If you were attending the Salone del Mobile in Milan this this week, you might have seen a little black Daihatsu pickup driving around with some nebulous cargo in the back—the Cumulus Parasol, a cloud-like umbrella that inflates in reaction to sunlight.

Cumulus is the work of the Netherlands-based Castor Bours and Wouter Widdershoven. The duo has been working together on explorative design projects since early 2007, forming Studio Toer in the center of Eindhoven in 2011. "When you look around, most interiors are static," Bours says. "We want to create products that communicate with you. The Cumulus Parasol was developed from an exploration in creating an object that reacts to its own surroundings."

It works via four small, rectangular polycrystalline solar cells that harvest energy from the sun. The polycrystalline cells are made up of raw silicon, melted and poured into a square mold, that is cooled and cut into perfectly square pieces. As one of the most standardized processes for making solar panels, polycrystalline panels tend to be the least expensive on the market and can be easily sourced online, as was the case for Studio Toer. One slight hitch: Even though the polycrystalline panels are low in intensity, the duo found that too much power allowed the parasol to inflate in no sun. "Which is no fun," says Castor.

Studio Toer remedied this by using fewer and smaller solar cells that only kept the parasol inflated for as long as it's in direct sunlight. When charged, the panels transfer energy to a 12-volt ventilator positioned at the roof of the umbrella. The ventilator is sewn into the top of the nylon body, and when on, it inflates the Cumulus Parasol in 20 seconds. When the sun is obscured, the parasol automatically deflates. For manual control, there is also a power switch integrated into the pole.

The solar cells and fan on top of the parasol

At Holz-Handwerk we saw not only thousands of tools, but several companies creating systems to store and transport those tools. You'd think that there are only so many ways mobile tool storage can be designed, but we saw at least four different approaches.

First up is OPO Oeschger. This Swiss trading company distributes some 35,000 items to tradesfolks around the world, so we can't really say these few of theirs that we're going to hone in on are indicative of their sole approach to tool storage, but it's a good place to start. On display were their collection of box-based tool storage objects in two form factors: A sleek-looking briefcase style, and a series of deeper boxes meant to be dense enough to store a variety of hand tools, yet manageable enough for one person to carry. And they all come pre-loaded with the tools.

Starting with the boxes, their Comfort model is made from birch and features a lid that slides rearward into a fixed vertical position. Interestingly enough, this model contains a built-in battery, a power cord and four sockets; the idea is that you plug the box into a wall when an outlet's available, and this charges the on-board battery; later when you're working and no outlet's available, you plug your devices into the box's sockets and draw juice from the battery. This box is designed to hold 67 specific tools.

Their smaller Compact III model is also made from birch, though this one's made for those who solely use hand tools, no on-board power. It features these little removeable wooden boards mounted with like tools, presumably so the user can install the appropriate boards for the day's work, carrying only what's necessary for the particular job. Fully laden, the Compact III is designed to hold some 34 tools.

Yep, it's Friday, get ready to waste some time and feel fine doing it. Skip your next Facebook break and try out the addictive game Super Planet Crash—build planetary systems, watch as they destroy themselves, collect points and think about gravitational relationships for fun! Super Planet Crash was made by Stefano Meschiari, whose real job involves real planets. As a postdoc astronomer at UT Austin and a big contributor to Seismic 2—software to aid "exploring and analyzing exoplanetary data"—Meschiari knows what's up with interplanetary intrigue.

The goal: Build the most complex star system that can last for 500 years. Simple, right? It is simple to play, but dang if it isn't hard to gather planets in a stable way. Choose up to 12 planets, ranging in size from Earth-sized to Dwarf Star. Choose their proximity to the central star and their rotating speed, and try to anticipate their orbits. If you've done good, your collection will stay within the 2.00 AU range, won't crash into one another and will be complex enough to rack up points until you pass the five century mark. Extra points for incorporating denser fellows in the pack and sacrificing orbital simplicity. The current high-scorer clocked over 320,000,000 points, which after a few runs might seem impossible, but remember that you're competing against actual astrophysicists. As Meschiari told Motherboard, "People are berating me because it's making them waste valuable time when they should be writing proposals for the Hubble telescope." So don't feel bad if you're not quite able to predict your planets complex relationships over time. But do try it—nothing says mindless fun like playing God.

