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‘coathanger.de family’ by Dirk Landauer

admin — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:34:53 +0000

On designspray designers, artists and creative people, who have something to sell, can register for free and sell their products via the shop. It is also possible to find a manufacturer for thought-through ideas.

‘coathanger.de family’ is a design by Dirk Landauer:

‘More coatrack would be to much!

Chose 2 for your Little Black Dress next to your closet or 7 for the hall. If you chose different lengths, you’ll have a sculpture in your vestibule.’

Price: 38,00 EUR

Cheaper by five! 160,00 EUR

LEGO photo iPhone app

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:16:27 +0000

LEGO has just released their own application for Apple’s iPhone, which allows users to turn their photos into LEGO bricks mosaics.

The application is free through itunes and at the click of a button transforms any image into LEGO.

The software uses the phone’s built-in camera and once snapped, the photo quickly builds brick by brick into a mosaic made from flat LEGO bricks. The mosaics come in a variety of color combinations and can be saved or shared through the phone.

‘Chain Wine Bottle Holder’

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 16:53:13 +0000

‘The ‘Chain Wine Bottle Holder‘ is a gravity defying eye catcher, and a great way to show off your vino and get people going ‘Ooooh’ and ‘Ahhhh’ and very possibly ‘Huh?’…

Made from welded chain links and cleverly designed so as to balance perfectly when you add your wine bottle of choice, it’s like having a piece of installation art on your dining table.’

Features

* the perfect way to show off a good bottle in a funky holder

* the holder is a simple chunky chain (or so it seems) into which you insert the neck of a standard bottle of wine

* the illusion created is that of a floating wine bottle

* size: 20 x 6cm.

‘BoA’ – a floating mega arcology for Boston’s Harbor

admin — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:25:29 +0000

The ‘BoA’, short for Boston Arcology, is a sustainable mega structure designed by Kevin Schopfer, who also designed the amazing New Orleans Arcology Habitat (NOAH).

The ‘BoA’ will house 15,000 people in hotels, offices, retail spaces, museums, condominiums, and even a new city hall. Built to LEED standards with golden proportions, this amazing building would serve as an expansion of the city without impacting what is already currently built.

Highlights of the ‘Boa’:

* It will be capable of housing 15,000 people distributed in hotels, offices, retail, museums, condominiums, and a new city hall.

* The massing of ‘Boa’ takes its cue from the built environment of Boston proper and as such exudes a rigorous geometric format. That format is further emphasized by the scaling of the golden rectangle whose proportions are: 1: 1.618.

* Within this golden rectangle, ‘Boa’s design alignments have a unique relationship with the Boston common.

What appear to be random projections of massing are actually fashioned as a vertical construct of the “common.” These diagonals are held in check by a fixed border as if a rigid urban edge.

* Because of its scale, ‘Boa’ is positioned perpendicular to the waterfront, preserving view corridors and general development massing.

* Sky gardens will be inserted into the three main towers every 30 floors. These sky gardens provide landscaped glass enclosed atria. In addition to their practical application of additional sunlit units, the “sky gardens” will create a sense of neighborhood presence and support a range of sustainable initiatives.

Vertical commuting within ‘Boa’ will be supported by a series of local and express transfer floors.

* ‘Boa’ is geared to an all pedestrian environment. Accordingly, only select horizontally based areas will be fitted with moving walkways and/or electric train carriers.

* ‘Boa’ is designed to expand the horizon of sustainability and will seek LEED certification.

* ‘Boa’ will eliminate the need for cars within the urban structure to create a carbon neutral entity. Some of these elements are secured wind turbines, fresh water recovery and storage systems, passive glazing system, sky garden heating/cooling vents, gray water treatment, solar array banding panels, and harbor based water turbines.

* A massive park system platform (pedestrian only) will be more than double the current green space allocation for the waterfront of Boston.

‘Boa’ is a floating city within a city, and is technically feasible, with the method as follows:

The foundation of ‘Boa’ is a series of poured concrete cells, which are combined to form a buoyant platform. The grid of these cells serves as the foundation for the rigid steel Superstructure.

* Though seemingly counter-intuitive, concrete is in fact a viable and durable floating solution. Oil rigs, barges, and even ships from WWII all employed this use of concrete to create buoyant objects. With new self sealing concrete, and other technologies, such structures can be monitored indefinitely.

* By proportional height, width, length, and weight, this buoyant platform is estimated to 90 feet, with an additional 15 feet of “buffer.” Assuming approximately 30-40 ft current depth in the ocean bed, a “retaining pool” would be sunk into the harbor, giving a waterline to base dimension of 105 feet. This becomes the fixed “pool” in which ‘Boa’ floats as water seeks its own level.

* ‘Boa’ is proposed as a three phase master plan. Though capable of program changes and opportunities, the project is geared to a ten year build-out. Because it is built in the harbor, it will have minimum impact on existing functions. Further, ‘Boa’ is designed not to encroach on existing channels.

http://www.ahearnschopfer.com/web/index.html

Designer: E. Kevin Schopfer, AIA, RIBA

http://www.tangram3ds.com/

Renderings: Tangram 3DS

Via Yanko Design

‘BirdWatchCam’

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 15:59:35 +0000

‘Millions of people love taking pictures. Millions of people love watching birds. Many millions of people love taking pictures of the birds they watch. The dilemma for most people is that there is never enough time to do either, let alone both! Now there is an EASY and fun way to do both even if you don’t have as much time as you would like.’

Birdwatchers have traditionally used trusty binoculars and expensive zoom lenses on their cameras to see and capture pictures of birds, the ‘BirdWatchCam‘ does all this and captures images of birds automatically. The device is a small and inexpensive camera which uses a motion activated sensor to snap pictures of quick moving birds. Inside, the camera has a 2gb memory card and a pack of batteries to allow it to snap hundreds of images.

