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Build A Bamboo Bike In Under 5 Hours

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Do you remember Bamboobee? The regrettably-named company first released a jig and bamboo tube set back in 2014, promising to make the DIY-minded bike lover into a bona fide bike builder. It featured a flat packing jig with a cool design, but I had reservations about the frame sizing, as well as lowering the bar for entry into building machines used in traffic...or unleashed on innocent bike mechanics. Well, they're back on Kickstarter. This time they're making more frame styles, faster assembly, and even weirder promises.

The goal is still a kit to build your own bamboo bikes, but the big update is in the flexibility and accuracy of the jig design. This new style basically allows the jig to produce what it claimed in the first place: a custom frame that you can't find in stores. 

As a shorter person, custom bikes have always appealed to me because I fall outside the target demographics of the gourmet bike brands required by my high octane commuter lifestyle. But with the original Bamboobee set you couldn't scale a frame down enough for the unforeseeable engineering nightmare of my Very-Average-Woman height.

This version of the jig design allows more measurement (a.k.a. any) and greater joint mobility. Meaning you can make way more types of frames than the original L-XL relaxed road bike.

Kids' bikes, mountain bikes, step-through frames, cargo bikes…and was that a rickshaw? Suffice to say that several kinds of interesting options are on the table. These would become more DIY-able with the addition of the database app they're developing, where users can access measurements and spec on different types of frame, as well as add their own. Tube kits will be available for the most common new styles–26" mtb, step-through, kids' bike, and the cool if odd "minivelo."

This is around where the weird promises start adding up. The claim that you can make a concretely "better" bike than the ones you can get in a store is patently weird. Great kids and family bikes already exist, period, and DIY hyperbole doesn't change that. 

Next, their idea that, "building bikes for your family will be more fun and cheaper than buying them from a store," utterly ignores the busy-ness of families and the economy of scale you tap into with mass produced bikes. Yeah traditional brands have more overhead, but have you ever built a frame up from the ground? Buying each individual brake pad and inner tube and wheel and so on winds up dinging the layperson at least double the cost of parts that come with a new bike if not much, much more. Yes, even with Amazon.

Then the assertion that you can make a grand array of bikes with this jig contradicts the other pitch points about not needing machinery or technical know-how. If you aren't using one of their kits (e.g. want to use a new design from their app) you'll need to be able to source and accurately miter your own tubes. This is no small feat and benefits greatly from tooling. And knowhow.

Last there's the promise that you can use this version of the jig with steel and aluminum tubing. They're beginning to offer steel tube sets for their road design at the end of this campaign, which is a big move. I've searched the campaign, the site, and their press materials for information on how the "natural material" jig will hold up during welding or brazing, or if they're using some sleeved design. There are a couple welding-suggestive pics, and some lugged pictures as well, and based on memories of my own beginning welding and torch skills, I'm not terribly hopeful. If you can burn it, you probably will. 

Can I vouch for improvements in sizing, or the structural integrity of a bamboo mountain bike? No. Do I think most people should make and assemble their own bikes? Probably not. The goal here is a learning process and a super fun afternoon project. I think it would make a wonderful tool for mechanically inclined people, and could lead to some interesting DIY bike design.

The kits start at $249 and the BIY 2 campaign runs through July 8, 2016.


Design Job: Shoot for the Stars: Lunar is Seeking a Sr. Creative Lead (Industrial Design) in San Francisco

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Overview LUNAR, an award-winning design firm that has spent 30 years creating everything from game controllers to genetic sequencers to ice cream scoops, is now part of McKinsey & Company, the world's leading product development advisory firm. The acquisition of LUNAR adds a final, critical component to this thriving practice

View the full design job here

See How a Google Doodle is Created

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Like MTV before them, Google is one of the rare companies that intentionally screws with their logo on a regular basis. Turns out they've got an entire team of creatives working on Google Doodles, those fun and temporary shorts that stretch their logo to the limits, and here we get a rare look at their creative process.

Being part of the Doodle team sounds like an awesome gig, as they apparently have a good amount of autonomy and agency to produce things they're passionate about. Here we see animator Olivia Huynh celebrating the work of Lotte Reiniger, an animation pioneer who was nearly ten years ahead of Walt Disney. We're digging that Huynh's self-chosen task includes making hardware store runs to build a duplicate of Reiniger's overhead camera rig:

In case you missed the actual doodle, which was released yesterday, here it is:

By the bye, Olivia Huynh's animation and illustration work can be seen on her website, OliviaWhen (named so as to clue you in on how to pronounce her last name).


