Anirudha Surabhi's cardboard bicycle helmet

October 8, 2010, 9:21 am

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Recent RCA grad and industrial designer Anirudha Surabhi's final school project was the Kranium, a sturdy and recyclable bike helmet made from cardboard. The concept was good enough to win a 20,000 pound grant from The James Dyson Fellowship, and Surabhi's now seeking production partners.

While cardboard might not seem like an obvious choice for a helmet, Surabhi's creation is lighter than a polystyrene helmet but reportedly offers four times the amount of impact protection. The Kranium features a sturdy cardboard grid is encased in a plastic outer, but even if water gets inside, the cardboard's been impregnated with an acrylic waterproofing agent.

The following video of the Kranium at the London Cycle Show isn't very informative, but it does give you a good look at the helmet (and an example of the cardboard sheet from which they're cut):

via bike biz

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SAYL: Fuseproject's Brand New Chair for Herman Miller

October 8, 2010, 10:40 am

≫ Next: Vienna Design Week 2010: A public bench that grows longer over time

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The Golden Gate bridge provided the inspiration behind fuseproject's new SAYL chair for Herman Miller—its unique, frameless back mimics the tectonics of suspension bridges, providing ergonomic support with no hard edges. Though prototyping began in wood and rope, the trademarked "3D Intelligent Suspension Back" is enabled by a proprietary urethane and two additional trademarked inventions: the ArcSpan&tm; seat base and the Y-Tower&tm; suspension structure. Both elements assist in holding the urethane sheet in tension.

According to Herman Miller, this structure creates a chair that is fully supportive—with a thickening and hinging of the urethane sheet in the sacral, lumber and spine areas— but also flexible, responding to the movement of the chair's occupant.

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Vienna Design Week 2010: A public bench that grows longer over time

October 8, 2010, 12:07 pm

≫ Next: This Just Inbox: Patrick Hyland's Copper Phone Uses Heat for Power

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The development of the Everybody's Bench

At the beginning of the Vienna Design week, Milan-based collective Esterni began a ten-day intervention on the streets of Vienna. Specialising in developing cultural exchange projects in public spaces since 1995, Esterni took over the Palffygasse in the Hernals district of Vienna and created, with Patrick Hubmann, Everybody's Bench.

Everybody's Bench is a public design intervention aimed at creating a public arena to stimulate the exchange of new ideas. It will consist of a long wooden bench that will eventually extend all along the Palffygasse, offering people a place to sit, relax, rest, organise small presentations, exhibit their own projects, live, and enjoy the public space.

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This Just Inbox: Patrick Hyland's Copper Phone Uses Heat for Power

October 8, 2010, 12:13 pm

≫ Next: Germany's Young Talent Design Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced

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Patrick Hyland is working on creating a "charger-free cell phone future." This means that, in addition to lowering electricity consumption, we won't have to mess with annoying chargers anymore and can stop throwing them away (because we won't have them in the first place).

According to Hyland, discarded chargers produce 51,000 tons of waste annually. To address this problem, he's proposed a cell phone that charges with heat. A conductive copper skin transmits heat to a thermogenerator inside, producing electricity when the phone is placed on a radiator or inside a pocket. The skin is engraved with small heatsinks, mimicking a sun-baked, dry earth pattern.

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Germany's Young Talent Design Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced

October 8, 2010, 1:08 pm

≫ Next: Still getting space-saving furniture right: New Resource Furniture video!

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Communication designers Kerstin Finger, Stefan Groom, Tobias Röttger and product designers Sebastian Herkner and Jacob Rochus have been named as thfe five finalists for the Federal Republic of Germany's Young Talent Design Prize 2011. In the running for €8000, the candidates will be judged on their overall body of work by a serious jury, with members from Porsche, the Bauhaus Archive at the Museum fü Gestaltung, Microsoft, and more. Criteria included design quality, innovative content and potential for development. The winner will be announced on February 11, 2011. Until then, find out more about the candidates here (helps if you can read German, but Google Translate will get you part of the way there).

Thermodynamic Cooler and Murakami Chair by Jacob Rochus

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Still getting space-saving furniture right: New Resource Furniture video!

October 9, 2010, 1:51 pm

≫ Next: Core77 announces Powers of Ten Video Response Design Competition!

