Next time you're looking for a thoughtful yet whimsical gift for a designer who has literally everything, remember this. Emily Boutard makes miniature furniture that's nicer than the real stuff most of us own. Scandi, Regency, Victorian, there's something for all types of era-enamored snob. To top it off, she makes these historically accurate pieces for fun, while teaching law and studying architecture–two disciplines (three really) not known for their casual ease.
Her site, aptly named Little Architecture, features historical architectural designs, elegant furniture sets, intricate facades, and inviting interiors that I would happily hang out in for more than a couple mini martinis.
In a recent interview with Lost at E Minor, she notes that though her interest in dollhouses and miniatures is lifelong, the influence of her post-law architectural education has been profound.
The chance to develop a modeling technique around a period of historical architecture, and fully explore its scale and methods and materials, has clearly paid off. She has made stuffed baroque seating and Painted Lady trim work by hand, all beautifully scaled and highly believable.
One of her projects (tagged as the 1833 House Project on Instagram) shows her careful historical work on subjects from foundation to roofing to a violin.
Though Boutard describes the practice largely as a personal escape, rather than a career, many pieces are available on her site. (The 1:24 scale drafting table is on there now!) There are a few simple tutorials, and basic kits might be on their way.
And aside from well-appointed designers and architects, chic mini furnishings could make a nice gesture for those of us with unappointably small apartments, or millennials with more design taste than personal space.
You can see more of Emily Boutard's Little Architecture work, and how it's made, on Instagram. Including this helpful demonstration on discomfort and Le Corbusier's legacy.
Core77's editors spend time combing through the news so you don't have to. Here's a weekly roundup of our favorite stories from the World Wide Web.
I had no idea that fighter jets came with pre-recorded warnings ("Pull up!" "Roll right!") that are always voiced by females. I'm reading this Bloomberg article about "Bitchin' Betty," aka Leslie Shook, the recently-retired 60-year-old Boeing employee who lent her heavy Tennessee accent to the F/A-18 Hornet. Fascinating read.
—Rain Noe, senior editor
A fascinating read on how our deep reliance on and uninhibited willingness to share personal information with our devices could completely transform the medical field, while also touching on how our smartphones have interestingly enough "become extensions of our brains — we outsource essential cognitive functions, like memory, to them, which means they soak up much more information than we realize. When we hand over this information willingly, the effect is even greater."
—Allison Fonder, community manager
Startup fever has hit Durham, North Carolina, where entrepreneurs are in the midst of creating a "counter narrative to Silicon Valley." Because this sector is just beginning in the city, many believe that Durham is uniquely poised to tackle the issues of diversity that plague it's west coast counterpart from the beginning. So far, it seems like they may be succeeding: "Of the companies to come out of American Underground [a local startup incubator] in 2015, for instance, about 30 percent are led by women and 22 percent are led by minorities. That's significantly higher than most (admittedly fuzzy and tech-focused) estimates elsewhere for either group, which generally put the share of female-led ventures below 20 percent, and the share of minority led-ventures below 10 percent."
—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant
"Readers often notice that the magazine is unusually colorful for a left-wing rag, and that reflects a particular attitude I've tried to project through the visual content, which is confident, optimistic, forward-looking and less bogged down in the dreariness so many have come to associate with the socialist left," says creative director Remeike Forbes.
—Eric Ludlum, editorial director
If you build it, they will come. Last year, ocean farmer Bren Smith won a Buckminster Fuller prize for his work in building new systems for sustainable seaweed farms. Now, the challenges facing his GreenWave project are scaling up, infrastructure development and convincing consumers that kelp can be as delicious as kale.
—Linyee Yuan, managing editor
Is anyone not fascinated by abandoned buildings? Though the incomplete structures documented in the Sinai Hotels series by Sabine Haubitz and Stefanie Zoche never made it to active use, they're spooky anyway. The economic backstory is troubling, but I like imagining their lonely life out in the desert.
—Kat Bauman, contributing writer
Here's a gift for your Friday, all thanks to the internet—this film made for Douglas Cockerell & Son marbled papers, a company founded on marbling paper for bookbinding. The backstory of Cockerell Marbling is actually quite fascinating: Started by Douglas Cockerell, the hand marbling company was founded "to restore ancient and valuable books and other documents." It also seems that the Cockerell family had a long lineage of creatives and artists, including Douglas's brother, a curator and good friend of the "grandfather of the Arts & Crafts Movement" John Ruskin.