Via Motherboard.

ICON is a small Southern California product design consultancy, and they are looking for an experienced Industrial Designer to join and grow with their team! For the last 10 years, they have worked with a number of high-profile clients in a variety of industries, including but not limited to: promotional products, packaging, healthcare, and small tech products.

This is an exceptional opportunity for an industrial designer who possesses the following qualities: a positive attitude, self-motivator, strong mechanical sense, self-management skills and an interest in current design styles and trends. With experience in the consumer products industry, strong concept development skills and a flexible schedule, you'll be perfect for this role. Apply Now.

German manufacturer S+L Tischlerei's approach to tool storage is modular in concept and monolithic in appearance. In contrast to OPO Oeschger's line of wares, which require the carrier to pick and choose which box is the right one to bring to the job, S+L Tischlerei's MobilMarie system is meant to transport a far denser variety of hand tools, power tools, hardware and parts to the jobsite. (It also presupposes being used in an environment with a fair amount of infrastructure: Trucks with hydraulic lift gates, buildings with elevators and wheelchair ramps, etc.)

MobilMarie consists of a series of stacking boxes on a wheeled base. The boxes are made from birch plywood skinned in PVC and reinforced along the corners, flight-case style, with aluminum fittings; popping open the front lid reveals individual drawers on ball bearing slides. Here's how it looks in action:

I spent the first 36 years of my life living in the UK, more than half of which was spent in and around London. As such, I have a deep personal affinity to Gin, that wonderful, complex, delicious spirit made famous by the Dutch and infamous by Hogarth. Gin has recently enjoyed a significant resurgence in popularity, gradually extricating itself from the caustic syrups of the 70s and into the most sophisticated concoctions of mixologists worldwide.

There are numerous reasons why I like gin. It's incredibly versatile, and can be drunk in many forms: with a mixer such as tonic or soda, as a base for classic or contemporary cocktails such as negronis, martinis or gimlets, or even neat (try a glass of Old Tom over ice next time the nights draw longer). Primarily though, gin's allure lies in the glorious, deep variety of tastes. From the driest of London gins to the complex, tea-like Golden Moon, there really is nothing like it. I think gin should be regarded by the same sommelier standards as wines and whisky. It's on it's way, but it still has some distance to go.

So by now you should be wondering what this has to do with Industrial Design. It's an analogy that I've been mulling over for some time and it has to do with the ways in which we approach the creation of contemporary objects. Let me explain by way of vodka.

Let's be clear about two things: 1. I am a tech luddite; 2. I, coincidentally, grew up broke playing with sticks and rocks, and galdang it I liked it. Resultantly, I view expensive high tech toys with both skepticism and romanticism. That in mind: I covet this toy series, I want it to get funded, I'm begging my mom for one, and I would like to subscribe to its newsletter.

TinkerBots are reconfigurable, programmable, kinetic toys. The block-based sets use a central "Power Brain" cube that provides power and an arduino-compatible microcontroller. Snap in a variety of mobile and immobile pieces and expand your robotic object in a myriad of ways. Depending on the set, you can control a vehicle by bluetooth, mobilize an animal, teach it new moves, add proximity sensors and grabbing claws... They tout the capability of being a "living Lego" set, and have even designed in actual Lego compatibility. They're a little less versatile than that plastic block titan, but hey, baby steps. More importantly, you get a little modular robot with no wiring or programming needed. One of their goals is to adapt the system to use as a quadcopter. Teach your progeny about programming and the sinister future of drones in a single go!

Check out the campaign video:

In this series, Matthew Sullivan (AQQ Design) highlights some designers that you should know, but might not. Previously, he looked at the work of T.H. Robsjohn-Gibbings.

Shiro Kuramata: Born in Tokyo, 1934. Died in Tokyo, 1991.