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We were excited to get a call from Resource Furniture, the purveyor of truly well-designed space-saving furniture, saying that they had new product in. (And judging by the 2-million-plus hits our last video on them received, you guys love looking at this stuff as much as we do.) Resource Furniture is one of the few companies we can think of that doesn't "do" compromised space-saving furniture, where one of the iterations of a piece is half-hearted or the transforming process is clumsy; instead they go around the world seeking out the best of the best, so all of their pieces have perfect functionality in either of its forms and the transforming experience is, well, a transforming experience.

In the video below, RF founder Ron Barth walks us through four of their new pieces; we also captured footage of some of the pieces you saw in the last video but from different angles so you can really see how they work (like the coffee-table-cum-dining-table at 0:19). My favorite by far is that amazing Goliath table around 0:45. The video almost doesn't do it justice--in person, the thing seems to defy physics!

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Core77 announces Powers of Ten Video Response Design Competition!

October 10, 2010, 8:50 pm

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On the occasion of Powers of Ten Day (10/10/10), Core77 and the Eames Office are proud to launch the Powers of Ten Video Response Design Competition—a new design competition inviting designers to submit 2-minute "response videos" to the Eames's seminal film Powers of Ten. The videos can respond to the film in any form—from reinterpretations and mashups to tributes and reflections--with the entry period running through January 9th, 2011.

The jury includes Eames Demetrios from the Eames Office, filmaker Gary Hustwit, MoMA's Paola Antonelli, Adam Bly from Seed Media Group, Ayse Birsel of Birsel+Seck, and Allan Chochinov from Core77. The prizes are full-featured (see below) and we are looking forward to seeing some extraordinarily creative work!

The competition will be hosted on Core77's new "Design Arena" Community Challenge platform, powered by Jovoto—an open innovation platform built for community collaboration and exchange. Since the platform allows designers to "update" their entries up until the competition deadline, designers can upload storyboards, inspirations, and sketches, getting feedback and iterating their way to their final video. Designers can submit as many entries as they'd like.

At Core77, we're very excited about celebrating Powers of Ten, and want to encourage everyone to participate! Full details below.

REGISTER HERE: http://bit.ly/PowersOfTenChallenge

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Aston Martin "Cygnet" concept city car to go into production

October 11, 2010, 7:48 am

≫ Next: Pratt's Experimental Design Laboratory, circa 1952

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You may have seen Aston Martin's concept for a luxury city car kicking around a few months ago. Today the British manufacturer have announced that the concept will become reality when it goes into production next year.

"Cygnet"—a name that has earned the concept the nickname "ugly duckling" amongst Aston Martin purists—is an attempt by Aston Martin to fill a gap in the market for city cars that are as luxurious as they are convenient and efficient. Could this be the beginning of the end for gas-guzzling "Chelsea tractors" squeezing past each other in congested city streets?

Aston Martin's CEO and Design Director clearly explains the thought process and reasoning behind this concept in a video directed by Spanish creative agency CuldeSac.

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Pratt's Experimental Design Laboratory, circa 1952

October 11, 2010, 9:07 am

≫ Next: Jorre van Ast and Nikolai Carels win design prizes for Royal VKB

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Interior Design's Larry Weinberg has dug up an interesting article by Alexander Kostellow from a 1952 issue of Interiors. Kostellow was then the head of Pratt Institute's ID department, and in the article he shares images of student projects from Pratt's Experimental Design Laboratory. As Weinberg explains,

Pratt's Industrial Design Department took a broadly humanistic approach to training future designers, one that sought to develop creative potential, but one that ultimately centered around machine techniques, hands-on experience, and constant experimentation.

The Experimental Design Laboratory...collaborated with [prominent] companies [and] by the fourth (and final) year of study, students were working on actual, real-world problems.

Shown above are a kitchen unit and various pieces of furniture. We share Weinberg's sentiments that works like these would make a fantastic exhibit, and we'd like to add our own idea: Most of the models have surely been lost or disposed of in the past six decades, but wouldn't it be cool if current volunteers were tasked with duplicating the models, full-sized? You'd think with today's CAD and manufacturing advances, it'd be a snap....

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Jorre van Ast and Nikolai Carels win design prizes for Royal VKB

October 11, 2010, 9:30 am

≫ Next: Lyle Owerko documents the beautiful, unabashedly-'80s designs of boomboxes

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We love the topographical-map-lookin' Dish Drainer Geo, designed by Jorre van Ast. The Geo, along with the Boomerang Wok designed by Nikolai Carels, won manufacturer Royal VKB not one but two Grand Prix design awards.