The video shows marbling expert William Chapman in the 1970s pulling some astonishing tricks out of his hat:
We've also taken the liberty of making some gif highlights for your viewing pleasure:
And in case you're wondering where to find these papers, sadly it looks as if the Cockerell marbling studio shut down in 2012 after over 100 years of hand production. Thankfully, its legacy still lives on through this awesome demo film.
WOW. Jesse de Geest finally shows the video of him building his epic workbench, and it's every bit as awesome as it was hyped to be. For those of you who haven't been following, de Geest was determined to build his workbench like a fine piece of furniture, an heirloom that would be passed down to subsequent generations of his family. And his intention shows:
Pretty cool: Izzy Swan has invented a piece of hardware that is now being manufactured and sold by FastCap. As Swan walks you through an end table build, he shows you how his Izzy Skirt Washers can be used to securely affix a tabletop while the slotted design allows for wood movement, permitting your tabletop to seasonally expand and contract without warping or cracking.
In order to become good at making things, you need to develop a mastery of skills through repetition. But it's also equally important to explore techniques you've never tried before. Hence Frank Howarth experiments here with cutting concentric rings out of a single board, then glueing it up into a bowl he can turn on the lathe before adding some details on his new CNC tilting end table:
Depending on the kind of work you do you'll find a mallet either handy, for the occasional persuasion-fit, or indispensable, for driving chisels. Here Jay Bates shows you two methods for making your own. The first method relies primarily on hand tools, while the second method is for those that prefer power tools:
Another from Jay Bates: In this one he demonstrates a classic joinery technique for keeping tabletops flat over time, while still allowing for expansion and contraction: The breadboard end. Bates adds his own twist by incorporating a through-mortise, and we get to see the meticulous nature that makes Jay Bates, Jay Bates as he agonizes over an error that resulted in a visible wedge being 1/16th of an inch off. (Bates, no one will notice, the piece is beautiful!)
Using nothing but common big-box hardware store materials, Steve Ramsey builds an improbably handsome bathroom cabinet. Just goes to show you what some stain and spraypaint can accomplish. He also recovers from a mid-project error, and has a piece of good luck with the final distance of the door swing:
Being able to use the awkward space where an angled ceiling meets a low wall, as in an attic, is often challenging. Here Sandra Powell, a/k/a Sawdust Girl, shows us how she got the most out of it by designing and installing angle-topped cabinets to fill the void:
Jeez Louise. Bob Clagett already had our Father of the Year award for his epic arcade cabinet build, but here he goes the distance again, this time crafting a well-designed Lego Build Table for the Clagett brood:
Here Linn from Darbin Orvar bangs out a mightily impressive media cabinet, with an Ipe top and self-turned legs and knobs. As always, she helpfully highlights which products and tools she's using, and why. (I've gotta say though, watching her using the doweling jig made me want to call Festool up and beg them to give her a Domino!)
As an untalented chef, I find accurately chopping vegetables to be a difficult and irritating task. But I have it easy in that I have two hands. For folks who only have the use of one hand, the task moves from irritating to impossible.
Design ought be able to help. One good idea for chopping lighter stuff like herbs is a mezzaluna:
If the base is heavy enough it won't move, enabling the user to mince one-handed.
When it comes to cutting, slicing or peeling heavier stuff—say, apples, zucchinis or potatoes—a more involved solution is required. One example is the Etac Deluxe One-Handed Food Prep and Cutting Board:
Here we see two solutions. One is the T-track and the clamping plate, which obviously locks down with a cam clamp at the end of the lever. That's fine if you're slicing something large in half, but not so good for cutting repetitive narrow slices. The sharp vertical pins are meant to solve that, as the end user can impale a potato or the like in place, then repetitively chop down the length of it. The problem with the pins is that you may accidentally strike them with your knife, and the pins themselves provide a hazard when you're handling the board (see video at the bottom of this entry).
Coroflotter and RISD grad Sichen Sun is working on her own design for a one-handed cutting board. During her research, she came across a one-handed woman's DIY solution to the problem, that apparently uses rubber bands or some kind of long twist-ties:
Inspired, Sun first experimented with an alternate clamping method, first tackling the problem of how to hold irregularly-shaped items. Her initial mock-up solved this with a clamp that can be flipped around to present either a flat or concave surface to the work:
However, as with the other designs above, there was no provision for advancing the work after each cut. While the end user could put the knife down, undo the clamp, manually advance the ingredients and then re-clamp, Sun sought a more elegant solution. She then struck upon the idea of a rack-and-pinion arrangement:
The idea here is that the gear furthest from the user slides along a track and can be pulled towards the nearer gear, closing the gap until the material is clamped. The end user can then use their body to press against the butt end of the rack after each cut, which turns the gear and advances the ingredient being cut.
