As the inaugural year of SVA's new MFA in Products of Design program nears the spring, they have opened up applications for their summer program, this time around the growing field of food design. Headed up by faculty member Emilie Baltz and Core77 Design Awards Favorite Marc Bretillot, the program takes place in France from July 7–13, 2013. Below are more details:

This immersive workshop is a delicious foray into the growing field of food design. Taking place in the French capital of Champagne province, the program will be hosted in the kitchens of L'Ecole Supérieure d'Art et de Design de Reims (L'ESAD), home to one of the first culinary design program in the world. Emphasizing a maker-driven, cooking-centric approach, the program will reveal new perspectives unto the ways that we engage and identify with our food.

Under the direction of Marc Bretillot, founder of the food design program at L'ESAD, and Emilie Baltz, artist and food designer, the program is based on the understanding that food is our most fundamental form of consumption. In recent years, we have seen a growing awareness around the quality of the food we ingest and the industrial means surrounding our most basic foodstuffs. With the rapidly expanding reach of the design industry, designers are now uniquely situated to explore and affect these systems.

Using materials, gestures, forms and interactions, participants will investigate the role that ingredients, taste, shape and service play within food design. Throughout the workshop, critiques and performances will be held to emphasize the authentic development of personal "taste”." Students will likewise be challenged to consider the sensory experience of their work and its ethical, aesthetic, historical and political implications. A professional chef will assist participants with technical needs. Scheduled visits and tastings to neighboring distilleries, vineyards, local farms and food producers will be an essential component of revealing the complex, and delightful, space in which food design exists.

Located 80 miles from Paris (45 minutes on the high-speed train), the City of Reims is one of the cultural centers of France. Participants will stay in centrally located apartment-style housing with full service amenities.

Learn more about the program at the site.

Sneaker innovation (or the Footwear Novelty Gimmick Contest, depending on your point of view) continues. Hot on the heels of Reebok's crazy ATV-style shoe and Adidas' Boost foam comes Puma's Mobium Runner, a sneaker that "expands and contracts with your foot." Two tendon-like attachments running underneath the shoe, and inspired by the plantar fascia connective tissue on the sole of your foot, reportedly allow the shoe to do this.

Whether or not you believe they work, Puma Innovation Team designer Raymond Horacek looks like he has an awesome gig: Based out of their Japan studio, Horacek sketches, wades through Tokyo, quotes Gaudí and studies cats:

Gotta love New York City. Designer Ted Southern decided he wanted to make body armor for a living—not the military stuff, I'm talking Knight and Samurai armor—and shortly after getting his Masters from Pratt, actually found a gig doing it in Manhattan.

Southern's work at a costume and prop fabrication business led him in some random directions: He began designing the wings for those Victoria's Secret models and developed an interest in spacesuit gloves. (Then again, these things might not seem unusual to a man whose undergraduate major was the French Horn.) He entered a 2007 NASA-sponsored spacesuit glove design competition, and while he didn't win, he ended up giving a fellow entrant a ride back to Manhattan after the ceremony.

That entrant was Nikolay Moiseev, a Russian former cosmonaut and spacesuit designer.

The two kept in touch, decided to collaborate on an entry in the 2009 iteration of the same competition, and won 2nd place together.

Image courtesy of smashingbuzz

Jeroen van Geel was invited to participate in the Redux at Interaction 13 in Toronto. Speakers were invited to reflect upon the conference content on the last day of the conference. This is part of his reflection, combined with some after thoughts.

Interaction design is a young field. At least, that's what we as interaction designers keep telling ourselves. And of course, in comparison to many other fields we are respectfully young. But I get the feeling that we use it more as an excuse to permit ourselves to have an unclear definition of who we are—and who we aren't.