The appeal of the Geo is obvious at first glance, but the Boomerang needs to be seen in action, as in the video below. The curved sidewalls make it easy to flip the wok's ingredients--perfect for klutzes like me who usually end up scattering stir-fry on the cooktop surface.

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Lyle Owerko documents the beautiful, unabashedly-'80s designs of boomboxes

October 11, 2010, 10:54 am

≫ Next: Vienna Design Week 2010: Julia Landsiedl & the Snowglobe Maker

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Artist Lyle Owerko's "The Boombox Project" documents different examples of the "gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and chrome-plated gadgetry" that was synonymous with urban street sounds in the '80s. Starting in the mid-'90s Owerko collected some 42 prime examples of the devices, and the best of the best are currently on display at Manhattan's Clic Gallery. (For those of you far from Gotham, Amazon has just released the accompanying book, and Owerko's even got a line of corresponding Gelaskins.)

In the following video Owerko discusses his collection with the eye of a connoisseur--"It was always a turn-on to see [the soft-touch cassette doors] slowly open because that connotated quality and craftsmanship"--and hip hop legend Fab Five Freddy explains the role of the boombox in distributing street music in a pre-iPod era.

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Vienna Design Week 2010: Julia Landsiedl & the Snowglobe Maker

October 12, 2010, 8:05 am

≫ Next: Vienna Design Week 2010: Vandasye collaborate with Chronometrie Sulzberger

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Top: What if you put a toy gun into the Utopian world of a snowglobe? Bottom: How many Eiffel Towers does it take to make a memory?

As part of the Passionswege component of Vienna Design Week, Julia Landsiedl, a designer based in Vienna with an eye for storytelling and creating playful products worked with Erwin Perzy's Original Wiener Schneekugeln - the original snow globe makers based in Vienna.

Julia created experiments based on the story of the originator of the SchneeKugeln, Erwin Perzy, and how he came about inventing and making this Utopian world in the snow. With her 'Wunderliche Kugelkammer' [Fantastic Global Curio Cabinet] Julia explored the origins of Baroque curiosity cabinets and our desire to conserve and restore our memories. She questioned the psychological meanings behind these lucky charms and asked poetic questions with her experiments.

What kind of Utopian world exists in the snow globe? Do these snow globes encapsulate our hopes and fears? What 'ingredients' are needed to make a snow globe popular and collectible?

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Vienna Design Week 2010: Vandasye collaborate with Chronometrie Sulzberger

October 12, 2010, 8:42 am

≫ Next: Tri Terasu's LED bulb designers get creative

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Vandasye, top, in front of their concept store installation, pictured bottom.

A nice concept for the Passionswege component of Vienna Design week (see earlier post about Mark Braun's collaboration with J&L Lobmeyr) brought Vandasye to work with Dietmar Sulzberger at his clockmaking shop, Chronometrie Sulzberger.

Georg Schnitzer and Peter Umgeher of Vandasye—a product design studio based in Vienna—saw the potential to turn Mr. Sulzberger's specialised and solitary shop in the Hernals neighbourhood into a network concept store whereby other Viennese manufacturers and merchants can also sell their high quality products and, in doing so, attract new customers.

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Tri Terasu's LED bulb designers get creative

October 12, 2010, 9:27 am

≫ Next: Giant Balloon Animals by La Bolleur

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In the movies or on TV, a room lit by a bare lightbulb is often visual shorthand for poverty and misery, being used by set designers to illuminate fleabag hovels or interrogation rooms. The design limitations of the incandescent bulb means that in domestic settings, it needs to be placed in a lamp with a diffusing shade to cut the harshness.

Now that we've got LED bulbs, designers are starting to play around with the bulb itself in order to better diffuse the light:

Japanese manufacturer Tri Terasu's Smart Chandelier bulbs are cut into little towers dotted by indentations that "catch" light from the LED, each indentation becoming its own miniature light source; the effect is rather like a skyscraper with fully-lit windows. The pleasant effect is sure to throw interrogators off their game.

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Giant Balloon Animals by La Bolleur

October 12, 2010, 9:29 am

≫ Next: Elbit Systems' chunky, ruggedized military handheld computers

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La Bolleur, the Dutch design collective behind the fantastic mini-golf installations we've seen around Milan and Eindhoven, just sent us their latest project, a series of monstrous balloon animals for the Eindhoven city-center, scaled up so much that they were "hardly manageable."