"For him, an object, a piece of furniture, an installation is never finished inside the borders of its own physicality. For him, around an object, or around a piece of furniture or around an installation there is never a silence, never abstract dust; always the air around is vibrating, as if it were shaken by a central provocation. That's why very often Shiro was trying to represent not only the object, or the furniture, or the installation but also the many mysterious vibrations that were produced around." —Ettore Sottsass from Vibrations in the Air, 1991

Materials were central to the work of Shiro Kuramata. His palette was the various qualities that matter exhibits: reflectivity, transparency, translucency, opacity, tactility. Form seems a result. It's not that form is unconsidered, just that the material is the voice; the material is the content of the furniture.

Japan has a very sophisticated visual culture; at times it's almost ridiculous how astute it is. The continual unification of craft and art transcends some sort of spiritual economy. (Indeed, from a Western perspective, it can seem that our separations of "art" and "craft" are misguided.) There is a long history of cleverly melding a medium with sculptural or pictorial representations, so that the inherent qualities of brush, ink, stone or wood are actually part of the resultant image. This is true of sumi-e/suiboku-ga ink-wash painting, as well as sancai (the Japanese-adopted Chinese technique of modeled, tri-colored glazes in ceramics) and karesansui (the art of dry landscape rock gardens). So when speaking of Kuramata's work as "matter centric," it really feels like an extension of this history. With every piece of his furniture (whether his K-Series lamps, his Glass furniture, his various flower vases or his Pyramid shelving), there is no separation between construction, form, interiority, materials—it's all one thing.

Above: the Pyramid shelving unit for Ishamaru (1968). Top image: Kuramata's How High the Moon chair for Vitra (1986)

Left: the Glass chair (1976). Right: an interior for the Issey Miyake store in Ginza, Tokyo (1983)

It's an increasingly pressing question in this day and age, and one that has certainly seen some interesting responses—including this interdepartmental collaboration from Switzerland design school ECAL—as an evolving dialectic between two closely related design disciplines. Exhibited in Milan's Brera District during the Salone del Mobile last week, "Delirious Home" is comprised of ten projects that explore the relationship between industrial design and interaction design. (Naoto Fukasawa, for one, believes that the former will eventually be subsumed into the latter as our needs converge into fewer objects thanks to technology.)

Both the Media & Interaction Design and the Industrial Design programs at the Lausanne-based school are highly regarded, and the exhibition at villa-turned-gallery Spazio Orso did not disappoint. In short, professors Alain Bellet and Chris Kabel wanted to riff on with the "smart home" concept—the now-banal techno-utopian prospect of frictionless domesticity (à la any number of brand-driven shorts and films). But "Delirious Home" transcends mere parody by injecting a sense of humor and play into the interactions themselves. In their own words:

Technology—or more precisely electronics—is often added to objects in order to let them sense us, automate our tasks or to make us forget them. Unfortunately until now technology has not become a real friend. Technology has become smart but without a sense of humor, let alone quirky unexpected behavior. This lack of humanness became the starting point to imagine a home where reality takes a different turn, where objects behave in an uncanny way. After all; does being smart mean that you have to be predictable? We don't think so! These apparently common objects and furniture pieces have been carefully concocted to change and question our relationship with them and their fellows.

Thanks to the development of easily programmable sensors, affordable embedded computers and mechanical components, designers can take control of a promised land of possibilities. A land that until now was thought to belong to engineers and technicians. With Delirious Home, ECAL students teach us to take control of the latest techniques and appliances we thought controlled us. The students demonstrate their artful mastery of electronics, mechanics and interaction, developing a new kind of esthetic which goes further than just a formal approach.

The ultimate object—still missing in the delirious home—would be an object able to laugh at itself.

Photos courtesy of ECAL / Axel Crettenand & Sylvain Aebischer

"Delirious Home" was easily a highlight of this year's Fuorisalone and was duly recognized with a Milano Design Award. The video, which features all of the projects, is well worth watching in full:

Additional details and images of each project below.

Crown Equipment Corporation designs, manufactures, distributes, services and supports material handling products that provide customers with superior value. As one of the world's largest lift truck manufacturers, Crown is focused on providing solutions that mean improved performance for their customers. With your CAD/Mechanical Design skills, Crown will bring even more innovative solutions to their customer base.