At this year's Interaction Design Association (IxDA) conference, Interaction 13, you got a good overview of the topics that are of interest to interaction designers. And I can tell you that, as long as it has something to do with human behaviour, it seems of interest. In four days time there were talks and discussions around data, food design, social, health, gaming, personas, storytelling, lean, business and even changing the world. The topics ranged from the very specific task of creation of attributes to having an impact on a global scale. It shows that interaction designers have a great curiosity and want to understand many aspects of life. When we think we have an understanding of how things work, we have the feeling that we can impact everything. Of course this is great and we all know that curiosity should be stimulated, but at the same time this energy and endless search for knowledge can be a curse. Before we know it we become the jack of all trades, master of none. Interaction designers already have a lot of difficulty explaining their exact value. But where does it end? I don't know the answer, because I myself understand this endless curiosity and see how it helps me to improve my skills. Maybe the question is: are we becoming more a belief than a field?

The theme of Interaction 13 was 'social innovation with impact.' From this topic there were several presentations that focused on the role of interaction designers making the world a better place. Almost all designers in general, but every interaction designer specifically, wants to have this kind of impact. Over the last few years I've seen quite a few presentations at 'User Experience' conferences where a speaker enthusiastically puts his fist in the air and proclaimed that the time has come for the interaction designer to make the world more livable. Everybody cheered, interaction designers rallied up with their sharpies and thought they could solve every possible wicked problem. They enthusiastically went back to their huge corporation or agency in the hope that the next day they would finally get this world-changing assignment from their boss. But of course it didn't work that way.

The R32, BMW's first motorcycle

BMW Museum

BMW clay model

Over the course of three posts, we will take a look at the highlights of the second edition of the Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW), which happened from February 16–24, 2013. Passionate designer Antonia Cecchetti guided us through the BMW museum, explaining how the brand started making motorcycles and engines in 1917 and expanded throughout the years without loosing its identity. The first motorcycles used to be available in only in black with white stripes, followed by a color alternative of "white with black stripes." Today, the brand (and its colors) have expanded enormously without compromising its signature design elements, such as the iconic round headlights and kidney-shaped air intakes. We were lucky to have Antonia guide us, being a great BMW fan. We enjoyed it when she told us how the new BMW7 tail lights makes her heart beat faster.

One of the highlights at the museum is the kinetic sculpture, which was used in an advertisement for the BMW 5 series:

Kinetic sculpture animating 714 metal balls

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By Jan Chipchase, Mark Rolston and Cara Silver

Risk is an issue in every country where we run research (mostly in the form of vehicle accidents), but is elevated in Afghanistan, where there are occasional attacks, suicide bombings, and kidnappings. The challenge for the team in ascertaining risk—and developing strategies and tactics to mitigate that risk—was in looking beyond the dramatic headlines and the established and stringent security protocols for organizations that need to operate on the ground for extended periods of time, gaps in our own knowledge, and processing events on the ground as they unfold.

It is not our purpose to overstate the more adventurous aspects of this research and we recognize that there are people living and working in Afghanistan under far, far riskier conditions, not least the Afghans themselves. With that in mind we hope that some of you will find this discussion useful.

The perception of risk varies from context to context over the course of the research day. The general sense on the ground (and from Jan, who has researched in Afghanistan multiple times) was that the security situation has progressively become worse. Several of our translators reinforced this impression, saying, "2010 was the best year in recent history. Now, with the news that the United States will pull out, people have less hope. People stopped investing in the future. Construction has slowed, and families are pulling daughters out of school. Things are getting worse."

The cornerstone of our research strategy was to maintain a low profile: with no security detail to draw attention, travelling in local taxis (rather than SUVs normally used by NGOs and contractors). Motorcycles were used on photo-shoot days where a broad swath of the cities needed to be covered and the photographer/researcher needed to get in and out at speed—with the researcher in near-to-local dress that would survive the squint test. The team avoided buildings, people, and convoys that were military or military-contractor related, when these were known (it is not always apparent). The risk from IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, was considered low because the unpredictable nature of our routes, of the use of local transport, and limited cues suggesting that foreigners were riding inside. However in today's age it is relatively trivial to look up the background, employer, job title, and salary range of an individual, assuming they are transparent about their employer, i.e. through business cards, and travelling on their own passport. Our goal was to be not particularly interesting targets.

