"Racetrack Playa" sounds like the screenname of an online teenager you're competing against in Need for Speed, but scientists recognize it as the name of a dried-up lake in Death Valley. For a century, scientific minds have been puzzled by a well-documented, poorly-understood phenomenon occuring at Racetrack Playa: Enormous stones, some up to 700 pounds, appear to have somehow moved themselves across the lakebed floor in random patterns, leaving a furrowed trail behind them.

No one had ever seen these "sailing stones" move, but many photographed the end result. The original thought was that the lakebed forms a thin sheet of ice on it, and that the wind then blows the rocks across it; but that theory was discounted after researchers calculated it would take wind speeds of hundreds of miles per hour to move the rocks, while the wind at the Racetrack maxes out around 90 m.p.h. And if you're wondering why they don't just strap a GoPro camera onto a rock to see what's going on, scientists returning to the site over the years have calculated that the rocks move for short periods of time, just once every three years. That's a bit longer than your battery's likely to last.

However, a fortunate collision between two of these magic rocks provided planetary scientist Ralph Lorenz with an interesting discovery:

On to the next one! Live from New York, it's... Wednesday afternoon? As good a time as any for Jeff "jeffstaple" Ng to announce the winners for the Soft Goods category of the 2013 Core77 Design Awards! Tune in to the livestream above, or at Core77DesignAwards.com!

» Watch now on YouTube!

Professional
Winner: IDEO + Vodafone xone + Vodafone UK + Richard Nicoll - Smartphone-Charging Handbag
Runner-up: Quintero Design - "Designed to Move in the City" leather wallet organizer
Notables:
» Jason Lempieri - Laundry Punch Bag
» Richard Kuchinsky / The Directive Collective - SKORA CORE Running Shoe

Student
Winner: April Xu - pUP Tent (inflatable camping tent)
Runner-up: Hannah June Lueptow - FireFly Backpack
Notables:
» Yunqi Yuan - Bella Maternity Posture Support
» Savoy Cheung - Green Bike "Raincoat"

Text by Brian Lutz

Niels Diffrient, the artist, architect, author, and industrial designer whose seminal research on ergonomics established standards for the furniture industry, died at his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut, on June 9, 2013. Diffrient was 84.

Diffrient's death was announced by wife, Helena Hernmarck, the internationally acclaimed textile artist.

Niels Diffrient was born on the sixth of September, 1928, on a farm near the small town of Star, Mississippi. He was a gifted, curious child, full of wonder for the things around him, and he loved to draw. Not only was Diffrient able to take the measure of his world from an early age, but he was also capable of rendering his impressions with uncommon ability.

The national economy faltered and failed during the first six years of Diffrient's life, and the Great Depression took an enormous toll on the lives of Mississippi farmers. In 1934, Niels' father Robert Diffrient hitchhiked to Detroit to look for work while his family remained behind. Factories such as those of the Detroit auto industry were looking for workers, and after a short time found work and sent for his wife and son. Naturally, Niels's imagination took root in the new setting—lessons from the farm gave way to the experiences of northern urban schools, and his artistic interests flourished.

Diffrient also had the good fortune to attend Cass Technical High School, where his interest in drawing airplanes led him to the curriculum for aeronautical engineering. As he related in his recent autobiography, Confessions of a Generalist, he struggled with the scientific subjects at Cass until a fellow student saw his drawings and recommended that he transfer to the art department, where his talent found recognition. Upon graduation, Diffrient continued his studies at Cranbrook Academy of Art, where he was employed by the headmaster's son, Eero Saarinen, to assist in the development of two chairs Saarinen designed for production by Knoll Associates, the Model 71 and Model 72. Diffrients' first exposure to the workings of a manufacturer bringing a design to production occurred in meetings between Saarinen and Florence and Hans Knoll. He recalled: "There was little talk of things like market share. It was the days when there was mostly a lot of interest in proving modernist principles."