Sun's concept is mechanically sound, but now requires the finessing that will make it practical; while I like that she started by considering how the end user could smoothly operate this design, the next step might be to figure out a way to replace the gears, or at least the exposed portion of them, so that they do not trap food and will not be tricky to clean.
Does anyone have any ideas? Before sounding off you may want to watch JustAddGinger's video below, where the hostess offers cooking tips and tools as part of her "One Handed Ways" series:
Jumpstart your week with our insider's guide to events in the design world. From must-see exhibitions to insightful lectures and the competitions you need to know about—here's the best of what's going on, right now.
In the latest Oculus Book Talk at the Center for Architecture, author Nina Rappaport will discuss research from her upcoming book, Vertical Urban Factory, which looks at the design of factories in urban settings to examine how these types of buildings can be better integrated with cities. What goes into the construction, mechanization and operation of vertical factories and can they be made greener and more efficient to become vital parts of our cities?
New York, NY. March 28, 2016 at 6 PM.
In Cabaret Series: Textile Tests, Storefront for Art and Architecture brings together a group of architects, engineers and designers who work with textiles in experimental ways. Discussing new techniques and technologies, the group will examine the future of textiles in design and include a special performance by a Brooklyn Ballet dancer in a technologically advanced tutu.
New York, NY. Tuesday March 29, 2016 at 7 PM.
Chamber's fifth capsule collection features the whimsical, provocative work of Azuma Makoto, a Japanese florist and designer who bridges his two passions with with projects where art meets science—like in his "Exobotanica" series (pictured above) for which Makoto worked with JP Aerospace to send various flower arrangements into space and document their journey.
New York, NY. On view through April 30, 2016.
Carlo Ratti, director of the SENSEable City Lab at MIT will discuss the shape of our future cities with artist and engineer Natalie Jeremijenko. Our new technologies have transformed the city from a static collection of objects to a series of vibrant informational networks—how will this impact our built environment?
New York, NY. Thursday March 31, 2016 at 6 PM.
The first of a series of IDSA district conferences kick off this week. In Pittsburgh, IDSA's Central District Design Conference will explore the core strengths and significance of Industrial Design as the field moves on to intersect with contemporary forces: connectivity, digitization, mobility and autonomy, among others. In Denver, the IDSA West District Design Conference will present the importance of developing empathy driven solutions through presentations and practical workshops.
Pittsburgh, PA. April 1-2, 2016.
Denver, CO. April 1-2, 2016.
Work on What You Love: Bruce Mau Rethinking Design closes at the Philadelphia Museum of Art this weekend. The encompassing retrospective unpacks Mau's 24 principles that designers can use to develop innovative solutions and exemplifies his concepts through more than 200 works on display. Not to be missed!
Philadelphia, PA. On view through April 3, 2016.
Something almost magically bad happens when an ardent amateur bike rider designs bike gear. Chalk it up to beginner's audacity, or thinking unclouded by industry norms, but the outcome is often a strikingly simple solution to a much more complicated issue. And it almost always causes more problems in the process.
Please consider the Lumineer, and then consider talking to a mechanic before you redesign a bike accessory. The Lumineer is a bike light from the designer of the Kranium cardboard bike helmet. It is a bike stem with a light built into the front plate. This light is meant to streamline the look of your cockpit, eliminate complicated light brackets, reduce the amount of things you have to take with you, and deter theft. It's milled from aluminum, comes in black and chrome, and it runs on two CR2032 batteries. Simple!
On the other hand, you'll have to replace your stem, and take the front plate entirely off–leaving your bars dangling–just to change the batteries. You get exactly one option for stem length, rise, and bar diameter, despite the wide array of bodies and bike types it might appeal to...and despite the oddly confident and genuinely puzzling claim that, "it fits almost every bike." The "cool infographic" with general dimensions does almost nothing to describe the compatibility with different sizes of steer tube or bars in laymen's terms—absolutely crucial information for users who are expected to install this component themselves.
