Core77

Core77 Weekly Roundup (6-22-26 to 6-26-26)

Rain Noe

Here's what we looked at this week:

An aluminum lamp made using a hydraulic press, by industrial designer Omri Polishuk.

Wataru Kumano's Sauna Stool, created with a minimum of production steps.

Real Motors' stunning Project Ares electric motorcycle.

Butterfly doors for a house! By People's Architecture Office.

Great UX: Hazet's SmartCase portable tool organizers.

ArborTech's smart design for a handheld trenching tool re-thinks the blades.

Travoca's award-winning off-grid eCooler, by industrial designer Dave Gibson.

BMW unveils their striking M Concept Neue Klasse.

How smelly people were historically dealt with: Mass deodorizers from antiquity.

Soccer-inspired asymmetrical linking chairs, by industrial designer Peter Otto Vosding.

Design Professor Phil Renato's clever 3D-printed two-part wire bending jig.

Butterfly Doors for a House!

Rain Noe

People's Architecture Office is a Beijing-based firm that works across architecture, product design, art, and urbanism. As the name suggests, the firm believes that design should be for the masses, and they focus on social impact projects.

Hutongs are Beijing's traditional alleyway neighborhoods. They're a far cry from modern apartment towers, being low-rise structures packed with lower- and middle-income residents. PAO modified one such structure with this incredible butterfly door, which turns into a light-admitting awning:

"[It's] wonderful to witness @peoplesarchitecture's years of work," writes design curator Shirley Surya, who shot the video, "that enabled inhabitants to remain in the hutong fabric by integrating modern amenities and providing spatial options thru attractive/affordable/appropriate 'plug-in' solutions."

A Design Professor's Clever 3D-Printed Two-Part Wire Bending Jig

Rain Noe

Phil Renato is a Product Design professor at Ferris State University's Kendall College of Art and Design, in Michigan. A hands-on guy, Renato created this 3D-printed jig for bending wire:

"Some subtext here: I absolutely hate pliers," Renato writes. "Even though I have a jewelry background and I don't use that much wire in my work anyway, I absolutely of abhor even very good jewelers pliers. I recognize their value, I know that other people can use them in precise ways that don't ding up the work etc. But I am almost always someone who will use a jig and pieces of wood or plastic mallets and vise jaws lined with brass etc. to keep from having to bend things with pliers for reasons that only my imaginary counselor can really understand."

Renato has posted the .stl files for the jig on Thingiverse.

Soccer-Inspired Asymmetrical Linking Chairs

Rain Noe

This Spielbein chair concept is by German industrial designer Peter Otto Vosding. (In German, spielbein refers to the kicking leg in soccer, as opposed to the standbein, or supporting leg. The name makes sense when you look at the design.)

Seating people in rooms of any kind, you always have to answer the question of how many seats will be necessary. Placing benches instead of chairs is an elegant way of answering this question. Depending on the amount of people in one room, you can move together, or take more space for yourself. However, a disadvantage is, that benches are bulky and cannot be varied in length. This is where Spielbein comes in:

The chair has an extension of the seating surface towards one side. This extension closes the gap between aligned chairs, that build a bench in their entirety. However, the backrests still clearly define single seats, whereas the seating surface invites people to budge up and offer someone else a place without relinquishing it themselves.

I'd love to see further refinement. Would it be possible to modify the design so that the chairs can stack?

Smart Design for a Handheld Trenching Tool

Rain Noe

Out here in the country, you see a lot of ditches and trenches being dug. It's how plumbing and electrical infrastructure reach houses. By the side of the road, you'll often see contractors using machines or tractor attachments made by a company called Ditch Witch:

Some properties aren't accessible by these machines, either because they're remote or because existing fencing prevents it. In those cases, workers have to resort to using narrow spades called sharpshooters. It's obviously hard work.