Whew, what a day! We've seen live broadcasts from the Social Impact jury team in Cape Town, South Africa, the Consumer Products team in Hamburg, Germany, and the Soft Goods jury in New York City, and now we head to the West Coast for the fourth and final 2013 Core77 Design Awards announcement of the day. Goli Mohammadi of Make magazine and her friends (and fellow jury members) Joe Szuecs, Todd Barricklow and Geneva Bumb Shanti are pleased to present the winners of the DIY category!

» Watch the jury broadcast for the winners of the DIY category on YouTube.

This is the second post of an ongoing series about wood. Understanding its nature, the way it moves and changes, and the implications for designers and builders. Check back every Wednesday for the next installment.

[image via Make Me Something Special]

For a furniture designer interested in working with wood, it's important to first understand how it's cut into boards. Because the different ways that wood is cut can have a huge impact in how it behaves once it's integrated into your final design. This information may be covered at fine furniture schools, but we were surprised to learn that a lot of industrial design programs skip this crucial wood information altogether. This series is intended to arm you with some basic information to help plug those knowledge gaps.

In my first post of this series I described one of the most common cuts, the plainsawn, it's advantages and disadvantages. Now we'll look at quartersawn and briefly touch on riftsawn, and try to clear up the confusion between the two.

At this point in history, every last one of us is knee-deep in the YouTube era, the gold standard of user-generated content, where a new flash in the pan surfaces every day. Although Colin Furze is among the lucky ones who have managed to secure a bit of longevity, his latest stunt is the first time I'd heard of the Stamford, Lincolshire-based persona, a BMX rider turned plumber turned stuntman and video maker—and longtime DIYer / pyromaniac.

Furze combines Jackass's seminal let's-do-stupid-sh*t approach to reality TV and Casey Neistat's art of crafting subversive viral videos with an ill-advised disdain for safety equipment and an appropriately maniacal cackle, brazenly attempting to pull off projects so outrageous that they don't require a don't-try-this-at-home disclaimer. A nice primer on his antics circa 2011 includes his 72-foot-long motorcycle and insane bonfire, both of which were deemed worthy of world records, as well as his bread-&-butter of speed-related thrills. Always looking to outdo himself, he recently posted his first proper filed test of his latest and greatest invention, the JET bicycle—no, it's not an acronym, you just have to yell when you say it—a.k.a. "the most dangerous unsafe bicycle in the world." Although the superlative remains unsubstantiated, he's might just be right:

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Welcome to Day Four of the Core77 Design Awards live jury broadcasts! First on the today's schedule, Lars Wallentin and his fellow jury members Charles Morgan, Kym Staiff and Patrick Gaudard announce the Packging category winners live from Corseaux, Switzerland. Tune in to the livestream above or at Core77DesignAwards.com.

Professional
Winner: Carlos Pereira - SoftPack - Biodegradable and compostable packaging for sauces, spices and condiments
Runner-up: fuseproject - NIVEA
Notables:
» Dan Matauch & Dennis Nalezyty - FOU-DRÉ Vodka
» NewDealDesign, LLC - TYLT Packaging
» Raison Pure NYC - John Walker & Sons - Odyssey
» Benjamin Pawle - Preserving Human Dignity

Student
Winner: Jonathan Doyle & Rebecca Mooney - Diageo Guinness Keg
Runner-up: Seulbi Kim - Togo Burger
Notables:
» Fuglenes Venner - Hjertemod (Heart Courage)
» Samson Ng - A Touch of me
» Jeongdae Kim - easy drink

In the original Miami Vice television series, Detective Zito is murdered in Season Three. After learning of his death, co-cops Crockett, Tubbs and Switek visit his house, where they discover Zito's collection of snow globes. They look at them in bewilderment, and the clear message delivered by their faces—in as ham-fisted a way as only '80s American television can do it—is "Wow, I guess we didn't really know this guy at all." Cue violins. An as hackneyed as that moment was, it was the first time your adolescent correspondent understood the usage of physical objects as a narrative device in storytelling.