And you "Eco Geeks" are instructed not to worry, because though the Kickstarter campaign is off and running, they are currently looking for a way to incorporate USB charging ability. Not only is "eco geeks" an unpleasant way of referring to people who appreciate responsible design, USB recharge saves your customer money and effort. In an era when you can get a 100 lumen sub-$30 rechargeable light at a modestly stocked LBS, relying on batteries is a sign of underdeveloped market research and underdeveloped design. But don't worry, they're also looking into brighter LEDs! And that's great, but if the light is the heart of your design, don't half ass the light.
This brings me to my favorite part of novice design: the downplaying of well-tested engineering. The stem is a very important part of the bike, and its strength and proper adjustment are vital to you having a nice ride and having teeth at the end of it. By assuming that this stem will fit "most bikes" the designer has already outed himself as unaware of bike subtleties, or totally uninterested in meeting potential users halfway. Installing a stem isn't a stand-alone process, and the ability to do headset bearing adjustment is not fair to expect from a casual rider, especially one put off by the minimally technical task of installing a mass-produced plastic headlight.
By addressing this central component as an easily added accessory, with no structural/fit/adjustment issues of its own, the designer seems willing to compromise the ergonomics and entire functionality of the bike itself for the sake of sticking some LEDs in.
Currently, the only question in the campaign's FAQ asks whether there is any vertical angle adjustment on the light. This is important since the angle of each bike's head tube dictates where the actual beam of the light will hit, and since there's only one stem angle offered, it might not hit where you need it. The answer is no, and so the official Lumineer solution is to over-tighten and under-tighten the bolts on the stem's faceplate to pitch the plate up or down. Not only is that a truly obnoxious way to adjust a light, it also compromises the strength of the stem itself by overloading a threaded system. An over-stressed stem bolt can easily strip, which endangers the security of the bars, and by extension your steering, braking and teeth.
Bike mechanics and design aren't unknowable dark arts, but the layperson buying a bike light intended to simplify a system shouldn't be required to know more than average, and the average still isn't much! If you want to test this, walk your two-wheeled whip into the nearest shop for service and mention that you've "done a lot of work on it myself." If your mechanic looks impressed I'll eat a truing stand.
Can this design be salvaged? Is it more practical than it appears? What would you have done differently?
Designers have long looked to nature as a source of inspiration, drawing upon its tried and true systems to build everything from velcro to bullet trains. But, what about when it comes to capturing the 'sense' of a plant? Or the feeling of its growth? These less tangible characteristics are what inspired Russian designer Lera Moiseeva to design the Ray Chair, a chair inspired by the growth of a plant—a simultaneous reach towards the light, while burrowing roots deep into the ground.
For Moiseeva, the idea for the Ray chair came after working on an interactive outdoor light installation in Moscow. "The installation had the shape of a number of rays converging at a point," Moiseeva describes. "At the same time, a group of Russian designers invited me to participate in a show called Naturalist. The main theme was about interpreting nature in artifacts. The chair design is based on the structure of a plant or tree."
It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep—into evil. —Friedrich Nietzsche
The simultaneous projects led to the development for the Ray Chair—the converging rays became the inspiration for the chair's support structure, as well as the namesake for the piece of furniture itself. "I did not have a specific image that inspired the shape," Moiseeva says. "I wanted to make a symbol of the roots of the plant, with organic natural lines."
Featuring five legs coming together at one point, the Ray Chair is meant to resemble a plant reaching towards the light, while its roots go deeper into soil, a source of strength. "The nature of this chair works according to the same principle; the five legs of the chair work as roots, that give life to the stable and firm seat," Moiseeva says. "I thought, it's cool to make it different from a traditional 4-legged chair, so I just added one more," Moiseeva says. "It makes it look more playful."
Although initial sketches featured legs of varying angles and inclinations, as Moiseeva worked through various prototypes and production models, she opted to change the design—resulting in less severe, more similar degrees for each leg. "The final length and angle of the legs differs from the first sketches," she says. "It was necessary to make a few adjustments, that's why several chairs were produced before approval of the final."
The Ray Chair also features a lovely curved back, which begins at the seat of the chair, wrapping around the back and coming back down on the other side. "I wanted the back to have an elegant and graphically simple shape while at the same time have character," Moiseeva says of the design detail. "Minimal and light lines create a comfortable backrest."