Spin (Don't Stir) Your Cocktails for an Airy, Smooth Texture

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The Cocktail Spinner is a new way to mix drinks. Spinning the drink, as opposed to shaking it, consistently produces a velvety and airy texture, and allows the user to produce the same drink, at the same quality, over and over. The product is designed so that the spinning mechanism pulls out, to make adding in the ingredients and ice easy and quick. After spinning, the built in strainer lets the consumer pour out the cocktail without removing any other parts. And because there are only 3 parts, cleaning is a breeze. As for the look, we thought it would resonate with consumers to combine the traditional shaker design language with a new spinning hi-tech mechanism.

View the full content here

Disaster-Proofing Cities At The Neighborhood Level

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In an era of rapidly densifying population centers, a disaster has the ability to impact more people at once than ever before. Large scale infrastructure and safety systems often take decades to implement, so how do we build community resilience in the meantime? 

The PREPhub project was recently submitted by Jongwan Kwoon, whose team worked on the subject as a part of a collaboration between the Urban Risk Lab at MIT's School of Architecture and Planning and MIT's Lincoln Laboratory. 

First implemented on campus, PREPhubs are designed to be permanently installed units that beautify public spaces and hold or distribute services to residents in need. They provide an off-grid source of electricity and other amenities, while also acting as a meeting space. When installed at regular intervals throughout a city, these hubs would make a network of known gathering areas, a series of places to power personal devices, and could be used to store water or other emergency resources. 

The current prototypes are built around tough modular blocks, which can be configured differently for different spaces and needs. The core pieces include solar panels, amplifiers, emergency lighting, charging ports, and unique location identification, all wrapped in a fairly cool plastic casing. Other features include information display screens, visual communication (photo/video), neighborhood resource map, and pedal-powered DC generators. 

In day-to-day use they would function as benign public structures with a secondary message about personal/familial preparedness. In crisis they would be easily recognized points to connect with other survivors, meet up with aid providers, or distribute evacuation information. 

Designs for larger units could incorporate more essential services like water purification, cooking supplies, consumable goods, first aid materials, and sanitation. 

Even in their pared down form, these seem to offer what most neighbors would be seeking in the immediate aftermath of any kind of disturbance: electricity, information, and the ability to connect with family and community members. The number of creatively incorporated services is interesting and humane, and the designs seem both idealistic and reasonable. 

These appear to acknowledge both basic human needs and the physical uncertainty of life in an urban environment. While the destructive creativity of citydwellers is hard to overstate, some good engineering could make these hubs vital resources before, during and after a crisis. Kudos to these teams. I'd love to see more effort to implement this kind of preemptive resource in cities, and bonus points if they look this good. 

Members of the Urban Risk Lab team: Miho Mazereeuw, David Moses, Justin Lavallee, Seungho Park, Jongwan Kwon, Aditya Barve, Saeko Nomura Baird, Elizabeth Yarina, Abraham Quintero, and Ananya Nandy. The Lincoln Laboratory team members: Adam Norige, Brice Maclaren, Christopher Budny,Tom Smith, Ed Orchanian, Peter Klein, and Andrew Weinert.


Best DIY Birthday Card Ever!

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If you roll with a group of designers, it's almost considered lazy if you show up to a birthday party with a store-bought card. And maybe you're getting tired of being outdone by your papercraft-crazy friend who spends hours creating those Taj Mahal pop-up cards. Well, perhaps you can one-up them with this:

That was created by Calvin Nutter, who even created an Instructable so that you can download the graphics. You'll still need to do some fine X-Acto work and think up some clever text, but it's better than throwing more money into Hallmark's coffers.


A Startup Seeks to Make Lucid Dreaming as Accessible as Netflix and Exploring How Architecture is Designed to Affect Our Mood

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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.

Temporary Highs

Temporary Highs is an exhibition that brings together artists who are exploring how the structure of the internet enables reward-seeking behavior in a compulsive cycle of (over-)sharing and consumption. While the physical show opened this week in New York and will run through July 31, the works can also be viewed on temporaryhighs.net, an extension of the show online that rewards users for engaging with its content.