During street research, in riskier areas where the team needed to cover a lot of ground, find and explore topics of interest for the team, we:

• Dressed in neutral clothes that could pass as local—headscarves are a boon since it is possible to cover much of the face. No sunglasses, preferring eye contact for building trust (it helps that some locals have blue eyes, as with two members of the team).
• Moved with intent and purpose to project knowledge of the locale.
• Maintained a good situational awareness of what was happening on the street, the ebb and flow of movements, and worked as a team to gauge reactions to each other from bystanders.
• Kept hands in plain sight.
• Avoided having visible items of value.
• Generally avoided large crowds, and situations where we would gather a crowd. The size of a crowd can escalate very rapidly.
• On arrival in a new context, carefully targeted whom to socially engage and build rapport, both to send a signal to others in proximity that it was fine to talk and engage with the strangers, and to have a nearby voice-of-calm if later on things got a little hairy.
• Made the most of our local guides in ascertaining the current situation.

» Kabul ProTip: If the driver meeting you at the airport is holding a name with your sign on it, it's not your driver.

This project was co-funded by the IMTFI and frog.

Braun has been a benchmark for beautiful and functional design from its founding as an audio manufacturer in the '30s, to the debut of the S50 shaver in the '50s and including its current innovations in personal care like CoolTec dry shaver for sensitive skin. The undeniable influence of the era of Eichler and the Ulm School of Design on the role of design in business includes Dieter Rams' iconic "less is more" aesthetic." From personal care to audio, timepieces to kitchen appliances, the Braun brand permeates our most personal every day products.

Core77 is proud to launch a microsite dedicated to the history of Braun design. Over the next few months, we'll be doing a deep dive on the histories of Braun's Shavers, Time Pieces, Audio, Kitchen Appliances and Hair Care product categories. And today, we're launching with an interactive timeline of some of Braun's notable products from its storied design history. In addition, we have a full gallery of the most recent BraunPrize winners—the work has been honored for its "genius design for a better everyday."

Global Gold Winner, Professional/Enthusiast - Känguru, designed by Berlin-based designer Oliver Klein. It is a Mobility Concept for the Urban Context—a baby carrier and bicycle seat in one.

Established in 1968, the BraunPrize was Germany's first international design prize. It was originally introduced by Erwin Braun, son of Braun founder Max Braun, and the goal was to stimulate public debate about design, "during a time when understanding and awareness of design and its positive benefits were largely unknown." This year's program was juried by Oliver Grabes (Head of Braun Design and Core77 Design Awards Consumer Products Jury Captain), Naoto Fukasawa (Founder of Naoto Fukasawa Design), Jane Fulton Suri (Managing Partner and Creative Director at IDEO), Anne Bergner (BraunPrize Winner 1999 and Design Consultant) and Dirk Freund (Director R&D, Global Braun).

This year's program awarded 6 finalists, 3 Sustainability Award Winners, 30 National Winners and 20 Special Mentions across Student and Professional categories.

See our coverage of the 2012 BraunPrize ceremony here and the full gallery of the winners here.

>> Photo Gallery

The Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Wentworth Institute of Technology have something no other two schools have, two different Industrial Design programs within a stones throw away from each other. 16 Hours to Glory is a culmination of Massachusetts College of Art and Design and Wentworth Institute of Technology students working in small teams researching, brainstorming, designing, and finalizing a solution to a problem which is given at the start of the competition. The next day, students are given the opportunity to present their 16 hour solutions to a panel of outside judges. The goal of the competition is to create some friendly competition, and camaraderie between the two schools of industrial design, and celebrate their differences and styles.

Saturday, March 2nd will be the Design Phase from 8AM to 12AM and March 3rd will see presentations and judging. Both will be held in the Trustee's Room at MassArt, floor 11.

Sponsored by Staples, Bose, Design Museum Boston, Monster Energy and Keyshot.

Guidelines:

• Team sign up deadline is Thursday, February the 28th at 6:30 pm.


• B.Y.O.C [Bring Your Own Computer]


• You will find out the design challenge at 8am sharp, on the morning of the competition.


• We will provide desks, chairs, some supplies, scanners, printers, Monster, and music.