Moiseeva was also influenced, in part, by a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, reading: "It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and light, the more vigorously do his roots struggle earthward, downward, into the dark, the deep—into evil." "I think it is a great phrase explaining what is happening in the process of life," Moiseeva says. "I wanted to try and capture it in the object. This phrase has influenced the name of the chair—Ray. A ray of light gives rise to plants, but growth is not only toward the light, but also roots grow underground."
Standing 74 centimeters high (roughly 29 inches), the chair is about the size of a small palm tree and is crafted from tubular steel. "It was planned to be an indoor/outdoor object, so tubular steel was the best option as the material," Moiseeva says. "[The material choice] was also one way to achieve the resistance of the chair structure while maintaining the elegance." The designer cut, bent, welded and painted the steel to create three prototypes of her design.
"I tried to approach some companies, but the chair still needed to be improved, so I decided to make first three prototypes of the chair," Moiseeva says. The designer approached Italian metal production company Carraro Tech, who worked with Moiseeva to take the final steps and adjustments necessary to produce the Ray Chair in a short period of time. "I was lucky to work with amazing people who helped to make this object real in a short term."
While Carraro Tech helped the designer bring a the Ray Chair into a more refined, mass-production-ready state, Moiseeva is still working on bringing it to mass production, with plans to produce it herself as opposed to partnering with any larger brands or manufacturers. While she's still working on locking down a final price, Moiseeva promises that its first stop will be retailers in New York City. In the meantime, she's trying out new finishings for the chair in addition to its current options of dark green, black and white.
There are many reasons to be stoked about our newest 1-Hour Design Challenge, one of which is the awesome prize you could win, a brand new OXO On Illuminating Digital Immersion Blender!
Say you've never owned an immersion blender and are wondering what the heck you could do with it? Well, we've made a quick list of tasks and tricks you can tackle with an immersion blender that will make your life that much better:
Aeration, or the process of exposing wine to oxygen to reduce sulfites, can help any wine taste better—with a high quality wine, simply swirl it in your glass to properly aerate and you should be good. Cheaper bottles of wine however may need a little help. One common trick? Blend the crap out of your wine for 30-60 seconds.
If you're not much of a chef, you could always use your immersion blender to make paper as we discovered on a really elaborate paper mache discussion board—"Immersion blenders are awesome for breaking down paper to make pulp out of. I decided to go with it instead of a regular blender because you aren't limited to the cup size of the blender" (we can't promise this will be good to use for cooking after you do this though).
Who doesn't love fresh whipped cream?
...as demonstrated by this epic Korean immersion blender demo.
And you've only got less than 30 hours left to win it!
Design a kitchen tool that truly streamlines your life— send us your sketches for our 1-Hour Kitchen Tool Design Challenge and you could win an OXO On Illuminated Immersion Blender! Contest closes on March 29 at 11:59 EST
At the center of Antonello da Messina's 1475 painting Saint Jerome in His Study is a rather interesting piece of design. Within a larger architectural space, Jerome sits at an elaborate wooden structure that seamlessly integrates everything he would need to carry out his work of translating the Bible into Latin: a writing desk, a bench, shelves full of books—even some plants and a hanging towel to indicate that this is a live/work space. One of the most important features of this structure is that it creates a contained space unto itself. Some of the design elements, the way it's lifted up on a platform and how the walls wrap around the sitter, reflect the contemplative nature of writing and reading. (If you look closely, you can see that he leaves his slippers at the base of the steps, reinforcing the idea that at his desk he enters a different space, both literally and metaphorically.)
Studies have shown that this kind of hybrid furniture existed in the 15th century. In the 1498 inventory of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de Medici's belongings, a large writing desk is described "with boards and a backrest, and with a cupboard with a cornice made of walnut and compartments decorated with inlay. Underneath the desk, where one puts one's feet, is a wooden platform raised up from the ground."
These ideas form the foundation of German designer Konstantin Grcic's latest work, a series of five chairs developed for Hieronymus, the designer's latest exhibition at Galerie Kreo. Fascinated by the way Saint Jerome's study sets up an inner space as much as a physical space, Grcic set out to emulate the sense of intimacy and introspection present in da Messina's painting.