—Carly Ayres, columnist, In the Details

Workshop Reorganization

Today I'm reading woodworker Steve Branam's 4-part blog series on how he designed and built the organization system for his workshop.

—Rain Noe, senior editor

Rapping, Deconstructed

If you're into good infographics and love rap (and even more if you don't like rap), this illuminating look at rhyme phrasing and patterning in rap lyrics might change your life. Jump on the Spotify playlist too. 'Cause it's Friday, and I don't care if you got shit to do.

—Kat Bauman, contributing writer

The Netflix of Dreaming

A short film on Luciding, a tech startup in Kiev, Ukraine engineering a wearable that allows you to lucid dream whenever you wish. All Orwellian jokes aside, the report reveals a few strange truths regarding our evolving relationship with technology and certain sociological consequences of our particular time in history.

–Allison Fonder, community manager

On Mood & Architecture

I've been enjoying a series of interviews with architectural historian Beatriz Colomina, on the ways in which our everyday surroundings impact our emotions. Architecture and mood are "more than intertwined," says Colomina, "they are inseparable...because our sense of safety is very much at the basis of architecture...every form of architecture has been the result of a fear, of a need for protection from some kind of danger whether it's real or imagined." The four parts explore fear & creativity, anxiety & awe, health & hedonism and entertainment & control

—Alexandra Alexa, editorial assistant

Upgrade Your Doomsday Bunker With a Multifunctional Table, Build a Wooden Sunglasses Case and Create a Desktop Power Supply in This Week's Maker's Roundup

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Three Shop Organizing Projects

April Wilkerson breaks out the design skills this week, showing us how she comes up with the DIY storage solutions that keep her shop so tidy. I'm impressed with her forethought, innate sense of ergonomics and ability to find and utilize otherwise dead space:

Wooden Case for Sunglasses

Jimmy DiResta makes a killer, custom-fit organic-looking sunglasses case out of wood:

Building an Air Cleaner

Matthias Wandel builds an air cleaner and shows us a lot of problem-solving, from dealing with things going out of square, to figuring out how the air flows around the fan, to coming up with a clever vibration-insulating trick. We also get to see a side of the shop Wandel rarely shows, his "designated chaos area:"

Doomsday Bunker Puzzle Table

A bit of sponsored content from Steve Ramsey this week, who makes a multifunctional table for his Doomsday Bunker:

How to Transfer a Photo to Wood

Here David Picciuto shows us an interesting technique to transform a print of a photo onto a piece of wood. I didn't even know this was possible:

Installing Floating Drawer Slides

I didn't realize Ana White lived 100 miles from the nearest Home Depot! Explains why she's become the DIY maven. Here she builds a table for her daughter and demonstrates her method of installing floating drawer slides, with plenty of compensating tricks in case the casework isn't perfectly square:

Making a Tabletop Game

Bob Clagett whips out a gameboard and pieces to make a Quarto set:

Lumber Storage Rack

Sandra Powell turns sheet good scraps and some dimensional lumber into a sturdy wall-mounted lumber storage rack:

Walnut & Brass Power Supply Box

Linn from Darbin Orvar needs a new power supply box for her electronics area, and figures since she'll be using it so often, she might as well make it beautiful. Hence she creates this handsome walnut and brass unit:

How to Scarf-Joint Two Pieces of Wood Together

Here Louis Sauzedde demonstrates his mastery of material, revealing his method of removing a rotted plank from a boat, then scarf-jointing in a replacement:

One From the Archives: Staked Workshop Stool

Laura Kampf needed a stool for her workshop, and created this staked design using walnut and oak scraps. There's at least a couple of clever tricks here, from the block she uses to get the leg angles consistent and using styrofoam as a pierce-able base so she can precisely level the feet. And the brass wedges up top are a beautiful touch:



Design Job: Care about Healthcare? 3M is Seeking a Lead UX Designer - Prototyping in Maplewood, MN

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Job Title: Lead UX Designer - Prototyping (Maplewood, MN) 3M is driving creativity and design as a competitive platform for innovation and brand globally to enhance design-driven solutions for people and the world. We are looking for a Lead UX Designer (Prototyping) for our Health Care Business

View the full design job here

Sponsored Post:Make Change Possible at Mayo Clinic Transform 2016

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Join designers, innovators and medical experts who are creating a sustainable future for healthcare and addressing what people really need to thrive in an ecosystem for health. Transform addresses tough questions, connects a broad spectrum of perspectives, and inspires change through action. Transform reaches beyond medicine to better understand health.