This New Bremen, OH company is looking for someone with a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering or Industrial Design, along with five to seven years of experience. You'll need a CAD/CAE certificate and strong CAD skills, with complex surface experience, plus the ability to demonstrate project management is important. If you have what it takes, Apply Now.

Tanos is a spin-off of engineering outfit TTS Tooltechnic Systems, and their sole purpose is to build out TTS's Systainer storage system. (Festool users will recognize the Systainers, as they come bundled with Festool products; no surprise as TTS is the parent company for both brands.)

The design approach of the Systainer system is simple in concept and complicated in execution. They've created a full line of ABS cases to hold every single thing an end user could ever need, from large pieces of kit down to the tiniest part, and they've built in such modularity that every single case of every size will all physically connect with or nest within one another. This allows users to mix and match to build their own storage monoliths.

Here's the basic idea in video:

The case interiors can be further subdivided with a variety of accessories and placed on optional wheeled bases.

Our readers are likely well aware that Core77's Allan Chochinov has been primarily focused on his duties as co-founder and chair of the School of Visual Arts MFA Products of Design program for the past few years now, and he is pleased to announce that they will be graduating their inaugural class next month. It has by all accounts been a major learning experience for all parties involved, from Allan and his faculty to the students themselves (who, of course, were joined by a second class, of 2015, last semester).

On Thursday, May 8, the 15 intrepid students who first set foot in the department back in 2012 will be presenting their year-long thesis work (names and projects listed below). The event at the SVA Theater on West 23rd St will take place from 1:00–6:30pm, starting with a few opening remarks from Allan and a keynote presentation by author and social theorist Douglas Rushkoff, whose latest book, Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now was published last year, followed by formal presentations by each student.

Richard Clarkson - "Super. Moments of Remarkable"
Emi Yasaka - "Upward: Fostering Human Mobility in a Sedentary World"
Clay Kippen - "Lucid: Seeing as a Tool for Learning
Kathryn McElroy - "Presence: How to Use Digital Technology to Live a More Analog Life"
Mansi Gupta - "BETTER: The Prejudices and Practices of Mass Production"
Damon Ahola - "The Benefits of Harvesting Ambient Energy"
Gaïa Orain - "the goods"
Samantha Moore - "Around: Drawing Out Relief and Engagement in the Urban Environment"
Rona Binay - "Coexist: Mixing with Wildlife in an Urban Environment"
Cassandra Michel - "Five+: An Exploration of Mindful Experience Through the Lens of Sense"
Joseph Weissgold - "The Teacher's Lounge: Re-Empowering Teachers Through Design Offerings"
Willy Chan - "Alive: Comforting Your Food"
Zena Pesta - "State of the Art Project: Transforming Local Businesses Into Learning Laboratories"
Charlotte Hellichius - "Whateverest. Exploring the Landscape of Apathy and Agency"
Matt Barber - "The End."

It seems like just yesterday that we saw the fresh faces of the inaugural class of SVA PoD roaming the floor of WantedDesign for their 2013 NY Design Week project "ALSO!" Congrats to Allan and all of the students!

Seating is limited, so RSVP is required.

About the Masters Thesis
The http://productsofdesign.sva.eduMFA Products of Design Masters Thesis is a unique, year-long design pursuit that investigates, iterates, and articulates around a given subject matter or territory. Using a series of progressive lenses—from speculative objects to social interventions—student work is instantiated along a continuum from product to service to system to platform. Integrating brand, business, and environmental and social stewardship, the thesis stands as a testament that the "products of design" must span multiple modalities in order to provide effective, holistic offerings.

About the MFA Products of Design Program
The MFA in Products of Design is an immersive, two-year graduate program that creates exceptional leaders for the shifting terrain of design. We educate heads, hearts and hands to reinvent systems and catalyze positive change. Graduates emerge with methods, confidence, and the strong professional networks necessary to excel at top design firms and progressive organizations, to create ingenious enterprises of their own, and to become lifelong advocates for the power of design.

This is the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. Previously, we talked to Inga Sempé.