Though each of the chairs is made of a different material—marble, wood, fibre-cement composite, aluminum and 3D-printed sand—Grcic employs a similar vocabulary throughout the works. Planes meet to form nooks and ledges that can be occupied in different ways, while varying height "walls" immerse sitters in a private environment. Each design invites a different posture and dictates a certain way of placing one's feet and elbows. While comfort is not the first thing that springs to mind when looking at these chairs—they were made expressly for the gallery and not conceived of as commercially-viable designs—Grcic's contemporary translation of da Messina's painting invites us to reconsider how we interact with furniture.
"Hieronymus" is on view at Galerie Kreo in Paris, France through July 14, 2016.
For creatives, being able to show things that aren't really there is a huge boon. Computer graphics enable us to present nonexistent designs to clients. They allow architects to show fly-throughs, film directors to indulge fantasies, manufacturers to troubleshoot prototypes. And increasingly, they may take a role in helping us better enjoy sporting events by depicting that which our eye cannot see.
Earlier we looked into the NFL's CG 1st-and-10 line, which had an analog in the flags and chains. But the faster-paced sport of fencing had no such equivalent, and viewers either developed eyes quick enough to follow the action or lost interest.
To combat the latter, Japanese design and technology collaborative Dentsu Lab created the Fencing Visualization Project, where they rigged Olympic fencing champion Yuki Ota and a partner up with sensor-laen foils and suits. They then created these stunning visualizations of the action:
Pretty cool, no? Those of you in the current generation don't know how good you have it: Previously, if you wanted to see physical objects streaming light-trails like that, you had to buy mushrooms in a parking lot from some gentle but decidedly weird guy named Hal who drove one of those strange Volkswagen Rabbit pick-up truck vehicles and smelt like patchouli.
Via Rocket News
The people have spoken. And we're listening.
Due to the popularity of our first 2016 Core77 Design Awards Poster giveaway, we're launching another giveaway event this coming Friday, April 1st. We believe in second chances, so if you're bummed you missed out on snagging one of these limited edition 2016 Core77 Design Awards Posters with your entry the first time around, we're here to remedy that.
Like the first giveaway, the same rules apply: submit an entry in the 2016 Core77 Design Awards between 12:00AM and 11:59PM on April 1st, and the poster is yours. Unlike the first giveaway, there's a little extra incentive involved.
In addition to the poster, all April 1st entrants will be given the chance to pickup our Core77 Designing HERE/NOW book free of charge—all we ask is that you pay for shipping! Once we get your entry, we'll send you an email with all the details.
If you're unfamiliar with Designing HERE/NOW, it's a vast compilation of past Core77 Design Awards Honorees, interviews with world famous designers, and many more explorations in design enterprise.
Rest assured, despite what the date might suggest, this is not a prank. We don't joke about great design. Or free stuff. In fact, you should consider this the best way to get a poster, a book AND your entry in before the Final Deadline on April 6.
This really is your last chance to get your hands on one of our eye-popping posters and the impressive collection of honored design work in Designing HERE/NOW. Get your entry prepped now so you're ready to hit that submit button come Friday, April 1st.
The right candidate for this position will produce accurate, high quality prototypes, models and mockups for the development of commercial aircraft segment seating and seating environment. Applicants will need 3 years of prototype or model making experience and should have an expertise in surface and detail part finishing and painting.
View the full design job hereMuch of society's infrastructure is kept humming by guys who drive vans. You make a phone call, cut a check and these dudes pull up in front of your building to build, install, repair, maintain or haul away. To do these things they need a van full of tools and equipment, and in Europe there's an industry dedicated to designing the interior systems of these vans.
Three of the big players in Europe are Germany's Tanos, Sortimo and Würth, and all three were on display at Holz-Handwerk. While they all have the same initial design problem—which is to design an organization system that fits inside a van, is lightweight enough to keep fuel costs down but sturdy enough to survive a crash test—they all take slightly different approaches.
Tanos, the folks who make Systainers, have the most flexible approach. Their system is built around a bunch of telescoping poles—if you've ever been inside a photography studio, think Autopoles—from which a series of sturdy shelves of varying lengths can be hung.
The telescoping feature of the poles is pretty brilliant. This means that you needn't assemble the shelves within the cramped confines of the van, but can do it outside, then haul the unit in and expand the poles upwards to lock them in place.
Another great benefit of Tanos' approach is that installation is both easy and non-permanent; as long as your van's ceiling doesn't have a liner, you can install the Tanos Mobil products without drilling or cutting into anything. Like you, I wondered about that claim: How the heck can the poles stay in place, over all the jostles, bouncing and swaying one encounters in traffic, without a permanent connection?