• If you have a Cintiq or any Wacom tablet, bring it, we will have a few, but the more the merrier.


• We will provide blue foam, Olfa knives, cutting mats and straight edges.


• Model shop: if you feel you have to, please utilize it before you are too tired. Be smart.

Rules:
1. Teams of up to three. Students only.
2. All work must be new and original. Don't cheat, be honest.
3. Start time is 8 AM, Saturday March 2nd, end time is midnight Saturday March 2nd.
4. You will have from 10 am until noon on Sunday to work on your presentation.
5. Presentations will start exactly at 12:30 on Sunday. The order will be random.
6. Presentations will be a maximum of 6 minutes. There will be a buzzer.

Sign up by Thursday, February 28: Send an E-mail with "Team Registration" in the subject line to 16hourstoglory[at]gmail.com to sign up, state the members of your team and what school you are from. If you want, a team name would be cool as well.

Our post on the Knee Defender, a pair of passive-aggressive plastic doohickeys that prevent the person in front of you from reclining their seat on an airplane, has generated quite a bit of interesting commentary. Aside from one commenter who angrily fulfills the selfish "My comfort is all that matters" ethos—I won't call him out by name, but a casual perusal of the comments ought make it obvious—readers contributed some interesting opinions, well-reasoned and intelligent debate on whether being short or tall is ergonomically worse, and helpful tidbits of information on other design solutions to the problem of airplane seating.

In particular I'd like to hear more and/or see images from Core77 reader and industrial designer Shaun, who devised an interesting-sounding "checkerboard" pattern of economy seating for an airline client. Sadly, Shaun's design was forcibly modified by the outside forces we know all too well, and the mangled version of his concept that made it to the prototype stage was eighty-sixed by unhappy test subjects. (Shaun, every designer on here feels your pain; and if you're both willing and legally able to share more on the project, please drop us a line.)

One of the more interesting tidbits came from reader Kenny, who sent us a link about an ANA-branded Dreamliner that had been kitted out with forward-reclining seats. With this design, the topmost part of your seatback stays fixed in place, but you can slide the seat bottom forwards, pulling the bottom of the seatback into an angle. As you do this, of course, the seat in front of you doesn't move—so moving yourself into a reclined position affects only your own comfort.

That's still not an ideal solution—what we all really want is just more space—but under the constraints, I think it's a brilliant design approach in that it goes the other way. A passenger's misery at least becomes self-contained; they do not inconvenience others and can instead direct their displeasure at the airline responsible for the space constraints, not their fellow passengers. (Commenters in online forums who have actually tried these seats, by the way, are divided; while no one loves them, some are fine with them while the most vociferous hate them.)

The only video I could locate of this system in action is here. (I won't embed it because the footage is so terrible.) It took me a while to track down the manufacturer and their documentation is incredibly lousy—there's no images, diagrams, or renderings of the seat action—but it appears ANA got the seats from Sicma Aerospace, a subsidiary of French manufacturer Zodiac Aerospace. And though I've yet to see these seats in my last six flights over the past two months, apparently some American carriers have them; Delta, American and United have reportedly installed them in their newer planes, purchased through another Zodiac subsidiary, the Texas-based Weber Aircraft. The seats are called the 5751 and if you don't believe me about the lousy documentation, have a look, here and here.

I realize the 5751 seats won't improve the lot of previous-post-commenter Mike, an industrial designer who rings in at 6’10”. And Mike, I've gotta say your comments have turned me around on the tall-vs.-short ergonomic nightmare thing. As a 5’5” person, foreign films in public cinemas is a no-go for me—if the theater doesn't have stadium seating, I can't read the subtitles through the sea of heads—concerts are a depressing study in other people's backs, and recently a cute salesgirl cheerfully told me I might be able to find the size I needed "over in the boy's section." But after reading your comments, I agree that you've probably got it worse; whereas my discomfort is episodic and fleeting, you writing in about having to tough it out in cars, beds, planes and even doors makes me think your life must be a living hell! Anyways if you're ever in the neighborhood, stop by; there are some books on the top shelf I need to get to.

