I know what you're thinking: "That's gross—a leather sink?"
But that's not leather at all, it's actually copper. A California-based company called Native Trails makes them, selecting copper specifically for its antimicrobial qualities. And also, well, because it looks a damn sight better than stainless steel.
Their manufacturing process is pretty neat: All of the copper comes from recycled electrical wiring and pipes, which are melted down and rolled into sheets. Next an artisan—you remember those people, the people who make things with their hands?—hammers it into shape, sticks it into a fire, and hammers it some more.
Some of Native Trails' sinks reportedly take 30,000 strikes to make. What I find most astonishing about that fact is that they got it at all; it either means some poor intern had to watch the artisan and count the hammer blows, or the artisan him/herself was sitting there going -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-seven. -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-eight. -WHAM- Twenty-four thousand three hundred and twenty-nine....
Bamboo bicycles are not new; according to this article, a trade fair in London had one on display in 1894. And while a bicycle made entirely from bamboo might be impossible to make, ID student Diego Cardenas is using the fast-growing stuff to cut down on the metal content by...
Here's some intelligent industrial design by Scott Wilson and MNML. The Power Pod, designed for Coalesse, is intended to solve an obvious and underaddressed problem: These days people plug and unplug things all the time. It would be nice to have a power strip within easy access of our workstations...
Transworld Business has got an interview up with Mike Tobia, the ex-pro snowboarder turned product designer and Director of Product at accessories brand Dragon. Tobia's worked on the design of APX snow goggles, which feature a frameless design that offers unprecedented peripheral vision.Tobia had this to say about design inspiration:In...
Following the invention of photography, it must've been staggering to see printed images of places you'd never been to. Similarly, when motion pictures were invented, people paid to watch footage of steam locomotives—a few seconds of silent action, no narrative story—just for the thrill.Now, years later we're seeing another image-capturing...
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