Years later in ID school, professors who apparently knew each other as well as Zito and Switek delivered conflicting messages on this front. One professor would tell you that "Objects exist to tell stories—they tell us about ourselves!" while others said objects were mere intermediaries that we should design to be unobtrusive; the whole "People don't want a toaster, they just want toast" mentality.

It's easy to see the "Objects tell us about ourselves" bit as a bunch of hooey, as with iPhone and Android users—upon spotting the competing product on an acquaintance's desk, they'll tiresomely begin projecting qualities of the most vociferous proponent of that product onto the user. Ditto Mac and PC users. But it does fascinate me that some objects tell tales we never see coming. Case in point: Stanford economist Eric Hanushek, and his research partner Ludgar Woessman from U. of Munich, put together a study where they found a specific object in certain family's homes that served as a reliable indicator that a child from that family would do well in school.

Any guesses as to what that object is? A computer? A television? An iPad?

What if we told you it's a piece of furniture?

We're back in London for the 11th of our 17 Core77 Design Awards live jury broadcasts, where Paul Priestman and his handpicked jury of Mat Hunter, Dale Harrow and Sophie Thomas are pleased to present the winners for the Transportation category! Tune in below or at Core77DesignAwards.com

Professional
Winner: Springtime Design Team - JAC
Runner-up: Ronan Bariou - ORDU III
Notables:
» Cervélo - Cervélo Rca
» Sunny - Bamboobee Bicycle

Student
Winner: Markus Kurkowski - Beyond - Caravan Concept
Notables:
» Miles Chang - Mobilitate Electric Trailer
» JJ Hwang - Agricultural Vehicle in India
» Hussain Almossawi & Marin Myftiu - nCycle

Caroline Woolard's furniture designs might be considered to be works of art—not in the sense that they are highly limited collectibles but rather as critical commentary. Billed as a "post-media artist" by Eyebeam (where she was a fellow last year), Woolard generally regards objects as a means to an end, and her broad practice reflects her research-based, collaborative approach to making. Per her site: "In 2009, Woolard cofounded three organizations to support collaborative cultural production: a studio space, a barter network, and Trade School." These projects might be described as socially-conscious in the sense that they are intended to be scale models of society.

Woolard has set up shop in the Museum of Modern Art for her latest project, the Exchange Café, hosted by the institution's Department of Education through the end of the month. "Taking the form of a café, the Studio encourages visitors to question notions of reciprocity, value, and property through shared experiences. Tea, milk, and honey—products that directly engage the political economy—are available by exchange. Instead of paying with legal tender, Exchange Café patrons are invited to make a resource-based currency."

For our last Core77 Design Awards jury broadcast of the day, we've got two for the price of one: interiors and exhibitions! ...ok, so that was pretty bad, but the winners for that category definitely are NOT! Live from Mexico City, jury captain Andres Mier y Teran and his jury team— are on air now, presenting their selections for the Interiors & Exhibitions category. Watch above or at Core77DesignAwards.com

Professional
Winner: Vaillo-Irigaray Architects - OCCIDENS MUSEUM // Cathedral of Pamplona (1394 - 1805 B.C.)
Runners-up:
» Tellart & Google Creative Lab - Chrome Web Lab
» Jose Arturo Revilla Perez - Mr
Notables:
» Situ Studio - Heartwalk
» Hisaaki Hirawata & Tomohiro Watabe - BAO BAO ISSEY MIYAKE shinjuku
» NotaNumber Architects (NaNA) - Bulgari Pavilion
» Freecell - SpontaneousInterventions | Design Actions for the Common Good
» Chris Bennewith Submergence
» Zoey Tsopela - UXUS HQ
» Sheela Pawar - PLAY WORK BUILD

Student
Winner: Camille Dedieu - GRAVITY - The body in space // Inversion Glasses
Runners-up:
» Freya Robinson & Zoë Fehlberg - Portal for Reverie
» Mailin Lemke - [DIZAJN]
Notable: Alexandra Georgescu - PullOver

Herman Miller's Embody is one of the best office chairs on the market, and the company has a reputation for excellence in design and engineering. So we were surprised when both armrests on our review unit of the Embody independently stopped working within just a few years. (Two and a half, to be exact.) We subsequently saw the same issue on a second Embody.