Name:Eric Trine

Occupation: Artist and designer

Location: Long Beach, California

Current projects: Right now I'm gearing up for New York Design Week. I'm doing a new version of my Rod+Weave chair with a brass-plated frame and dyed-blue leather—it will be like an Yves Klein blue, super-vibrant. And then I'm working on a collaboration with a fashion designer and illustrator named Ellen Van Dusen; she's making the fabric for a new chair that's in the works.

Mission: Taking the pretentiousness away from high design and making it more accessible to a broader audience. And also just being in people's homes with the work that I do—the mission is not to be in a design gallery or the MoMA gift shop but to actually get into people's living spaces.

Above right: Octahedron Pedestals in a spectrum of colors. Top image: a detail view of Trine's Rod+Weave chair

A lounge chair and leather-sling side table from Staycation, a recent collection by Trine and Will Bryant

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? When I started transitioning out of a fine-arts, sculptural practice and started making things for myself. About five and a half years ago, my wife and I got married and moved into our first place. I've always had "maker's chops," so I taught myself how to weld and I started making all the furniture for our place. That turned into making stuff for friends, and then it was friends of friends of friends. It just kept snowballing. And I recognized that there was something in me that was activated through more of a design practice than a fine-arts practice. But I'm still realizing that I want to be a designer; I'm still figuring it out.

Education: I got a B.F.A. in interdisciplinary art, and my thesis was sculptural—I made this house on hinges and wheels that could fold into 434 different positions. So even in undergrad I was talking about themes of the home.

Then for graduate school I went to the Pacific Northwest College of Art, in Portland. The program was called Applied Craft and Design. I was looking at schools that were in between industrial design and a traditional M.F.A.. I know I don't want to be a craftsman, and I don't want to be a fine artist. Design is somehow hovering in between those spaces; it can pull from each of those traditions, but it has, I think, a clearer set of criteria.

First design job: Upon leaving graduate school last year, I've been doing my own thing. So my first design job was basically running my own business as a designer.

Who is your design hero? Russel Wright. I discovered him completely by accident. I found a set of four folding chairs that he did for Sears in the 1940s or '50s. I got them for $15 each and I posted them on my blog, and someone was like, "Where did you find those Russel Wright chairs?" And I was like, "Who the heck is Russel Wright?"

So I looked him up and then continued to study his work. He's my hero because he had a strong connection to the consumer culture and broader culture of his time. The dinnerware that he designed in 1937 is still the best-selling dinnerware set in American history. It's called American Modern. Nailing that design and making it so amazing and successful and accessible that it was literally in every home in America—I love that.

He also wrote this book with his wife called A Guide to Easier Living, talking about the benefits of modern design in an almost theoretical or conceptual way. One whole page is dedicated to a quicker way to making your bed. So design for him was really connected to improving your life, and not improving it in a status kind of way but actually improving the way that you interact with your space.

Inside Trine's studio in Long Beach

Spring is a time for sprucing up, inside and out! For the Hand-Eye Supply Spring Quarterly we spent a day on job with Joshua DeParrie of Eco-Plumber. Joshua is a professional pipe whisperer and Jiu-Jitsu black belt. Between troubleshooting plumbing problems he schooled us on conceptions of balance and flow, discussed his take on Tao, and reviewed the Spring Collection.

Polypropylene is one of your go-to plastics for injection molding, and being both flexible and tough, you can do sexy things like making living hinges out of the stuff. But you are of course limited to what you can produce in a mold.

Stratasys is hoping to remove this barrier with Endur, a simulated polypropylene material that can be 3D-printed in their PolyJet machines.

Just like the name implies, Endur is tough. The polypropylene-like material offers both high impact resistance and superior elongation at break. Endur has a heat-deflection temperature up to 129°F/ 54°C, excellent dimensional stability and comes in a bright white color. It also features an excellent surface finish to make it easier to achieve a smooth look and feel.

These properties make Endur attractive for 3D printing prototypes that need the flexibility, appearance and toughness of polypropylene for a wide range of form, fit and assembly applications. This includes moving parts, snap-fit components, and small cases and containers with lids. The white tone and smooth surface finish make it ideal for consumer goods, electronics and household appliances, lab equipment and automotive parts.