The ‘BirdWatchCam’ is designed to be mounted and aimed at a birdfeeder or other high traffic bird area and its zoom lens means it can be a good distance from the actual sight. The device can be left outside in all weather conditions and takes around 15 photos every 20 seconds when activated.

Nokia concept phone runs on Coke

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 16:49:47 +0000

Chinese designer Daizi Zheng has created a conceptual mobile phone for Finnish brand Nokia that could be powered by sugary drinks.

Zheng proposes that the phone could run on a battery that uses enzymes to generate electricity from carbohydrates.

From Daizi Zheng:

Eco-friendly phone for Nokia

‘This is a client project for designing an eco friendly phone for Nokia. Through out my research, I found that phone battery as a power source, it is expensive, consuming valuable resources on manufacturing, presenting a disposal problem and harmful to the environment.

The concept is using bio battery to replace the traditional battery to create a pollution free environment.

Bio battery is an ecologically friendly energy generates electricity from carbohydrates (currently sugar) and utilizes enzymes as the catalyst.

By using bio battery as the power source of the phone, it only needs a pack of sugary drink and it generates water and oxygen while the battery dies out.

Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable.

Meanwhile, it brings a whole new perception to batteries and afternoon tea.’

‘Olympic Gold’ by Studio Lara de Greef

admin — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 17:16:28 +0000

From Studio Lara de Greef:

‘In Greek antiquity major events were often depicted on ceramics. These events, from birth until golden wedding, were shown on a tragically, lofty manner. Today, this way of presenting is still used, for example by high quality Wedgwood china.

These elegant, sophisticated, three-dimensional decorations are loved by people from all walks of life. Lara de Greef liked to decorate pottery with images that call for more recognition with everyday acts of life, such as dressing and undressing, getting into or out one’s shoes, sweeping the floor or practising sports.

In Lara’s designs, the detailed decorations show these animations very nicely.’

‘Fake Hills’ by MAD Architects

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 17:02:52 +0000

‘Fake Hills’ is a building which will offer residential, office and hotel facilities. The 430,000 sqm project by MAD architects is currently under construction. It is located on a waterfront site in Beihai, China.

The following information is from the architects’ website:

‘Throughout China’s ultra-rapid urbanization, attention has been focused on set-piece architecture: opera houses, museums, stadia. However these would-be icons are the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of development in China’s new cities takes the form of residential schemes, often standardized and cheap to guarantee a quick return for the developer. Is it possible to build high-density, economically viable housing which is also architecturally innovative?

This development is located in the coastal city of Beihai, on a long, narrow waterfront site. The design concept combines the two typologies that usually define residential developments (high rise towers or long, low rise blocks) to create a bold new structure in the form of a long slab. This shape can maximize the views of residents, but can also easily appear to be a monolithic break between the waterfront and the land behind it.

The solution is twofold: to cut into the slab, creating a sculpted form which references the shape of the hills that dominate the region’s landscape, and to cut openings through the structure, to further allow space, views and light to penetrate it.

A further reference point is traditional Chinese architecture’s obsession with nature. Rather than siting the building in a perfect, man-made natural garden, our structure becomes the man-made natural shape itself: fake hills for the residents to live on. The design provides both a high density solution and a new landmark for the city.’

Year: 2008
Location: Beihai, China
Typology: residential apartment
Site area: 109,203sqm
Building area: 492,369sqm
Building height: slab-106m; tower-194m
sSatus: under construction

For more pictures visit: www.i-mad.com.

designer Philippe Starck designs micro wind turbines

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 17:31:03 +0000

French designer Philippe Starck, creator of chic hotels, high-tech lamps and modern-style furniture, has turned his attention to energy with the design of two sleek micro wind-power turbines aimed at domestic use.

Starck on Wednesday unveiled the “Revolutionair” turbines, made by Italy’s Pramac, which makes power generation equipment, after two years of work on the project.

The turbines, which will be made in the Tuscan city of Siena and can be placed in the garden or on the roof, consist of the quadrangular 400W WT model with a power output of 400W and the helicoidal shaped 1KW WT, which can generate power of 1 KW.

Their Italian reference prices will start from about 2,500 euros ($3,515) and 3,500 euros respectively.

“We have to help people to produce energy, to be part of the fight,” Starck told a news conference at the unveiling in Milan.

“Energy should not be a punishment, we should create a desire (among people to produce it).”

Starck is famous for interiors that have included the private apartments of former French President Francois Mitterrand as well as products such as transparent chairs and the spider-like Juicy Salif fruit juicer.

Via: www.reuters.com.

‘Binta’ armchair by Philippe Bestenheider

admin — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 15:58:26 +0000

‘Binta’, an Africa-inspired armchair by Swiss designer Philippe Bestenheider, is part of the new Moroso collection unveiled at the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan 2009.

The chair’s form is based on African wood carvings and the upholstery is based on Senegalese patchwork fabrics.

Statement from Bestenheider:

‘Binta was inspired by Africa. Its sculptural shape evokes African wood carvings, but its polyurethane rubber forms are softer. Like a baobab tree, Binta anchors itself firmly to the ground with thick, trunk-like feet whose elegant forms bring to mind the weighty baobab.

Its upholstery is a patchwork of Wax fabrics, the traditional textiles worn by African women. Contrasting patterns and colours emphasise the armchair’s shape, enveloping and moulding its silhouette.

The brash, bright colour contrasts are in the tradition of African textiles and colour schemes; they conjure up the elegant tailoring of women’s clothes as if Binda were a Senegalese lady about to wear and enhance the hot colours of Africa.’