Backpack of the Future
In the future, our electronic devices will be more than just rectangular screens in our pockets. They will be bolder and more integrated into the fabric of our lives – literally. The Androcell backpack is an electronic communication device designed with a “Cradle to Cradle” approach.
With an Androcell backpack, one can exchange, store, create, and view digital data and perform several basic tasks. A steady development of technology ensures a brief lifecycle for electronic products. This is why Androcell is a “Cradle to Cradle” design. The materials used are innovative and organic. At the end of its lifecycle, Androcell leaves behind technical nutrients and biodegradable waste. It is targeted at young adults who have a knack for gadgets and enjoy music with their travels. The design itself displays a bold personality. The “X” shaped brace derives its form from its function, however it gives the design a distinctive appearance.
The backpack features an interactive E-paper display that allows an individual look for every bag. The ribbed brace on the backpack has two major functions: first, it adds strength and durability to the bag; secondly, it emits light for safety at night (for example, when worn by a cyclist). The user can determine the light’s colour. The glowing brace and the E-paper display bring the bag to life. Self-expression is limited only by one’s imagination.
The shoulder straps also make use of the interactive E-paper display. The straps feature a touch interface linked to the items available on the screen. From here, one can browse, modify, and exchange files. One can assign hot keys, a remote, or images and videos to the display on the front of the bag-pack. One can also choose to share and transfer information by plugging a standard USB device into the clip of the waistband. The integrated speaker system allows one to enjoy music while outdoors. The shoulder strap also has a quick-share feature that allows the sharing of small amounts of data like name cards with other Androcell backpacks. When exposed to sunlight, tiny glitter-sized photovoltaic cells harness solar energy to power the device sustainably.
Designer: Karan Singh Gandhi
SANTAMONICA 2010 | Posters, Tshirts, Print, Photography
Who would design your dream world?
In the movie Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio’s character enters dreams to influence the dreamer or extract valuable information. To redeem himself and gain the opportunity to see his family once again, he agrees to take on a risky dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream job to plant an idea, called “inception.” For these dream sequences, he requires the assistance of an architect — someone who designs the cities and buildings in which the events of the dreams will take place.
Last week, for fun, I asked my Twitter and Facebook followers who they would hire as their architect to design their dream world, just like in the movie.
Here are the top five architects chosen in order of popularity and some info about each architect:
Jesolo Magica by Zaha Hadid Architects
1. Zaha Hadid
Iraq-born Zaha Hadid established her own firm in 1980 in London. She has designed some of the most influential and outrageous curvy, spaceship-looking buildings and objects in contemporary design. In 2004 Hadid became the first female recipient of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize. She has taught and spoken around the world and is often cited as a top influential designer, architect and thinker. Still headquartered in London, her firm boasts over 350 employees. Notable works include the Central Bank in Baghdad, the Maxxi Museum in Italy, the Guangzhou Opera House in China, Vitra Fire Station in Germany, and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Ohio. I think that her conceptual work is what makes her most intriguing.
Dancing House by Frank Gehry
2. Frank Gehry
Based in LA, Gehry is a Canadian-American Pritzker Prize-winning architect whose work — in my opinion — can be described as disjointed movement. Each building that I see designed by Gehry looks almost like it made of movable parts. His work is often cited as part of the deconstructivism (deconstruction/DeCon) movement in architecture, where form doesn’t follow function and the structures aren’t rectangular in shape but fragment in a chaotic way. According to Wikipedia, he’s inspired by fish… I don’t see it. His work is either loved or hated. Notable works include the Guggenheim Museum in Spain, the Walt Disney Concert Hall in LA, his own residence in LA, the Experience Music Project in Seattle, the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, the Dancing House in Prague, and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. We have featured Gehry’s Lou Ruvo Center.
Fallingwater by Frank Lloyd Wright. Photo courtesy of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy
3. Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect and designer who designed works in the early to mid 1900s, perhaps best known for his work with stained glass. He was influenced quite a bit by Japanese art and architecture as well as nature. Some of his best known works include the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City, Fallingwater in Pennsylvania, Taliesin West in Arizona, and his home and studio in Illinois.
Seattle Public Library by Rem Koolhaas (OMA)
4. Rem Koolhaas
Also a Pritzker Prize winner, Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas founded London-based OMA (The Office for Metropolitan Architecture) in 1975 along with his wife Madelon Vriesendorp and architects Elia Zenghelis, Zoe Zenghelis. He was a journalist, taught at Harvard and has been named as one of the most influential people int he world. He co-founded Volume Magazine with Mark Wigley and Ole Bouman, which focuses on architecture beyond the building — environments, spacial relationships and global views on architecture. Notable works include the Seattle Central Library, the Netherlands Embassy in Germany, the Casa da Música in Portugal, the McCormick Tribune Campus Center in Chicago, and the Prada store in Beverly Hills.