However, Australian tool company ArborTech invented a portable, powered trenching tool that eases the task. The chainsaw-like form factor of the Ditch Witch wouldn't work for a handheld tool—the kickback from trying to dig into hard dirt would wrench the tool out of the worker's hands. So instead, ArborTech's AllSaw uses two U-shaped oscillating and reciprocating Trench Blades:

The alternating motion of the dual blades completely eliminates kickback; the blades simply shift through the dirt in an alternating pattern, ejecting material while the user guides the tool.

Rather than investing in their own proprietary battery, the company shrewdly partnered up with DeWalt. The AllSaw runs on DeWalt's FlexVolt batteries, making the tool an easy buy for contractors already on board with Big Yellow.

How Smelly People were Historically Dealt With: Mass Deodorizers from Antiquity

Rain Noe

Modern civilization works hard to dispel unpleasant smells. Deodorant, air fresheners and scented detergents are a multibillion-dollar industry.

Obviously this industry didn't exist in antiquity. But here's an early solution for dealing with stinky people.

Image: Ajuntament de Sant Vicenç de Montalt, CC BY 3.0

As civilization developed, small cities were formed and houses of worship erected. Now you've got dozens or hundreds of bodies crammed inside a single structure, and none of these people have access to hot running water, Irish Spring or Febreze. These early temples stank.

This was a global problem. Thus the ancient Egyptians, the Chinese, the Europeans all looked for things they could burn to cover the smell in temples and churches. Frankincense, sandalwood, cloves and other herbs were used.

These were called incense, and placed inside metal vessels called censers. The censers were loaded with hot coals. The smell of the incense helped mask the smell of the unwashed masses, and the rising smoke came to symbolize prayers in visual form.

Image: Lacma

Image: Shakko, CC BY-SA 3.0

Image: Tbatb, CC BY-SA 4.0

In Spain, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela has an extreme version of a censer. From the late 900s, Christians from across Europe would make pilgrimages to Santiago, because the Cathedral was believed to hold the remains of St. James. As the church filled up with pilgrims, the interior would become pretty rank. So sometime around the 1200s, the clergy developed this crazy overhead-swinging censer called the Botafumeiro:

As you can see they still use it today, out of tradition.

The thing weighs 80kg (176 lbs), so they presumably put a lot of care into their rope selection.

BMW Unveils Striking M Concept Neue Klasse

Rain Noe

A couple of years ago, we were excited to see BMW's Neue Klasse; the designers, we felt, had come back down to Earth with some shockingly clean design. Now they've unveiled their concept for the performance-oriented M version of the Neue Klasse, answering the question: What should an electric M-series look like?

A forward-facing shark nose and a light signature with depth effect characterise the front end. Headlights and kidney grille form a single unit. The new M Yellow Lights create a focused view of the road. The yellow light icons are set to become a new signature feature of future BMW M automobiles and reference GT racing cars as well as the BMW M Hybrid V8.

The front apron of the BMW M Concept Neue Klasse adopts a trimaran-style bumper, inspired by the form of high-speed sailing boats. The three-part design underlines the vehicle's technical appearance. It also provides structural support for the front splitter – an aerodynamic element at the lower edge of the front end.

Another new lighting accent for future BMW M automobiles are the three-dimensional Track Lights located in the outer sections of the front apron.

Track Lights and trimaran design also shape the rear apron of the BMW M Concept Neue Klasse. The Track Lights frame the trimaran element above the floating diffuser. A striking ducktail spoiler improves aerodynamics, increases downforce at the rear axle and at the same time sets a striking accent within the clean surface design of the rear end.

"The new BMW M design language forms the expressive spearhead of the Neue Klasse – determined and purposeful," says BMW design chief Oliver Heilmer. "This project is truly special to me because it carries the BMW M character into a new era."

The industry buzz is that this isn't just a design study, but a near-production design slated for 2027 or '28.

Travoca's Award-Winning Off-Grid E-Cooler, by Industrial Designer Dave Gibson

Rain Noe

Industrial designer Dave Gibson specializes in outdoor gear; indeed, he's a Professor of Outdoor Product and Industrial Design at Utah State University. Gibson was recently tapped by Travoca, a Milwaukee-based outfit that makes overlanding equipment, to design a different sort of cooler. The result is their Rigel+ eCooler:

While it resembles a traditional cooler in appearance, this thing has a Toshiba compressor wedged inside; it functions as a full-blown refrigerator/freezer and is aimed at overlanders.