Yeah, so this is nuts....

Thingiverse denizen Kaipa has created a partially wooden filament for 3D printers. Called LAYWOO-D3, the stuff is 40% recycled wood with the rest of it being a binding polymer. It's flexible but prints without warping and the stuff even smells like wood. It comes out light-colored at 180 Celsius and darker at 245, so you can vary the tone. And after being printed, the resultant object can reportedly be worked with woodworking tools.

MakerBot users, don't get too excited; for now the stuff is only compatible with RepRaps.

LAYWOO-D3 is for sale here, by a company called FormFutura. Despite the exciting nature of this development, they've managed to create the world's dullest video:

Just goes to show the future never turns out like you'd think it would. Imagine someone coming up to you ten years ago and saying "Someday, you'll be able to 3D print a wood-like material. And it will be more boring than watching paint dry."

You won't want to keep these in the shop - wear them out on the town - keep chic while maintaining splash protection from nocturnal hazards such as face-flung drinks of jilted lovers. Entertain neophytes with impromptu lessons in plastic molding, showing off the frames' inverted bridge mold cavity - truly a structural and aesthetic triumph - and the primitive radii of the lens-fastening lip.

$10.00 at Core77's Hand-Eye Supply store
Available in "Ghost Fog Saber White", "Montepulciano" and "Painter's Tape"

Materials movement sucks, and it's our job as designers, engineers or craftspersons to learn tricks to deal with it. You'll put a slight arc in a plastic surface that's supposed to be flat, so that after it comes out of the mold and cools the surface doesn't get all wavy; a furniture builder in Arizona shipping a hardwood table to the Gulf states will use joinery that compensates for the humidity and attendant wood expansion; and similar allowances have to be made when joining steel and aluminum, as they expand at different rates when the temperature changes.

On this latter front, Honda's engineers have made a breakthrough that those who work with fabrics may find interesting: They've discovered that by creating a "3D Lock Seam"—essentially a flat-felled seam for you sewists—and using a special adhesive in place of the spot-welding they'd use with steel-on-steel, they can bond steel with aluminum in a way that negates the whole thermal deformation thing.

Practically speaking, what this new process enables them to do is create door panels that are steel on the inside and aluminum on the outside. This cuts the weight of the door panels by some 17%, which ought to reduce fuel consumption. (Honda also mentions that "In addition, weight reduction at the outer side of the vehicle body enables [us] to concentrate the point of gravity toward the center of the vehicle, contributing to improved stability in vehicle maneuvering," but that sounds like spin to us.)

Unsurprisingly they're mum on how they've pulled this off or what exactly the adhesive is, but they do mention that "these technologies do not require a dedicated process; as a result, existing production lines can accommodate these new technologies." The language is kind of vague but it sounds like they're saying they don't require massive re-tooling, which is a manufacturing coup.

Honda's U.S. plants are the first to get this manufacturing upgrade, and we'll be seeing the new doors as soon as next month, on the U.S.-built Acura RLX.

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By Cara Silver, Jan Chipchase, Mark Rolston

Frog Senior Design Researcher Cara Silver conducted field research in Afghanistan to investigate topics around risk and savings and their intersection with mobile banking. She worked with a nimble team including Executive Creative Director of Global Insights Jan Chipchase and Chief Creative Officer Mark Rolston, and with support from the Institute for Money, Technology, and Financial Inclusion.

A mixed-gender team of three researchers and four local guide-fixers conducted mobile finance research in Afghanistan over two weeks in December 2012. The goal was to investigate topics around risk and savings and their intersection with mobile banking. Discussing money—and who in the family influences spending—was a key question, and one that required the team to both play with and against the often siloed gender roles in the region. Navigating these gender dynamics was top of mind for all members of the team to both ensure safety and gain access to both sides of the story.

