timeline to six months.
http://www.bresslergroup.com
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Formstudios, a design and visualization firm located in the
Synergy Center business accelerator, is working closely with Scott
Shamp and Karim Delgado of University of Georgia Athens’ New
Media Institute to help WAG — the Wireless Athens Group —
visualize a new technology. WAG is developing a “wireless cloud”
over downtown Athens which will enable locals to access the web
wirelessly 80211a and 80211b protocols.
Working closely with Formstudios are Tom Black, interactive designer
and a senior in UGA’s Digital Media Program and Kenny Kilfara,
an interactive developer and Synergy Center Graduate Assistant from
UGA’s Drama Dept. Together, the Formstudios visualization team
is developing an interactive demonstration of the wireless mesh
over downtown Athens, including 3-d fly-throughs, visualization
of the WAG application and an interactive virtual environment.
www.formstudios.com
www.synergy.uga.edu
www.nmi.uga.edu
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The Smithsonian Insitute's
National Museum of American History recently contracted focus
protoCAD, a rapid model making and engineering firm in LaPlata,
Maryland, to recreate three scale models of a 200-year-old house.
"Within These Walls", a current Smithsonian exhibition,
revolves around a 200 year-old house that was moved from Ipswich,
Massachusetts to the second floor of the museum. The exhibit focuses
on how the lives of five families that lived in the house from 1757-1945
reflected the great changes and events spanning American history
including colonial times, the American Revolution, slavery and abolition,
immigration and industrialization, and World War II.
Using sketches provided by the museum, focus protoCAD created ProE
files of the architectural details and then realized the items as
stereolithography parts. The models protoCAD created were on a scale
of 1:24 of the actual house that is on display.
www.protoCAD.com
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The Garden Groom presents a novel approach to hedge trimming. The
devise is a rotational hedge trimmer, which collects cuttings while
it trims. Designed by UK-based DCA Design International,
the product won the prestigious Best New Product Award at the recent
GLEE (International Garden and Leisure Exhibition) exhibition, at
the NEC, UK, and was featured on a BBC television programme called
'Best Inventions'.
www.dca-design.com
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Over the past year, Los Angeles-based
Stuart Karten Design (SKD) has won five prestigious awards
for design excellence. SKD won a Red Dot Award (Germany) and a Design
& Art Direction Award (Britain) for their design of the Classic
Series, a complete line of hands-free devices for JABRA. SKD won
two additional awards – the Chicago Athenaeum’s Good Design
Award and Germany’s Industrie Forum Design Award (iF) –
for the CyberCartridge™ by Neurosmith, a computer peripheral
that enables children to expand the functionality of the popular
Music Blocks product. SKD’s fifth award of the year, another
Good Design Award, recognizes their excellent work in the medical
device field with the design of DentalView’s DV2 Perioscopy
System.
To cap it off, they've just launched a re-designed website. See
all the action for yourself at www.kartendesign.com.
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Palo Alto-based Lunar
Design has been acknowledged for its outstanding product design
in the 2002 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) program.
Lunar Design was honored with one gold and two silver awards for
three product designs: the Nova Cruz Xootr eX3, the Dell PowerEdge/PowerVault
system, and the Kerve* bike saddle.
http://www.lunar.com
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2002 finds Design North,
a strategic design firm specializing in branding for the retail
environment and based in Racine, Wisconsin, celebrating their 40th
year. To keep up with corporate growth and changes in the industry,
they've recently renovated and enhanced their headquarters, located
on a farmstead between Racine and Milwaukee that was originally
built in 1889. Boasting over 14,000 square feet of design and production
facilities spread across seven buildings, the offices are a unique
creative environment that should serve the company well over the
next 40 years!
http://www.designnorth.com
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Diplomat, the partnership of London-based furniture and product
designers, Ashley Hall and Matthew Kavanagh, have recently seen
their designs for three new chairs put into production by two Italian
manufacturers. For Origlia, a company well known and respected for
their high quality contract furniture ranges, Diplomat created Plus
and More chairs. Origlia, based near Turin, make use of high quality
manufacturing processes developed for automotive companies, including
Fiat. This is only the second time that Origlia commissioned non-Italian
designers in their history. For Arrmet, a manufacturing firm based
in Udine, Italy, Diplomat has created the Smarter Chair - a multi-component
plastic chair, which allows 16 color combinations from 4 component
colors.
The G specifier speeds the process of reviewing, comparing and choosing
product samples through an easy-to-use interface, while making it
easier share selected samples with others. Users can save selections
in a personal online sample library and email them to clients and
colleagues for review and discussion.
http://www.diplomat.org.uk
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