While it can run off of 12V (plugged into your car) or 110V (plugged into a household socket), Travoca has higher aims: Full off-grid capability. To that end, they also produce this Vega Sol 200, a weather-resistant foldable solar panel, which charges their Vega 1500 Power Station, a portable battery.

The idea is that you keep the eCooler plugged into your car's battery as you drive. Once you've arrived at your off-grid destination, you plug it into the Power Station (which you'd ideally have topped off at home). The Power Station provides about 18 hours of runtime for the eCooler, and you can keep charging the Power Station using the solar panels; five hours of sun can get the Power Station from 0% to 80%.

None of this is cheap, of course. The eCoolers come in 25L, 35L, 45L and 60L capacities, running $650, $830, $930 and $1,030 respectively. The Vega Sol 200 solar panel's a further $340, and the Power Station runs $850. But for those with the budget, being able to keep things cool for days on end without ice is a huge game-changer.

For his troubles, Gibson's being awarded a 2026 Red Dot Design Award next month.

Great UX: Hazet's SmartCase Portable Tool Organizers

Rain Noe

German tool manufacturer Hazet has been around for over 150 years, and they've gotten their tool cases down to a science. Their SmartCase line stores bits and handles in a compact kit of clever design:

The latches will never wear out or break—they're magnetic:

The company makes a variety of these for different bit and socket combinations. The line's motto is "Maximum tool variety in the smallest space."

They also sell empty cases, if you prefer to mix-and-match your own assortments.

In the 'States, you can find these on Amazon.

Reader Submitted: Node & Loft - A Modular Charging Ecosystem that Doubles as Sculptural Desktop Objects

Benjamin Hubert

LAYER has designed Node and Loft, a new family of charging products for Daily Objects that transforms everyday power into an expressive, design-led ecosystem. Comprising the modular Node wireless charging ecosystem and Loft charging station, the characterful collection brings order and flexibility to the devices that support daily life, from phones, earbuds and watches to laptops, tablets and home appliances.

View the full project here

Reader Submitted: An Assistive Communication Ecosystem Enabling Real-Time Deaf-Hearing Conversation

Sejoon Kim

Dari is an assistive communication ecosystem designed to bridge the communication gap between Deaf and hearing individuals through seamless, real-time, two-way interaction. Developed over a 26-week design process, the project was grounded in extensive user research, interviews, and co-design activities with members of the Deaf community to ensure that the solution addressed real challenges experienced in everyday life. The name Dari, meaning "bridge" in Korean, reflects the project's core mission of fostering meaningful connections and creating a world where communication is more accessible, inclusive, and equitable for everyone.

Many existing communication tools for Deaf individuals rely heavily on interpreters, smartphones, text-based exchanges, or one-way translation systems that can interrupt the natural flow of conversation. These solutions often create dependency, introduce delays, and fail to capture the emotional and contextual nuances that are essential to human interaction. Through research, key challenges were identified, including difficulties communicating in public environments, reliance on third parties for interpretation, and barriers to spontaneous social interactions. Dari was created to address these issues by enabling both Deaf and hearing individuals to communicate naturally using their preferred methods of communication.

The ecosystem consists of three integrated components. The first is Woori, an AI-powered EMG smart armband that recognizes sign language gestures through muscle movement and translates them into spoken or written language. The second is Sari, a pair of smart glasses that captures spoken language and provides real-time captions and contextual information directly within the user's field of view. The third component is a companion mobile application that supports device management, customization, communication history, and personalized settings. Together, these components create a communication experience that feels intuitive, unobtrusive, and human-centered.

Beyond translating words, Dari aims to preserve the natural rhythm of conversation and reduce the social barriers that often exist between Deaf and hearing communities. By allowing both users to communicate in the way that is most comfortable for them, the system promotes independence, confidence, and equal participation in conversations. The solution is designed to support a wide range of environments, including workplaces, educational settings, healthcare facilities, public services, and everyday social interactions.