The team planned to spend four days in Herat and the remainder in Kabul. These locations were chosen as being both culturally distinct and sufficiently secure. As the economic center of modern Afghanistan, Kabul carries a large international influence, both government affiliated and independent, and harbors the security tensions to match. It is seen as a safe zone for those associated with government work, like the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP), who often settle their families in the city and return to the provinces to work. Herat lies in the west of Afghanistan and is less than a two hour drive from the Iranian border. Traditionally, a high volume of migrant labor has traveled to Iran to earn money to send back to families in Afghanistan. This cross-border human traffic brings with it both cultural, political and commercial influence, reflected in everything from the goods on store shelves to investments in local infrastructure, and to the dress and behavior of women outside the home.

Unintended consequences of technology: In-car nav systems were a godsend for the directionally-challenged driver, but they were also a windfall for a handful of criminals. I'd first heard about this happening in L.A., where a thief would steal a nav-equipped car out of a restaurant parking lot; s/he could then punch up the owner's address on the nav system; and being certain that the owner was dining in the restaurant, the thief could drive to their empty home, gain access using the garage remote, and rob the place blind.

Chevrolet's latest Impala model is thus designed with a "valet mode" that provides both digital and physical security. A touchscreen in the center of the dashboard allows the car's owner to enter a passcode that locks up the nav's database. Even cooler, the entire panel slides upwards, revealing a small in-dash safe where you can lock up that garage remote.

The in-car safe is also touted as a place where you can leave your phone and wallet, which I thought was kinda strange; is it just a New York thing that we typically empty the car of all valuables whenever we park it? In any case, there's also a charging port for your phone inside, making it a handy storage spot while driving. If Chevy combines this with their Eyes Free Integration, drivers won't mind being separated from their phones while driving, and in fact it'll probably be safer for all of us.

My favorite thing about the iPad is having dozens of books in one place. Having grown up lugging my share of dead trees around, I'll never not appreciate digital book storage and access.

This is especially true after coming across the Bookwheel, the rather massive sixteenth-century design for a mechanical book "server" that you see above. Designed by Agostino Ramelli, a military engineer who spent his professional career creating siege machinery, the more peace-minded Bookwheel was intended as a convenient way to reference multiple books. Heavy tomes didn't need to be lugged from shelves, and they could be left open on the last page you'd read, unmolested by the rotations; Agostino's design ensured each shelf remained at the same angle no matter the wheel's position.

The device was reportedly never built, at least not in Ramelli's era; but the design for it was revealed in his humbly-titled book The Various and Ingenious Machines of Captain Agostino Ramelli, printed in 1588. Interestingly enough, Ramelli's designs have since been criticized as the work of an egomaniac; detractors claim his mechanisms were overly complicated, with extraneous convolutions added purely to demonstrate his mechanical prowess.

That didn't stop Daniel Libeskind from creating a version of the Bookwheel for the 1986 Venice Architecture Biennale. Libeskind's version, reverse-engineered from Ramelli's image, was called the Reading Machine.

An interview with architect Hal Laessig, a former student of Libeskind's who had helped with the Biennale installation, reveals it to be a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction endeavor.

First off, according to the interview, then-professor Libeskind pressed his Cranbrook students into building the machine for him. And apparently architecture students at Cranbrook weren't taught about wood expansion back then:

...There were two guys who built the Reading Machine by themselves with no power tools, out of ash, which is an incredibly hard wood. I don't know how they did it. They basically slept in the woodshop.

But when we got to Venice, the hot, humid air had swollen all the wood, so it wouldn't turn. And the teeth on the gears would start snapping. So we had to sand all the parts down--for days--to get it to turn.

Then there is the absolutely bizarre fate of the Reading Machine and two other machines that were part of the same installation. As Laessig explains,

After the opening, I left Venice and came back, and I never heard anything of what happened to the actual pieces. But they lost track of them. Maybe it's different today, but the people running the Biennale were completely discombobulated.

Then [Libeskind] got invited to show them at the Palais Wilson, and he called another student and I, and he said we have to find where these things are. So this guy Donald Bates was sent to Venice to track them down, and he, after two weeks, he finally found them in this warehouse. And they got shipped to the Palais Wilson. And then Libeskind asked me to fly to Geneva to install them. And the day before I left, I get this call from him, that a terrorist had thrown a firebomb and everything had burned up. And not to go.