Maybe a nod to Jeff Koons' iconic balloon sculptures, these pieces are almost the opposite: soft and dynamic, made from giant fabric tubes actually inflated and twisted into shape by the La Bolleur Team. According to them, "making it happen turned out to be as much fun as the end result." Seeing their pictures, where they are surrounded by massive, air-filled tubes, makes us feel ecstatic (and just slightly jealous).

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Elbit Systems' chunky, ruggedized military handheld computers

October 12, 2010, 10:03 am

≫ Next: Elasticbrand's AudioWear: Musical Instruments meet Jewelry

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That's probably the only PDA you can order with a night-vision-goggles filter. A company called Elbit Systems manufactures ruggedized PDAs and handheld computers for the U.S. Army like the aluminum and waterproof RPDA-57, above. Check out the super-chunky battery pack that holds ten AA batteries, which are presumably easier to come by in the field than the D-batteries you'd expect such an enclosure to hold.

Admittedly I don't know much about military field-usage of computers, but I find it astonishing that they'd design anything to use a stylus--I'd lose one of those in my office, never mind in a field laced with gunfire. Elbit's ETC MK IV handheld computer (below) at least has some keys attached as well, while the Tacter (bottom) seems to make the most sense as it's got a flip-down keyboard.

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Elasticbrand's AudioWear: Musical Instruments meet Jewelry

October 12, 2010, 10:10 am

≫ Next: Lexus' wickedly huge driving simulator, "World's most advanced"

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For the past two months, New York's Elasticbrand has been working on AudioWear, a series of porcelain musical instruments. Though not officially unveiled, you can peek at some of the results in the fabrication video below, sent in celebration of the opening of the new CAD/CAM facility at the European Ceramic Work Centre, where the fabrication was completed. If you're in the Netherlands, visit the Center on October 14th, from 3:30 to 5:00 pm for the official opening.

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Lexus' wickedly huge driving simulator, "World's most advanced"

October 12, 2010, 10:20 am

≫ Next: NYMag on Different Homes for Different Families

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This 56-foot-diameter pod sits on a tiltable turntable resting on tracks that can move in both axes, like a huge CNC router; but it's not a manufacturing device, it's Lexus' insanely complex new driving simulator, billed as the world's most advanced. Full 360-degree projections inside the dome provide a convincingly immersive environment, and as the dome pitches and yaws the driver inside can be fooled into thinking he's turning, braking and accelerating at speeds of up to 186 miles per hour!

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NYMag on Different Homes for Different Families

October 12, 2010, 11:21 am

≫ Next: Designers Accord NYC Town Hall : Thursday October 28, 2010

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For New York Mag's Home Design 2010 special feature,they celebrate anything but the nuclear family, documenting how different kinds of families live in New York right now. We'd love if they had included a multi-generational extended family, a family that splits time between two places, or a two families that share one home, but the examples they chose are still pretty interesting, even if they chose to focus less on the changing form of the American family and more on...twins.

Above, see brothers Evan and Oliver Haslegrave's 'antiqued' loft in Greenpoint. After the jump, identical twin Teman and Teran's Fort Greene vibrant vs. staid apartment, a single mom's residence in a converted YMCA, and finally two more twins, spoiled by their daddies in a converted library in 5th Avenue.

For more, visit NYMag

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Designers Accord NYC Town Hall : Thursday October 28, 2010

October 12, 2010, 12:38 pm

≫ Next: Sony Open Planet Ideas: Into Concepting

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Design + Sustainability + Profitability

We've all known for a while now that it pays to be green. But beyond the deployment of green values in publicity and marketing, what are the hard and real costs, choices and trade-offs design companies face when they integrate sustainability thinking into their core business strategy? Our guest speakers, all active and influential within their respective creative disciplines, have innovated their products and processes so that today's profits don't compromise the needs - and profits - of tomorrow.

This town hall is hosted by NYDesigns and will take place at 45-50 30th Street, Long Island City. Please RSVP, space is limited.

The evening
6.30 - 7.00 pm Networking with drinks
7.00 - 8.30 pm Speakers each present a project/issue
8.30 - 9.30 pm Questions and discussion - with drinks

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