Dari represents a vision of accessibility that goes beyond compliance and accommodation. It demonstrates how emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, wearable computing, and human-centered design can be combined to create meaningful social impact. Rather than asking users to adapt to technology, Dari adapts technology to the needs of its users, making communication more natural and inclusive. Through its focus on empathy, accessibility, and human connection, the project seeks to empower individuals, strengthen communities, and contribute to a future where communication barriers no longer limit opportunities for participation, understanding, and belonging.

View the full project here

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Home & Living Winners

Core Jr

The 2026 Home & Living Professional winner is Tin Can, a modern take on the landline designed specifically for kids—a screen-free, ad-free, text-free phone that operates on a fully private network where only approved callers can reach the device, offering voice communication stripped back to its most essential form. With no browser, app store, camera, or spam exposure, Tin Can gives parents peace of mind while giving children a more intentional, independent way to stay connected to friends and family.

The jury "loved the connection between the form, the brand name and its purpose." In addition, they "also felt this is a product of its time - parents are increasingly worried about children using smartphones but really want solutions to maintain communication."

The 2026 Student winner in Home & Living is Nibbl by Viktor Strömberg, Murat Can Habire, Tejas Mitra, Emily Klein at Umeå Institute of Design. Nibbl is a connected jam-making appliance designed for a Nordic multigenerational household with access to seasonal fruit and berries, exploring how automation and simple digital support can make home preservation more manageable while preserving the social and cultural aspects of the practice. Grounded in a Swedish context where families split time between urban homes and country houses, Nibbl addresses the challenges of surplus produce, inconsistent results, and long-term tracking that make traditional jam making difficult to sustain.

They jury felt the project "really stood out" with a design that is "well thought through and resolved." Most impressive were the "process work including the film that demonstrated the concept using cardboard models with such charm and simplicity that it left us smiling."

Home & Living Award Honorees

Jon Marshall, Partner at Pentagram, led the jury team for Home & Living . The team included Harry Mitchell, Co-Founder and Creative Director at Beta Design Office; Isabella Trani, Founder of OMI; and Ruby Steel, Co-Founder of Studio Exception.

The 2026 Home & Living category celebrates consumer products and services designed for use in domestic settings, where good design has to earn its place day after day, spanning home accessories, appliances, smart home products, home electronics, security systems, and everything else that shapes life at home.

2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees:

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Apps & Platforms Winners

Core Jr

The 2026 Professional winner in the Apps & Platforms category is Future Fizz, from the team comprised of Yue Wu, Yijie Chen from Future Fizz. Future Fizz is an AI-powered career development app that helps young people discover passions, build skills, and imagine future career paths through playful fiction—using large language models to invent quirky fictional jobs that serve as metaphors for real-world skills. Rather than starting from existing job titles, the app synthesizes personal signals of interest into futuristic career narratives and skill trees, lowering anxiety around career choice through curiosity-driven exploration.

The Student Apps & Platforms winner is Arli from Zoe Bair, Santos Torres, Angelia Legaspi, Chloe Au-Yeung, Ellie Fowler, Luc-Michael Bernal at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Arli is an offline-capable sensor and AI-driven dashboard platform that closes the communication gap between independent farmers, extension agents, and scientists to target crop resiliency—delivering personalized field insights while protecting data ownership. Designed to address the climate-driven pressures of crop stress and limited rural connectivity, Arli is envisioned as a hub for smart farm systems that allows farmers to integrate other AgTech devices and manage all field data in a trusted platform.

Apps & Platforms Award Honorees

Arvi Raquel-Santos, Sr. Staff UX Manager at Google, led the jury team for Apps & Platforms. The team included Brendan Callahan, UX Design Manager at Google; and David Muro, Senior Manager of Experience Design at Airbnb.