The Embody's cost has come down from a whopping $1,600 to a more manageable $1,100 or so, but that's still a lot of scratch; shouldn't a Herman Miller product last longer than that? After all, the company does guarantee their products for 12 years. But if you've got a busted Embody and don't want to go through the hassle of shipping it back to HM for repairs, living without it for a spell, then waiting around for the delivery guy, we figured we'd see if we could fix ours using basic household tools. Have a look:

Core77 is pleased to partner with Windows Phone to bring you a series of photo diaries this summer. Based on the theme of Reinvention, we're looking to capture the fleeting moments and highlight the often-overlooked facets of the world around us through the lens of the Nokia Lumia 928, especially in the low-light settings in which its camera excels. (All photos were taken with the Nokia Lumia 928 smartphone and are published without postproduction unless otherwise noted.)

Reporting & photos by Ray Hu

Like the Bicycle Film Festival, the Red Hook Criterium has become an annual highlight for the NYC cycling community in just a few short years since its inception. In the five years since the inaugural race—a birthday celebration for local cyclist and race organizer David Trimble—the event has quickly evolved from an unsanctioned race in an oddball industrial corner of Brooklyn to a multinational Championship Series, thanks largely to title sponsor Rockstar Games.

Of course, the sheer logistics of organizing a criterium on city streets aren't quite as scalable as a grassroots film festival, and the fact that the series expands to two new locations this year is a testament to Trimble's hustle. In addition to the OG event in Red Hook, he introduced the RHC Milan in October 2010; these two events bookend this year's Championship Series, which also includes two new events: last weekend's crit in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, documented here, and a penultimate race in Barcelona in August.

The white balance was set to auto; the photo on the left is slightly warmer, but both turned out quite well. (I switched to Night mode for the race itself.)

I would have liked to attempt to shoot the event on a DSLR, but considering the sheer difficulty of shooting 1.) bicycles 2.) in motion 3.) at night, I realized that the race would be the perfect opportunity to put the Nokia Lumia 928, running Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 OS, to the test.

A staff member mentioned that the cobblestones were an homage to the first Red Hook Crit, which also had a cobbled section.

But first, a bit of background, for the uninitiated: a criterium is a specific variety of bicycle race that typically occurs on a short, highly-technical circuit on closed-off city streets. The Red Hook Crit is unique in that riders are required to ride brakeless track (i.e. fixed-gear) bicycles, making it a unique hybrid of velodrome cycling and alleycat races: the course at the Brooklyn Navy Yard featured several near-90° corners, a cobbled chicane, and a killer S-curve that proved to be the downfall of many a contender. That, and the fact that the race takes place at night, per tradition. (Racing Towards Red Hook, a short documentary about the 2011 RHC, is a good primer).

This corner (the view looking north from "10" on the map below) turned out to be the bane of many a seasoned rider

Those of us here in the States are getting an early start for Day Five of the Core77 Design Awards jury broadcasts, but it's already afternoon for GE's Duncan Trevor-Wilson and his jury team in Shanghai. Tune in now as they announce the winners for the Equipment category—watch the stream above or at Core77DesignAwards.com

Professional
Winner: Ryan Ramos / Nick Paterson / GE Healthcare Global Design - Cytell Image Cytometer
Runner-up: Bresslergroup and Nexus Design LLC - HazMatID Elite
Notables:
» Formlabs - Form 1
» Worrell Design, Inc. - NeoChord DS1000
» Sync Think and tool., Inc. - Sync Think EYE-SYNC
» Duoject Design Team - VaccJect
» Priority Designs - Optitrack Prime 41
» Continuum - Aquamantys 3 BSC 9.1S Bipolar Sealer with Cutting
» Chris Thomson - Genie
» Continuum - RainDance RainDrop System