5. A four-way-tie between Antoni Gaudí, Koichi Kimura, Herzog & de Meuron, and Sou Fujimoto
La Sagrada Familia by Antoni Gaudí.
Antoni Gaudí was a Spanish architect in the late 1800s, early 1900s who was part of the Art Nouveau movement. Influenced by Gothic architecture, Gaudí developed his own style of sculptural style that seems to me to be overly ornate yet oddly forward-thinking. One of his most famous (and unfinished) works — La Sagrada Família in Spain — reminds me a bit of the Emerald Palace from The Wizard of Oz, except more heavenly.
House of Diffusion by Kouichi Kimura Architects
I wish that I had more information on Kouichi Kimura Architects, but I couldn’t locate anything in English. Perhaps our Japanese readers can help us find out more? We have featured a few of Kouichi Kimura’s works on Design Milk: Black House and House in Japan.
VitraHaus by Herzog & de Meuron. Photo: Iwan Baan
Herzog & de Meuron is a Swiss firm that was established in 1978 by Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron. They won the Pritzker Prize in 2001. Notable works include VitraHaus, Prada Tokyo, the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games, Walker Art Center expansion in Minnesota, and Tate Modern in London.
House N by Sou Fujimoto. Photo: Iwan Baan
Sou Fujimoto is a Japanese architect who established his own practice in Tokyo in 2000. He is also a professor at Kyoto University. We have previously featured Sou Fujimoto’s T House.
Who would design your dream world?
nanimarquina
english/ The history of nanimarquina is based on a very clear idea: wanting to design rugs. It’s a simple statement, a transparent declaration of intent that has become a reality by putting into practice values such as observation, innovative endeavour, communication, emotion and knowing how to contemporise traditional craftsmanship.
Since its origins in 1987, nanimarquina has been designing rugs and other textile products, paying particular attention to research on raw materials and production processes. These factors enrich the aesthetic aspect of the products, which are the true stars that give the brand its visibility and commercial success.
Today nanimarquina is one of the leading rug manufacturing firms, exporting 60% of its production. With the second generation now forming part of the management, the company continues to make, live and offer design. It continues to make the principle on which it was founded a reality: to reinvent the rug, giving it new uses, new concepts and playing with elements such as shape, colour and texture.
español/ La trayectoria de nanimarquina se reconoce en una idea muy clara: querer diseñar alfombras. Un enunciado sencillo, una declaración de intenciones transparente que se hace realidad poniendo en juego valores como la observación, el esfuerzo innovador, la comunicación, la emoción y el saber contemporanizar las tradiciones artesanales.
Desde sus inicios en el año 1987, nanimarquina diseña alfombras y productos textiles poniendo especial atención en la investigación de materias primas y de procesos de elaboración. Estos factores enriquecen la vertiente estética de los productos, protagonistas esenciales de la visibilidad y el éxito comercial de la marca.
Hoy nanimarquina lidera, entre otras compañías, el sector de la elaboración de alfombras y exporta el 60% de su producción. Con la segunda generación ya incorporada en la gestión, la empresa continua haciendo, viviendo y ofreciendo diseño. Sigue haciendo realidad la convicción fundacional: la reinvención de la alfombra dándole un nuevo uso, aportándole nuevos conceptos y jugando con elementos como la forma, el color y la textura.
CT Scanner for Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital
RxArt is proud to introduce one of our most ambitious projects since our inception: an installation by world-renowned pop artist Jeff Koons at Advocate Hope Children’s Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. As a result of this groundbreaking collaboration, Koons’ iconic characters find a permanent home on a CT Scanner and surrounding exam room in the hospital’s radiology department. The installation—the first of it’s kind—aims to soothe and cheer young patients and brighten the potentially frightening testing environment.
To transform the space, the Philips CT Scanner was painted a vibrant blue and decals featuring Koons’ Monkeys were applied to the machine. His iconic Balloon Dog, Hanging Heart, and Donkey imagery were also installed to brighten the room as wallscapes. The addition of colorful new flooring completed the project, and the result is an awe-inspiring, playful escape that has completely revitalized the once-sterile room.
This project was made possible through the generosity of Kiehl’s Since 1851 and Jeff Koons, who generously took no artist fee for his participation in this project.