The 2026 Apps & Platforms category celebrates web and mobile software designed to be genuinely useful and a pleasure to use, from consumer-facing mobile apps and websites to the platforms and programs that quietly make daily digital life work.

2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees:

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Built Environment Winners

Core Jr

The 2026 Built Environment Professional winner is Earth Court Case Study 001 (Sanctum) from Kindred Studio. Sanctum is the first in a series of unique "earth court" basketball courts designed and built by Kindred Studio, set in a forest environment and conceived as a celebration of the intersection of sport, art, and nature. The project aims to reimagine the basketball court as a site-specific sculptural experience that honors the natural landscape while creating a space for community and athletic play.

The jury selected this project because it "turns a basketball court into something much more than a place to play. The sculptural design creates a unique sense of place, bringing together sport, art, and nature in a way that feels both inviting and memorable." The design team included John Dennis, Natashia Betancourt, Jonathan Brand, Haliei Benedict, David Hernandez, Patrick Cherry, Ashlynn Savannah, Stephanie Shum, Jason Price, Matthew Solomon, Dana Gluck and Donovan Barrow.

The 2026 Student winner in Built Environment is Space for Grief by Eva Barth at Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design. Space for Grief is an immersive installation that fosters community connection through the embodied expression of grief and compassion. The installation transforms individual grief into a shared, embodied language—allowing the body to express what words sometimes cannot, and inviting communities to process loss together rather than in isolation.

Jury captain Zhaoxiong Han noted that the "project's greatest strength lies in making an intangible emotional experience tangible. By giving grief a physical and visual form, it creates a powerful bridge between personal reflection and collective connection."

Built Environment Award Honorees

Zhaoxiong Han, Architectural Designer at Gensler, led the jury team for Built Environment . The team included Alastair Stokes, Associate at Gensler; Dingdong Tang, Project Coordinator at Corgan; and Liem My Tran, Associate Architectural Designer at ZGF Architects.

The 2026 Built Environment category celebrates spatial design that shapes how people inhabit the world around them, from permanent architectural interiors and public installations to temporary retail displays, exhibition booths, restaurant environments, and set designs that define a moment in space.

2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees:

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Consumer Technology Winners

Core Jr

Taking the 2026 Professional honors in the Consumer Technology category is KARRI Messenger, designed by Pentagram for KARRI. The KARRI Messenger is a child-friendly alternative to smartphones designed for kids aged 5–13, enabling voice messaging between a parent's companion app and the device—as well as between Messengers—with GPS tracking, a built-in flashlight, and a simple LED matrix display that provides feedback without distraction. With no browser, app store, camera, or exposure to spam or social media, the pocket-sized device gives children a safe and fun way to build independence and communication skills before entering the broader digital world.

The design team from Pentagram was comprised of Jon Marshall, Amelia Kociolkowska, Shing Lo, Dan Patterson, Chifen Cheng, Steph Hamilton-Jones. The jury was impressed by "the boldness of the question the designers chose to answer... and the confidence with which they delivered it." They also noted the "one tactile 'slide to talk' control, with a clear lineage to the walkie-talkie and a refreshing LED matrix that informs without distracting."

Earning the Student honors in Consumer Technology is MX Surgical – Tactile XR Surgical Training, a project by Niklas Andreasen out of the Umeå Institute of Design. MX Surgical is a mobile, scalable XR training system that combines multimodal surgical tool replicas, modular pads, and mixed-reality overlays to enable realistic, repeatable surgical practice across different settings—directly addressing the shortage of hands-on training opportunities for surgical residents.

The jury noted how "most simulations train cognitive decision-making, while the physical craft of open surgery remains under-served" and called this a "confident, mature contribution from a student designer."

Consumer Technology Award Honorees

Roman Gebhard, Managing Partner at FLUID Design GmbH, led the jury team for Consumer Technology . The team included Bastian Albinus, Sr. Industrial Design Manager at ASUS Computers; Janet Owczarek, Industrial Designer at BSH Hausgерäte GmbH; and Nicolas Denhez, Director of Industrial Design at Anduril Industries.