The answer is, clever engineering. Tanos' designers have developed a simple adhesive mat that supports a peg for the pole to slide over, both top and bottom. Between the surface area of the adhesive and the expansive force of the springs within the pole, everything stays perfectly in place. Here's how easy it is to install:
The Würth booth was the most crowded at the fair, so packed that I literally could not get a picture of the van they had on display with so many people crawling in and out of it. (To be fair to the other two companies, these guys had a bar in their booth and they were serving free beer.) In any case, Würth opts for beefier, proper cabinets with sides—albeit built in a lightweight combination of steel, aluminum and plastic—and goes for a two-pronged approach: "Variable," whereby they offer three different widths and you get the one that fits in your vehicle, and "Modular," whereby they've partnered with the most common van manufacturers in Europe (Citroen, Fiat, Ford, Opel, Peugeot) and created custom builds that precisely fit within vehicles from those manufacturers.
Below are zoom-ins on some of Würth's design features:
While Würth's features were nice, the system that seemed the most like it was designed by a single, coherent design team was Sortimo's Globelyst. Their cabinets were similar in construction to Würth's (steel, aluminum, plastic and an unseen, unspecified synthetic honeycomb material) but they seemed much more visually unified.
They also had these wicked, optional pull-out drawers:
Here's what they look like on video. I can't understand anything the demonstrator is saying, but I gather he is talking trash about the brand of beer served at his competitor's booth:
And I do have to say, they have the slickest presentation of the three, at least online:
Installing systems from the latter two companies isn't for the faint of heart; securing the beefier cabinets to the interiors does of course require drilling into the metal.
Lastly, if you're wondering how systems like these stand up in crash tests, here's some footage:
Looks like one thing they haven't thought of, is designing a seatbelt for the water bottle.
The International Home and Housewares Show wrapped up last week and with it, thousands of single-use kitchen products will hit the market, destined to clutter cabinets and contribute to that chaotic pile of unnecessary gadgets and mystery parts. After seeing the current products on offer, we couldn't help but think there has to be a better way. For our latest 1-Hour Design Challenge, design a multipurpose tool for the kitchen.
View the full content hereI had a side mission at Holz-Handwerk: To bring back a tool that Jimmy DiResta could use in one of his DiResta's Cut videos. He said he'd pay for whatever I brought back, and my self-imposed criteria was that it had to be German-designed, German-made, useful and unique. There were over 1,300 exhibitors at the show so I had my work cut out for me.
Looking past all of the fancy displays, I found exactly what I was looking for at a small, humble booth in the middle of the crowded trade show floor.
E.C. Emmerich, a/k/a ECE, is a German manufacturer of hand tools that's been around since 1852. At that time, master carpenter Friedrich-Wilhelm Emmerich made his own tools, as all cabinetmakers did. When word started getting around of how kick-ass Emmerich's wooden handplanes were, orders started coming in. And kept coming in. Pretty soon Emmerich and his son, Max, stopped making cabinets and started making handplanes full-time.
That the company persisted from 1852 to present day is a testament to their quality and usefulness. "ECE is probably the best-known of the European manufacturers of wooden planes," says Joel Moskowitz, the tool historian and founder of Tools for Working Wood, whom we rang for comment. "Wooden planes never fell out of favor in Germany and even today are very popular." Accordingly, ECE's booth was packed with beauts like the following:
Wooden handplanes were obviously invented well before the Industrial Revolution, whereupon manufacturers learned how to make them out of metal. So some of you might be wondering why anyone still makes them out of wood. The reason is because they have several advantages over metal bodies: Wood glides over wood much smoother than metal does, and does not require constant waxing; wood doesn't shatter when you accidentally drop it on a concrete floor; they weigh less than metal planes and cause less fatigue during repetitive planing; thick wooden bodies can obviate blade chatter when, say, trying to smooth uncooperative grain. Also, some people just like the feel of them.
In addition to handplanes, ECE sells spokeshaves, chisels, try squares, mallets, saws, clamps and more. They've built a reputation well beyond Germany for producing high-quality, long-lived tools built with outstanding workmanship. And the firm continues to be family-run; the cheerful, English-fluent sales guy I spoke to at the booth turned out to not be a sales guy at all, but Hans-Joerg Emmerich, the fifth-generation Emmerich to run the firm.
After some back-and-forth on the phone with DiResta, I wound up muling two ECE handplanes back to America. And that's where the story gets interesting—stay tuned.