A wild story, and we half didn't know if it was true, you know, with him. But it was in the news, and it actually happened. The whole thing was so strange: that these things actually got built, and shown, and lost, and destroyed in the way they did.

In more recent years, the French artist Lea Lagasse created her own version of Ramelli's design for a performance piece in 2012. Lagasse got around the wood expansion problem the way most of us do these days: She used plywood.

By the way, a tangential question for you current-day architecture and industrial design students: Is wood expansion taught as part of your current curriculum, or touched upon in any way? It was not part of my curriculum at Pratt, and I'm curious if it's just Pratt and Cranbrook guilty of this oversight, or if it's across-the-board, no pun intended.

Welcome words by Ralph Wiegmann (iF design's Managing Director) at the reception.

Gianluca Armento (Brand Director of Cassina) explaining the importance of their archive

Over the course of three posts, we take a look at the highlights of the second edition of the Munich Creative Business Week (MCBW), which took place from February 16–24, 2013.

"Die Neue Sammlung," an impressive museum run by the Free State of Bavaria, houses the largest collection of industrial and product designs in the world. We found it difficult to concentrate on curator Corinna Rösner's introductory remarks about the museum as we walked by amazing products that most of us only know from design history classes. During our 20-minute walk, it felt like we are traveling through time, passing by Gerrit Rietveld's chairs, Richard Sapper's TV and AIBO dogs. Suddenly, we found ourselves in front of a huge paternoster system featuring the "secret archive of Cassina" with a dozen items from the Italian manufacturer, which has been archiving products and prototypes since the 1930s. Gianluca Armento (Brand Director of Cassina) elaborated on the importance of an archive and how it can help brand management. As a company, you need to keep track of your history in order to make strategies for the future.

The "Refuge Tonneau" reconstructed by Cassina

Basic kitchen inside the Refuge Tonneau

The exhibition also features the so-called "Refuge Tonneau," designed by Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret in 1938, during the threatening early years of World War II. The space-shuttle like mountain shelter has been reconstructed by Cassina for the exhibition to demonstrate that design is not only about objects but also about vision and ideas.

In an earlier post I'd made reference to idiots who step off of crowded escalators and just stop. Apparently I'm not alone in this observation: As part of a workshop at Geneva's recent Lift Conference, participants even brainstormed the above solution to keep escalator-stoppers moving.

It was called the Unpleasant Design Workshop and it was held by Gordan Savicic and Selena Savic, who run the amusing Unpleasant Design blog. While the workshop was intended to quickly brainstorm "a map of behaviours and social groups unpleasant design could discriminate against," their website does that and more, cataloging photographs of urban phenomena vis-à-vis design and highlighting fanciful design proposals intended to curb rude, idiotic or antisocial behavior.

We've all seen anti-skating measures added to "street furniture," like this:

But you may not have seen anti-sticker traffic poles like this one in South Korea:

Or a plane cleverly placed at an angle to prevent people from peeing in a particular corner. Hit this thing with a stream of pee, and it simply angles the pee onto your own feet:

And you've probably never conceived of adding an extra-complicated outside lock to a bathroom door, purely to keep drunks out of it at night:

Time is money, and James Dyson has proven he's willing to spend both in search of product design breakthroughs. The British inventor famously spent years perfecting his Dyson Vacuum through the '70s and '80s, and has since invested a considerable amount in R&D; since 1999 the company has quietly spent more than US $160 million researching digital motors alone.

That motor research has yielded fruit, as the company is now able to produce digitally-controlled motors so small and absurdly powerful—their V4 motor, which powers the Dyson Airblade, lives in a housing just 85mm wide yet can go from 0–92,000rpm in less than 0.7 seconds—that they've invested $79 million in a new hi-tech motor manufacturing facility in Singapore.

While Dyson has already been producing their own motors for ten years there, they'd done it in partnership with a local firm, something like what Apple does with Foxconn. By opening their own facility they're not only doubling their capacity, they're gaining the ability to produce in absolute privacy.