The 2026 Consumer Technology category celebrates hardware and software products for home and personal use that are screen-based, tech-enabled, or internet-connected, with a particular focus on designs that make sophisticated technology feel intuitive in people's hands and daily lives.

Core77

Core77 Weekly Roundup (6-22-26 to 6-26-26)

An aluminum lamp made using a hydraulic press, by industrial designer Omri Polishuk.

Wataru Kumano's Sauna Stool, created with a minimum of production steps.

Real Motors' stunning Project Ares electric motorcycle.

Butterfly doors for a house! By People's Architecture Office.

Great UX: Hazet's SmartCase portable tool organizers.

ArborTech's smart design for a handheld trenching tool re-thinks the blades.

Travoca's award-winning off-grid eCooler, by industrial designer Dave Gibson.

BMW unveils their striking M Concept Neue Klasse.

How smelly people were historically dealt with: Mass deodorizers from antiquity.

Soccer-inspired asymmetrical linking chairs, by industrial designer Peter Otto Vosding.

Design Professor Phil Renato's clever 3D-printed two-part wire bending jig.

Butterfly Doors for a House!

A Design Professor's Clever 3D-Printed Two-Part Wire Bending Jig

Soccer-Inspired Asymmetrical Linking Chairs

Smart Design for a Handheld Trenching Tool

How Smelly People were Historically Dealt With: Mass Deodorizers from Antiquity

BMW Unveils Striking M Concept Neue Klasse

Travoca's Award-Winning Off-Grid E-Cooler, by Industrial Designer Dave Gibson

Great UX: Hazet's SmartCase Portable Tool Organizers

Reader Submitted: Node & Loft - A Modular Charging Ecosystem that Doubles as Sculptural Desktop Objects

Reader Submitted: An Assistive Communication Ecosystem Enabling Real-Time Deaf-Hearing Conversation

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Home & Living Winners

Home & Living Award Honorees

Tin Can

By Tin Can

SEVAS WATER

By Elle Turner

Fellow Espresso Machine Series 1

By Branch Creative

Terra Kaffe Accessories Family

By Ammunition

Counterstand and Glow Lamp by Lettuce Grow

By Pip Tompkin and Peter Kaltenbach with Pump Studios

Orion Sleep System

By Herbst Produkt

Whirlpool® Dishwasher with Spin&Load Rack

By Whirlpool Design Group

Gladiator® Modular Bar System: PowerStrip, Light & Magnet

By Whirlpool Design Group

Nibbl

By Viktor Strömberg, Murat Can Habire, Tejas Mitra, Emily Klein

TABLETOP HANDS-FREE HAIR DRYER

By BEINI JIN

Passerine

By Katherine Dawson

MALLOW

By YUHE CHEN, JITAO CHEN

DuoShift

By Seung Bin Bae

TrimMate - New Generation of Smart Outdoor Care Robots

By Ye Huang

A Modular Pet Carrier Built Around Familiar Living

By Jiayi Zhang

Hydro Pulse Technology

By Daniel Ciochina

2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees:

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Apps & Platforms Winners

Apps & Platforms Award Honorees

Future Fizz

By Yue Wu, Yijie Chen

MyMonthly: Designing Shared Awareness in Cycle Health

By Iris Sun / My Monthly LLC

Arli

By Zoe Bair, Santos Torres, Angelia Legaspi, Chloe Au-Yeung, Ellie Fowler, & Luc-Michael Bernal

Transition

By Viktor Strömberg

Hear Here: Find Restaurants by Vibe

By Insun Heo

CropClan

By Kasa Chan, Xinjin Xu, Wanran Zhou, Catherine Tao, & Punasa Sihsobhon (Bee)

2026 Core77 Design Awards All Honorees:

The 2026 Core77 Design Awards Built Environment Winners

Built Environment Award Honorees

Earth Court Case Study 001 (Sanctum)

By Kindred Studio

“Past as Prologue: The Last Decade of Furniture Design by Ray and Charles Eames (1968–78)” exhibit

By Volume Inc.

Turf Design Experience Center