If your goal is to be a furniture designer/builder, here's one scenario you probably haven't envisioned. Let's say you design and finish building your beautiful piece in your shop in, I dunno, Cleveland. But the buyer lives in California. Well, guess who's getting in the truck and going to Home Depot to buy some 2x4s and CDX and will then spend a weekend building a custom crate to hold your masterpiece. Yes, you.
Shipping bulky furniture pieces is a pain in the neck, and it would undoubtedly be easier if your piece was flatpacked. The problem is that flatpack designs are often associated with chintzy cam-lock connectors, cheap quality and basic, boring design. So I was excited to find a company at Holz-Handwerk that is trying to change this perception by designing better hardware.
Scheulenberg's mission is to develop and sell "quality furniture fittings and connecting systems" made from nickel- or zinc-plated steel. Managing Director Georg Scheulenberg hopes that by producing rock-solid connections, he can woo designers who'd otherwise dismiss knockdown fasteners. Here's an example of one of their systems, the XS:
(While the wood in the video is rendered as having end grain, I imagine these are designed for use in engineered woods; I couldn't spot any provision for wood movement.)
In order to open up design possibilities, the company produces connectors that step outside of the 90-degree box, like this version or this version that can be used at various angles:
As an example, the following furniture piece is joined with Scheulenberg connectors:
The company will ship worldwide—"One of my best customers is in Vietnam," Scheulenberg said—and business is apparently booming, with several recent years of tremendous growth. But as Scheulenberg confided to me in the booth, he's somewhat dismayed at the level of designs utilizing his connectors, as he feels they're not bold enough, and are still too similar to typical flatpack designs.
When he heard I was an editor for a design publication, he sat me down in his booth, with the almost desperate look of a man who wants to talk about design but has been trapped with people that don't care about design.
"People need to think, 'better design,'" he said, pulling out a huge binder. He flipped through it and showed me this photo:
"You know what that is?" he asked.
"A Thonet," I said.
"The Thonet No. 14 chair. Designed 1859, maybe the most famous chair in the world. Look how it has been designed. You see here they can fit 36 of these chairs into one crate, just one square meter.
"Look at the finished chair. Does that look like flatpack?" he said. "No! It is beautiful!" He flipped through the binder and showed me another photo:
"Does that look like flatpack?" he asked. "No! You never guess. The designer makes a beautiful chair. Because of a good connection system and good planning, he can design it to fit into this crate, too. Twenty-four chairs in one crate. Designed over 70 years ago. And what do we design today?"
What Scheulenberg desperately wants is a forward-thinking designer to understand the possibilities their fasteners offer and create something unique using them.
"Yes, business is good," he said, somewhat glumly, "even great." He rattled off some off-the-record figures that I found astonishing.
"We will continue to grow and innovate, that's not the problem. We know how to design and produce good connection systems, that's also not the problem," he told me.
"What we need is A DESIGNER."
Are you that designer? Delve into Scheulenberg's offerings here.
This week we bring you our pressing topic of the moment straight from our reader-controlled discussion boards! Our Core77 readers recently caught wind of a crowd funding campaign for a new 3D printer that could revolutionize the democratization of the craft.
The OLO 3D Printer is a Kickstarter project that's already raised over $1 million dollars in funding that allows people to print small objects from their phone or via rendering programs—all under $100.
Sound too good to be true? Well, depending on how you look at it that might be the case. It seems that OLO's design solution for keeping this technology cheap is utilizing the light of your smart phone to cure the 3D printed object, meaning your phone is trapped during the full duration of building your tiny fabricated object. But we wonder if this solution is truly necessary, as Core77-er Cyberdemon brings up:
"Considering the uses for 3D printing, if they have cracked the resin that can be properly cured by an LCD (LCD's normally do not produce the wavelength needed) then I would say forget using a smart phone, just give me a 15" retina LCD in a dedicated box so I can have a proper build volume and not tie up a phone for a 4 hour build."
Some readers like Dan Lewis reasonably claim that it's not the mechanical printer but instead the curable daylight resin used as the fabrication material that possesses "the real magic" of the product.
So what do you think, is a 3D printer like this worth the $99? Do you think there could've been a better way to manufacture this project or is it's functionality clever and innovative? Voice your opinions and critiques in the comment feed below!
(Also feel free to check out the original post and contribute on our discussion board!)