Take a look at the stuff in this amusingly stilted video:

While there are many designs out there that look to replicate the iconic style of the Eames Chair, I'd bet that there aren't many doing it quite like Bora Hong. Her work always has some sort of cultural connection, and her recent design series, "Cosmetic Surgery Kingdom" is no exception. The cultural spin? Hong explores the aesthetic surgery trend in South Korea by recreating the classic Eames chair using parts of outdated chair designs. She showcases her design process in two videos, where she dons doctor's scrubs and a hospital mask for added effect:

The project is meant to draw a correlation between the goal of creating a younger and more beautiful self by means of cosmetic surgery and the way in which designers are also always trying to create "good design." Check out her second video, titled "Surgery for an Eames Chair":

If you haven't heard yet, Intel is looking for visionaries to enter the MAKE IT WEARABLE global challenge. All it takes to enter is for you to upload a one-minute video on your vision of the future of wearables. Five winners will receive $5,000 and a free trip for two to the award ceremony in San Francisco to take place in November of this year. For complete rules and to enter check out the competition website.

For those of you who want to develop a complete wearable product, we will be launching the Development Track of the challenge in the summer of 2014 with a grand prize of $500,000. You will be able to enter by submitting a proposal and pitch video of an innovative and creative product concept. Submissions will be judged on a balance of creativity, feasibility and market potential.

In this four-part look at different toolbox designs, finally we come to Parat, which has one of the larger tool storage catalogs of any company we've seen. Like Tanos, the company's desire is to produce storage for every single thing any tradesperson could possibly carry; but unlike Tanos, Parat has foregone any notion of connectivity and modularity--perhaps due to legacy issues--and instead produces a bewildering array of form factors, giving the end user a wide variety of options.

Their Paratool line is a unique-looking sort of wheeled briefcase, which can be rolled or carried depending on the load and terrain. The interesting design feature is that it's meant to serve as a mobile tool platform; with the telescoping handles extended, the box can be opened and set at a particular height to allow access to the tools.

Their Parapro line will be familiar to anyone who's used Pelican cases, often the mobile storage unit of choice for photographers and military outfits. Like the Pelicans, the Parapros are 100% waterproof, dustproof and airtight, and molded from nearly indestructible polypropylene.

Their Evolution line looks something like a wall-mounted cabinet that has been adapted to ride on wheels.

Their Top-Line category seems an odd choice of materials, being made from embossed leather bound at the corners by aluminum angles, in the manner of a flight case. One interesting touch are the rows of bristles within that are meant to hold hand tools in place regardless of their shape. They also offer a variant loaded up with drawers.

On the soft-materials front, they also offer a series of tool rolls, wallets, belt pouches, binders, and a backpack.

Parat's latest product line, the Paracurv series, was on show at Holz-Handwerk. Parat is billing the line as the "classic case of the future," referencing their materials departure: The Paracurvs are made from a flexible, sturdy and lightweight weave of thermoplastic bands that are melted onto the surface of an ABS structure.

At press time the Paracurv line wasn't yet up on their website, but here's the teaser vid:

This is just a fraction of what's on offer from Parat, but should give you an idea of how broad their range is. You can check out the rest here.

Photography accessory company Photojojo might consist of "a small and passionate team" of designers (who are hiring, by the way), but despite their dimunitive size, the SF-based outfit distributes a staggering array of product. And what they've got in the pipeline is bound to draw some attention: "We're working on some stuff to make drone photography easier for anyone to get into," the company writes. Specifically, they may be helping to usher in a new category of photography: The drone selfie.

What's a drone selfie? Well jeez, whaddaya think it is?

That one was shot by Amit Gupta, the SF-based entrepreneur who runs Photojojo. No word yet on what the physical products they'll be releasing are.

A Core77 reader wrote in to ask about the provenance of this enormous horse made from wood cut-offs, which we spotted at Holz-Handwerk.

Called the "Workhorse of Peace and Hope," it was made by Italian furniture outfit Riva to symbolize the dedication and perseverance of Italian craftsmanship.

And speaking of wooden animals, here's something I never expected to see being sold by Restoration Hardware: A line of Hand-Carved Game Trophies made out of basswood.