Student
Winner: Della Tosin - Elle
Runners-up:
» Malin Grummas - Airborn
» Omer Haciomeroglu - ERO: Concrete Recycling Robot
Notables:
» Tetsugaku Sasahara - KOMRAD respirator
» Dawid Dawod - Boltec .04
» Andrew Lowe - CrossTrainer

Sometimes you don't realize your behavior is actually compensating for a design flaw. That is, until you see the solution. When borrowing a car and carrying anything heavy or delicate—a full toolbox, a few bottles of booze, a birthday cake—I always place it in the rear seat footwell. It would be much more convenient to load into the hatch, but I don't want those things sliding around because I took the corner too hard after watching Fast & Furious 6.

That's where the Stayhold comes in. The Velcro strip on the bottom adheres it firmly to the carpeting inside your car, allowing you to wall things off against the edges or build your own little fort.

As humble as this device is, to me it represents the ideal of what industrial design has to offer: It's simple, largely monomaterial, addresses a valid need, and is relatively inexpensive. Sure it's not going to wind up in the MoMA, but then again, neither is anything in the trunk of my car.

The field of interaction design has been growing steadily in parallel to the adoption of new technology, and we're always excited to learn what's new and next in this domain. Who better than Anab Jain and Jon Ardern of Superflux to serve as Jury Co-Captains for the Interaction category of the Core77 Design Awards? See them announce the winners LIVE above or at Core77DesignAwards.com.

Professional
Winner: fuseproject - OUYA
Runner-up: Ying Horowitz & Quinn LLC - The Silent History
Notables:
» Second Story Interactive Studios - Ecological Urbanism App
» thirteen23 - Obama for America Mobile Campaign
» IDEO + Sunlight Foundation - Sitegeist Mobile App
» Industry - Autodesk Fusion 360
» Potion - Shop Life
» Ammunition - Teemo
» Reuters, Method - Reuters The Wider Image
» frog - Foundation One
» Jason Bruges Studio - Nature Trail
» FiftyThree, Inc. - Paper by FiftyThree

Student
Winner: Matt Richardson - Descriptive Camera
Runner-up: Kilian Kreiser - Companion
Notables:
» Scott Garner - BeetBox
» Inessah Selditz, Deqing Sun - Plinko Poetry Machine
» Sheng-Hung Lee, Chan Wai Yeh - FANs Cam
» Loquor Team - Loquor
» Hideaki Matsui - Scritch
» Dong Ik Shin & Adrià López - Polaroid Cacher
» Kathryn McElroy and Rachelle Milne - beegeebee

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Last week, we learned (or relearned) Dieter Rams' Ten Principles of Good Design through a nicely-executed animation by Design Silesia. Today, we have a series of animated shorts from the Open University, a UK-based distance-learning institution. I can't speak to the university's academics, but it happens to be one of the world's largest universities and is accredited in the States. In keeping with the nontraditional structure—students typically study remotely, whether they are in the UK or elsewhere—they've also taken to producing short educational videos on YouTube, and the latest series of shorts happens to be about "Design in a Nutshell."

The Bauhaus segment is a gem—I learned that Gropius's seminal school of thought marked the genesis of the "art school as an alternative way of life," as well as a few fun facts about Marcel Breuer. Good stuff.

Man I can't get over that new Mac Pro. And while we all know the "thermal core" part is made from extruded aluminum, how is the exterior (which is also aluminum) made? It's obviously not extruded, as it's got that inward-curving lip up top, and it wouldn't make sense from an efficiency standpoint to CNC-mill the entire thing out of a billet; there would be too much waste. Any guesses?

According to Don Lehman, it's made using the production method known as impact extrusion. Conceptually, the process is more similar to blowmolding than proper extrusion, except a metal punch takes the place of compressed air, and the material used is metal rather than plastic. Here's a quick look at impact extrusion as performed by Illinois-based Best Metal Extrusions, on a product significantly smaller than the Mac Pro. (Looks like a cigar holder, but your guess is as good as mine.)

Here's something a little closer in size to the Mac Pro: