It's already amazing that two teenaged brothers, aged just 15 and 18 years old, would start a company together. It's more amazing that that company's goal was to reclaim wool. Most amazing of all was when they started this company: In the year 1878.

In 19th-Century Italy, the brothers Calamai began collecting secondhand wool garments, shredding them into strips, and selling them to factories to be re-spun into yarn. But as the boys became men, they began amassing mechanical equipment that they could use to re-process the wool themselves, and eventually opened their own reprocessing factory. Decades before anyone even knew what environmentalism was, the Calamais were pioneering the art and science of reclaiming materials.

Here in 2014 the successful Figli di Michelangelo Calamai is now run by the fourth generation of Calamais, and while factory technology has advanced, they still stick to the old principles: They reclaim the wool from old garments and scraps mechanically, not chemically, and minimize the need to re-dye by carefully sorting colors.

In an earlier entry we looked at inflatable airplane slides, which are designed to allow passengers to safely descend from a couple of stories in height. But what about when the distances are greater? For that there are escape chutes.

The central design challenge with an escape chute is how to arrest gravity to modulate the escapees' speed, so that you don't have people breaking their legs at the bottom and/or piling up on top of each other. What's interesting are the different approaches by which companies try to tackle this. The Ingstrom Escape Chute, for example, works by pure friction:

When I first started writing for this wonderful blog, the one you are on right now, I started off by writing about co-creative processes in relation to education and learning spaces. One of the offices that contacted me in relation to these articles was STL architects, a Spanish architecture studio based in Chicago. I arranged a Skype call with the two directors of the office, Luis Collado and Jose Luis de la Fuente, and we ended up talking for over an hour as shared our previous projects, work methods, processes and personal experiences.

In this interview you will be able to read about their way of working, the strategies when entering a project and their latest project, developing a 20-year master plan expansion for Wilbur Wright College in Chicago, which started working on in the beginning ofJjune this year.

Background Info

The Wilbur Wright College is one of seven Chicago City Colleges, designed by Bertrand Goldberg architect studio back in 1986, all of which are currently undergoing a major remodeling. At the moment, the college hosts students from the age of 18 and up. It is divided into three different programs:
- Credit programs
- Continuing education
- Adult education
Course offerings range from African American Studies to Zoology.

The goal for the central authority of the Chicago City Colleges is to create a 20-year master-plan expansion, while the end goal with the expansion plan for STL is to "create spaces that promote learning."

A 20-year master-plan expansion

STL's mission is to create a 20-year master plan expansion for Wright College, which includes taking the university through a major transformation from the inside of the organization to the outdoor lawns. One of these changes is transforming Wright College from being one of seven city colleges—which allow the students the possibility of studying almost anything between heaven and earth—to focusing on IT, making it the IT hub of the Chicago universities.

In order to be able to handle this big change, STL had to dig their teeth into more than just the exterior and interior of the building—they had to study the existing structure of the organization to get a true understanding of how to create, and be a part of, a lasting change.

Based on previous experience, STL had prepared themselves for a rather stubborn, and difficult-to-please client, similar to the ones they had encountered in the past. But to their great surprise, that wasn't the case this time around. The client, which in this case consists of administrators, stakeholders, students and the central authority of City Colleges, completely broke this perception by giving STL loads of encouragement and support.

As part of the popular Passionswege—the Vienna Design Week platform that links international design talent with industry in the city—rising stars of London design scene PostlerFerguson have been working with craftsmen at 200-year-old producer of fine jewelry, A.E. Kochert, to make these stunning microphone accessories for Viennese DJ and music producer Ken Hayakawa, who uses sound recordings from the streets of Vienna as the basis for much of music.

The piece—designed to hold Hayakawa's weapon of choice, the AKG C1000 microphone—is a great example of the Passionwege's intention to combine the skills of designers with traditional manufacturing. Conceived and digitally modeled by Martin (Postler) and Ian (Ferguson) in the studio in London, the form was later printed into a mold used to cast the object from molten metal, then of course being given an exquisite finish by the team at the Kochert workshop in central Vienna.

As well as being damn stylish and a celebration of Hayakawa's unique composing process, the accessory is intended to give some real functional benefits—the cone shape providing a shield or the microphone whilst also providing a flat surface to rest the recorder. The addition of an equally crafted clip gives the option to keep the cable under control or providing a hook to hang the microphone from.

Last month's design-education spectacular is over, but please indulge us as we present one more piece of (belated) back-to-school content. As we were compiling those interviews, confessions and FAQs, we thought it would also be fun to ask some established designers to tell us about their own most memorable d-school moments. So we reached out to a bunch of folks and asked them each the same question:

What's the craziest, most outrageous or most regrettable product or project you dreamed up during design school?

Here are answers from ten noteworthy contemporary designers.

Misha Kahn

Initially, I was sure it was this thing I made called the Unimelt 5000, which melted chocolate creatures and turned them into hot chocolate. Inside was some pretty wily electrical work, including a hair dyer, a milk frother, a blender and a garden hose. But then I was looking through some school photos, and there's a laundry list of questionable choices! Others include a coffee table that you had to lube up and spin into an orgasm; a giant waffle standing on syrup drips; a cast rubber chair; and a giant wall-mounted wrecking ball.

Karim Rashid

I was far too serious in university to develop anything really crazy and outrageous. But when I was teaching at RISD in 1991, I developed concept projects to inspire my students. I would produce pedagogy based on our future digital tools. Here is a mobile phone "tree" that was composed of a small mobile handset and removable touch screens with real-time images so you could leave your last video call image up on the tree to remind you of your family or friends. In 1991 this was only a fantasy that now is a reality.

Max Lipsey

The first thing I thought of was this project for Nike to design the shoe of the future. I came up with a shoe filled with live bone cells, and the structure of the shoe would form/grow around your foot as you walk. I still think it's kind of a cool idea, but pretty far out-there. As I recall, my teachers were not so thrilled, nor was Nike. Some fellow students found it to be as awesome as I did, while others thought that it's super icky (which it is). No regrets, though!

The real heart of Design Week is the chance to peek behind the curtains and into the workspaces of creative people around town. Come by the Hand-Eye Supply Open House to check out the back story of how we do what we do, because sharing is vital, and snooping in inspiring!

Community engagement is key to supporting a creative culture, and for HES that engagement is more like an endless honeymoon. Our fortnightly Curiosity Club speaking event highlights the varied talents of local minds and encourages ongoing learning. The HES Quarterly brings together talented people and cool gear every three months. While creative work takes good tools and elbow grease, it also benefits from a strong social network.

Tour the shop and facilities 4–7pm, today. And if you didn't get tickets you can still tune in online at 6pm to catch the talent-packed panel presenting at the Design Week edition of Curiosity Club.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014, 4–7pm
427 NW Broadway
Portland, OR 97219

Most new sneaker designs we see these days involve fancy new materials, new production methods and/or experimental soles. But in terms of function, they remain the same as they've been for decades. Inventor Steven Kaufman's Quikiks, on the other hand, have a very unique design feature: They can be donned and removed without the use of your hands.

"There are 50 million people just in the United States," says Kaufman, "with various physical or cognitive challenges that greatly limit their ability to don their own footwear." Kaufman was inspired to design the opening/closing mechanism, which can be applied to a variety of footwear styles, after his son Alex was diagnosed with scoliosis and forced to wear a brace that prevented him from bending over to manipulate his shoes.

"I didn't know anything about shoe making," writes Kaufman. "I just had a vision of how it might be possible." He then put in five long years and produced dozens of prototypes, and now his designs are finally ready for primetime. Here's how he developed them, and how they work:

Seeing as seating and transportation are the proverbial bread and butter of design, the occasional hybridization of two functions in a single form is all but inevitable, manifested in various shapes and sizes. So too can conveyances be reimagined as articles of furniture, as illustrated by these two projects.

First up, the Randonneur Chair by Two Makers is easily the most interesting piece of cycling-inspired furniture we've seen in a long time. Rather less cheeky than Jeremy Petrus's homage to George Nelson and certainly more elegant than the regrettable 'Fixie Table,' the bespoke piece holds its own as a classy rocking chair even as it unmistakably alludes to the bicycle frame as a design object. The Randonneur Chair is characterized by exposed brazing at the joins, as well as lugged construction to the effect of a proper headtube and seatstay cluster, bolt and all); other features include dual bottle cages and the Brooks handlebar tape to accent the drops. While I personally would be curious to see a more subtle version of the chair sans these details, it works equally well with the overt reference points.

Inspired by classic hand-built racing and touring bicycles manufactured by the master Constructeurs of the 1940s, the Randonneur Chair is handcrafted from Reynolds 631 tubing, hardwood and bicycle saddle leather. Using bicycle geometries and traditional frame-building techniques, it is both a celebration of cycling and of bespoke British craftsmanship.

Sundberg-Ferar is serious about identifying how to make a product uniquely and compellingly differentiated in the marketplace and everyone on their staff of researchers, designers, engineers and prototypers are dedicated to that goal. They are looking for a mechanical engineer with a minimum of 2 years 'hands-on' experience in consumer product design and a BSME, BSEE or equivalent to join their Detroit, MI team.

The right person for this role will have experience with electronics, electromechanical systems, and control systems. They'll need to know how to apply creativity and engineering expertise to develop innovative products that work. And, when they are hired, they'll enjoy one of the best benefits packages around. Don't wait - Apply Now.

Parsons design students working with Poltrona Frau

It's been a long time since Pratt Institute, my alma mater, was the only game in town for those looking to earn Industrial Design degrees in New York City. These days Core77's own Allan Chochinov heads up the Products of Design MFA program at the School of Visual Arts, while crosstown rival Parsons The New School for Design offers a BFA in Product Design. Now the latter school is extending their offering, rolling out an MFA in Industrial Design.

Under skipper and veteran designer Rama Chorpash, the two-year program "will prepare designers to negotiate the seemingly contradictory forces at play at all scales of product design. You critically engage with issues such as production and sustainability, consumerism and social and environmental betterment, and global and local industry, integrating these considerations to improve industry, human life, and the planet."

Ah, NYC design education then and now. The neighborhood of early '90s Pratt was blighted by the tail-end of the crack epidemic, our precinct had the highest crime rate in all of New York City (tied only with the South Bronx), students were mugged with regularity and acquiring art supplies meant waiting for a G train that ran about as frequently as the Space Shuttle. And now there are not one, but multiple ID-related programs in Manhattan proper, in nice, safe neighborhoods with their own art supply stores. No, I'm not bitter. Enjoy your design educations, you lousy....

Parsons' MFA in Industrial Design program rolls out in Fall of 2015. Later this month, a panel discussion at Parsons called "Product City: Shortening the Supply Chain" will serve as the program's official kickoff.

Created some two generations ago, in the heady pre-hyperlapse days, the Eames' Powers of Ten remains as relevant today as ever before. While the short film makes for an unlikely (or at least hyperbolic) comparison to the work of snow artist Simon Beck, the very concept of scale is precisely why both the film and the large-scale drawings are compelling and accessible to a broad audience.

Having previously seen Beck's work when it made rounds last year, I was interested to have the opportunity to interview him on the occasion of the launch of Icebreaker's inaugural artist collaboration, for which a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Protect Our Winters (a non-profit organization for climate change awareness). Commissioned by the apparel company, Beck's interpretation of a ram's horn—a reference to merino wool—features prominently among the geometric artwork that has been printed on the pieces in the new collection.

Over the past decade, Beck has all but perfected his technique of 'drawing' on snow and has recently expanded his enterprise to include works on sand as well; he employs snowshoes to achieve a kind of stippling effect on the former surface and a rake to etch lines in the latter. His only other tools are an orienteering compass and a string-and-anchor to demarcate the 'skeleton' of the piece relative to the center point or vertices. As for the content itself—canonical fractals and patterns of his own design, but sometimes cartoons by request—Beck goes by a thumbnail sketch and gut instinct, rarely drawing out the entire piece beforehand, because (as he dryly notes) "it's too time consuming."

The Design Week Portland opening party was as beautiful and laid back as you'd expect for Portland. Staged at the historic and dramatic Staver Locomotive building, the scene was split between the odd-old and brightly modern. Entering through a blinding mirror-striped walkway visitors arrived in a huge moodily lit ex-industrial warehouse. Model train tracks wound through parts of the space and acted as unusual counters for drinks vending. The vaulted ceiling was hung with lights and live video installation pieces. Meanwhile outside, fire pits and food carts kept people close and sociable.

Back inside, guests lined up for their chance in a "live photobooth": a seat in front of a two way mirror, behind which artists scribbled frantically for 90 seconds to produce their portraits. A large glossy black open sketching wall invited anyone to add their own work to the communal pool, with predictably yearbook-like results. The other interactive highlight of the night was Set Creative's video installation, a pair of dazzle-painted boxes labeled "Fear Of Missing Out" into which viewer peered to watch the crowd around them... and their own darting eyes projected onto pyramid screens above.

All in all, a sweet and visually enjoyable start to a colorful week.

This series is meant to show you the ins and outs of entry-level CNC milling—the type of thing Regular Joes like you and I could do in our own shops or garages, no NASA experience required. To show you this we've got a ShopBot Desktop on loan from North-Carolina-based ShopBot tools, and this is no mere carving machine or toy; it's a powerful, very capable piece of production machinery. But despite that, we've found it's actually pretty simple to use.

One way to demystify CNC milling is to first take a close look at the machine itself. Which we do in the video below, while tackling the questions you might have:

- What's this thing made out of?
- How is it different from competitors' machines?
- What does it come with, right out of the box?
- How much space does it actually take up?
- What parts of it do I actually interface with?
- How does this machine handle dust collection?
- What's the difference between the router-based model and the spindle-based model?

This series is aimed at those of you with little to no power tool experience. But we realize some of you are shop veterans that might already have an assortment of valued bits, in which case you might wonder:

- Can I use the conventional router bits I already own with a ShopBot?

Let's take a look:

Next episode, we'll show you how to set the machine up, right out of the box.

» See also: Five Reasons to Go With a ShopBot Desktop

Once upon a time, industrial designers, animators, graphic designers and illustrators physically used acetate or mylar sheets as overlays on drawings. Newer generations of creatives now understand this concept as Photoshop layers, which can easily be clicked on and off digitally. But now a team of researchers has combined the physical and digital with "a new thin-film, transparent sensing surface" they're calling FlexSense.

Developed in collaboration between two Austria-based outfits—the human-computer interaction researching Media Interaction Lab and the Institute for Surface Technologies and Photonics—and Microsoft Research, the FlexSense appears to be nothing more than a good ol' acetate overlay, albeit embedded with thin sensors. But since this sheet can precisely sense the manner in which the user is deforming it, when coupled with clever software this can lead to some interesting interactions. You can skip the first half of the video below, which is mostly egghead-speak, but be sure to tune in at 2:05 to see the proposed applications:

While the interface is probably too abstruse for your average consumer, it's easy to see applications that would be perfect for ID and other creative fields. I'd love to see Wacom buy this technology and incorporate it into their stuff.

Bruno Francois is a clever man. Back in 2012 he figured out how to game the vibrating function in an iPhone 5, combined with data from the gyro and compass, in order to cause the iPhone to precisely rotate in place when stood up on its edge. The resultant app he created, Cycloramic, could then shoot hands-free panoramic photos and video:

This was good enough to garner Francois some 600,000-plus downloads, and with a $0.99 retail price, he presumably recouped whatever investment of time and money he put into developing the app. But earlier this year he appeared on the competitive "Shark Tank" TV show, where entrepreneurs compete to gain financial backing from Mark-Cuban-level big dogs, to see if he could go next-level. The clip was riveting:

TIL, in a 2008 New Yorker article (via Wikipedia of course), that "There are so many people with ideas about umbrellas that the Patent Office has four full-time examiners assessing their claims." Author Susan Orlean continues:

One of the problems, according to Ann Headley, the director of rain-product development for Totes [the largest umbrella company in the country], is that umbrellas are so ordinary that everyone thinks about them, and, because they're relatively simple, you don't need an advanced degree to imagine a way to redesign them, but it's difficult to come up with an umbrella idea that hasn't already been done.

Although I stopped short of diving into Class 135 of the ol' USPTO archive, the well-told product development saga served as a nice backgrounder on the umbrella in relation to a purportedly novel take on the very same. While Orlean's subject, artist/inventor Steve Hollinger, ended up licensing his umbrella to a toy company—patented in 2006, it doesn't seem to have made it into production—the "SA" has just launched on Kickstarter:

If you're checking out grad schools for next September, be sure to take a look at the MFA in Products of Design program at SVA in New York City. Chaired by Core77's Allan Chochinov, the department will welcome guests to its Information Session/Open House on Saturday, November 8th, from 1pm - 4pm. Meet faculty and students, tour the department and Visible Futures Lab, and preview projects and the curriculum. Here's a bit more:

"Please join us for our Open House and Information Session. The MFA in Products of Design is an immersive, two-year graduate program that creates exceptional practitioners for leadership in the shifting terrain of design. We educate heads, hearts and hands to reinvent systems and catalyze positive change.

"Students gain fluency in the three fields crucial to the future of design: Making, from the handmade to digital fabrication; Structures: business, research, systems, strategy, user experience and interaction; and Narratives: video storytelling, history and point of view. Through work that engages emerging science and materials, social cooperation and public life, students develop the skills to address contemporary problems in contemporary ways.

"Graduates emerge with confidence, methods, experience and strong professional networks. They gain the skills necessary to excel in senior positions at top design firms and progressive organizations, create ingenious enterprises of their own, and become lifelong advocates for the power of design."

Check out all the goings on at the department goings at their site, and RSVP for the Open House/Information Session event here.

Look Again, on view until January 19, 2015, at the Carnegie Museum of Art. Photo by Bryan Conley

Our friend Sebastian Errazuriz is out in full force this fall, with not one, not two, but three exhibitions on view at this very moment. He's doubled down with shows here in New York City, where he's based—alas, the uptown half of the bifurcated exhibit Functional Sculpture / Sculptural Furniture closes tomorrow; the other half will remain on view at Cristina Grajales until the 24th—while Pittsburgh's Carnegie Museum of Art is hosting a proper retrospective, Look Again, which will be on view until January 19, 2015. (As we noted over the summer, his latest project, the "Explosion Cabinet," debuted in Pittsburgh; versions of it are on view at both the museum there and at the gallery here in New York.)

Functional Sculpture / Sculptural Furniture at Cristina Grajales Gallery. Photo by Ari Espai

On August 19, just a few short weeks before the opening of the three shows, the Chilean-born designer took the stage at TEDx Martha's Vineyard, where he presented his general outlook on life and his craft in the form of a primer to his clever—and often outright cheeky—oeuvre. You can almost get away with listening to it in the background, but the slides of his work go a long way:

For you readerly types, we interviewed Errazuriz on the occasion of the publication of his monograph, The Journey of Sebastian Errazuriz, back in 2012.

This week Adobe released a trailer showing what they've (hopefully) got in the pipeline, setting user forums alight with cries of both "Bravo!" and "BS!" Depending on your disposition, you will inevitably feel one or the other while watching it:

While the footage is obviously cooked (with After Effects, no doubt), most of the stuff seems possible—even that nutty part with the rotoscoped horses, given enough computing power.

That theoretical computing power is meant to be the unseen but still understood message behind this bit of advertising, as it was done in conjunction between Adobe and Microsoft. The two companies have apparently gotten into bed together, with Microsoft putting in a surprise appearance at this week's Adobe Max conference, where the boys from Redmond pulled the Oprah-like move of lacing everyone in the keynote audience with free Surface Pro 3 tablets.

While some people are dismissive of those who have problems assembling IKEA furniture, I know plenty of otherwise competent and intelligent end users who struggle with it. Having helped both friends and clients assemble this stuff, amid many curses, I'm delighted that IKEA is coming out with a new line using tool-free connectors. But IKEA is far from alone; many designers have been creating furniture that assembles tool-free, using a variety of mechanisms. And much of that furniture is shelving and other items that help with getting organized.

Smart Furniture has a product line called Smart Shelves, where the interlocking shelving components slide together using pre-cut slots; the units then connect vertically or horizontally with dowels. The system is designed to allow for easy reconfiguration and expansion. When I watched the assembly video, I was pleased to see that a single person could easily put this product together without needing a helper. The components all have a lifetime warranty.

Legaré has been making desks with no-tool assembly for over 14 years; it now makes shelving units, too. This desk, with its built-in shelving, assembles in two minutes with no tools.

This is a different Legaré desk, but you can see how it goes together using its patented locking tab/slot system. Legaré notes that they can be assembled and disassembled repeatedly without damage. Another nice feature: There are no small pieces to get misplaced. The desks are made from bamboo plywood sourced from FSC-certified mills.