Copyright Jeff Koons Photo: Michael Tropea, Chicago
Sloooow Design
español/ Slooow Manifesto
Nuestro trabajo es nuestra vida, pero nuestra vida no es el trabajo: amamos lo que hacemos y vivimos el arte y el diseño en cada aspecto de nuestra vida, pero son las demás parcelas, familia, hijos, amigos, las que nos convierten en las personas felices que somos y las que nos permiten aportar una visión más optimista y creativa a todo lo que hacemos.
Hacerlo más rápido no es hacerlo mejor: dedicamos a cada proyecto el tiempo que requiera para que se convierta en lo mejor que puede ser.
Pequeños detalles hacen grandes proyectos: ponemos toda nuestra atención en cada pequeña parte del trabajo, pues son las cosas que apenas se notan las que completan los grandes proyectos.
Trabajar despacio no es trabajar menos: trabajamos con detenimiento y cuidado, dedicando tiempo a pensar lo que hacemos y por qué lo hacemos.
De uno en uno, por favor: el tiempo dedicado a cada proyecto es únicamente para ese proyecto y recibirá 100% de nuestra atención.
Perspectivas globales, recursos locales: tenemos una perspectiva estratégica global pero nos apoyamos en proveedores locales, estemos donde estemos.
Website Sloooow
english/ Slow design is a relatively new concept of design thinking, a derivative of the slow food movement. Slow Design’s implications are vast and yet to be fully explored.
It could mean any of the following:
Longer design processes with more time for research, contemplation, real life impact tests and fine tuning.
Design for manufacturing with local/regional materials and technologies or Design that supports local industries, workshops and craftspeople.
Design that takes into account local/regional culture both as a source of inspiration and as an important consideration for the design outcome.
Design that studies the concept of natural timecycles and incorporates them into design and manufacturing processes.
Design that looks at longer cycles of human behavior and sustainability.
Via Wikipedia
(__-){ Fail Whale | Birth of a Social Media Object
english/How An Unknown Artist’s Work Became a Social Media Brand Thanks To the Power of Community.
Twitter users are very familiar with the iconic image of the Fail Whale. This social object has been latched onto by Twitter fans not just as a representation of Twitter’s downtime, but also as a representation of the community’s love for the service and their hope for its triumph over their many struggles. Despite Twitter’s troubles, most of its users stayed true, watching and waiting as the team began the long process of recoding the application in order for it to scale up. As Twitter succumbed to the strain of running their under-provisioned service, the Fail Whale image would appear. And this image began to take on a life of its own.
The Fail Whale story is one that shows the value of open content. By making the art available, Yiying is now going to profit in more ways than if she had simply made the art available for purchase. She is earning profits from merchandise at both t-shirts shops and from the sale of her prints and she will certainly win some future design work from this as well. Of course, her successes come from more than just the work itself, but also from the power of the community who embraced it. The marriage of the two breathed life into the art and created a modern-day social object which emanates the hope of the community and the love they have for the brand.
español/ Cómo el Trabajo de un Artista Desconocida se convirtió en una Marca de los Medios Sociales gracias al Poder de Comunidad.
Los usuarios de Twitter están muy familiarizados con la imagen icónica de Fail Whale (Ballena Suspendida). Este objeto social ha sido adoptado por los fans en Twitter no sólo como una representación del tiempo de inactividad de Twitter, sino también como una representación del amor de la comunidad por el servicio y sus esperanzas del triunfo de éste sobre sus múltiples luchas. A pesar de los problemas de Twitter, la mayoría de sus usuarios se mantuvieron fieles, observando y esperando que el equipo comenzara el largo proceso de recodificación de la aplicación a fin de que se pudiera ampliar. Como Twitter sucumbió a la presión del volumen masivo de tweets, la imagen de la Ballena Suspendida apareció. Y esta imagen comenzó a adquirir vida propia.
La historia de la Ballena Suspendida es una muestra del valor del contenido abierto. Al hacer de uso público la obra, Yiying ahora va a obtener mayores beneficios que si hubiese vendido sólo la ilustración. Actualmente obtiene beneficios de la mercancía, tanto en las tiendas de camisetas como con la venta de impresiones, y ciertamente va a recibir múltiples ofertas para diseñar, gracias a ésto. Por supuesto, sus éxitos provienen de algo más que la propia obra, el poder de la comunidad que la adoptó. La unión de las dos dio vida a la obra y creó un objeto social de hoy en día emana la esperanza de la comunidad y el amor que tienen por la marca.
Website Yiying | FW Website What is Fail Whale? | Via Read Write Web | Traducción Artevital