View the full content here

Why is Sketching (Still) Important (To Design)?

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Why sketching? What is it? And, why is it important to design?

Design as a Process

A conventional approach to understanding design and one that is often cited is from the classic book, Engineering Design Methods by Nigel Cross who subdivides the process as a series of linear, yet distinct activities; from concept to development to detail design.

Of course, these sections may be thought of as iterative; not as linear as the model depicted in Figure 1 may suggest. Indeed, a process of design will often shift and iterate between and among these sections (as indicated through the returning, curvilinear arrows).

However, if we think of design as a sequence of iterative phases that progress towards final production, we are then able to identify an open or fuzzy phase of design. In this we contrast a divergent conceptual design ideation with a more convergent, specific and detailed design phase. We do this as much to contrast the different aims of design at these different phases of the process, as to highlight the kinds of design work involved or tools used at any given stage.

Sketching Concept

Various tools of expressive design representation are utilized as part of the design process, comprising of a wide variety of media to produce sketches, drawings, models and prototypes. At a conceptual, or divergent and open end of design, idea sketches, study sketches, usability and memory sketches are often used in order for the designer or design team to express, explore and communicate design intentions to other team members.

This kind of sketching can be described as concept sketching. However, in the context of our discussion of the why of sketching to follow, we can turn this around and instead describe sketching concept. In this way we now focus attention on the designer as a user of the tool of sketching rather than the sketch itself. This then has the potential to provide a far richer space to examine the influence and implications of sketching as critical tool for design. This is because it then more directly points towards the kinds of reasoning involved and required to create "marks on paper" during the ideation phase.

As we move forward in a process of design, from conceptual design ideation through development design, other kinds of design representations are often used by the designer to develop, explore, propose and communicate design intentions. The kinds of sketches that are used in this phase include sketch rendering and explanation sketches. These high fidelity sketches are often more than ambiguous sketches employed during the earlier phases of the design process. An example of a high fidelity representation is the use of inspirational sketches to convey design intention and the emotional reasoning to other stakeholders and clients.

Taxonomy of Design Sketches

As design progresses, the kinds of representations employed to communicate the designer's intentions to others also move towards an even higher level of detail and fidelity. As such, the kind of sketching, the character of sketching, has a relationship to the stage in design that the designer or design team is engaged with. In this way sketching may be categorized within taxonomy along the dimensions of a classification system that uses levels of detail, fidelity and stage to categorize various sketches and illustrations.

Taxonomy of design sketches, drawings and illustrations (derived from Pei et al)

The focus on the designer as sketcher, however, is reflected in the four taxons of explorative, persuasive, explanatory and prescriptive sketches that then see sketching through the lens of purpose of output rather than referencing the inherent characteristics of the different sketches themselves or the stage which they are used.

Looking at the kinds of illustrations presented above, it becomes apparent that ambiguous and casual sketches are most prolific during the explorative phase of conceptual design ideation. This addresses the first of our questions: Sketching is a critical way through which the designer expresses and explores ideas during concept design ideation.

Thus, we must now attempt to address the reasons why sketch ability appear so critical to conceptual design. One way is to understand the kinds of reasoning required to engage in generative conceptual ideation. We may then be better placed to consider the kinds of reasoning required against sketching's role and use as driver for ideation.

Conceptual Ideation as Reasoning between Problem and Solution

Design ideation appears to require a particular type of generative thinking. One way to define this kind of thinking is apposition reasoning. Appositional reasoning may be described as reasoning between a problem and the solution where an understanding of the problem emerges through attempts made at its resolution. The designer concurrently attempts to understand the design problem and possible issues associated with it (i.e. user needs, the context and scenario of use, functional and material choices, possibilities for manufacture etc), while at the same time moving between problem definition and solution ideation to propose, suggest, select and finally develop potential solution candidates. Thus, conceptual ideation may be thought of as an iterative (between problems and solutions) and reflective activity (evaluation of the potential of solution candidates) in which design solutions are assessed and evaluated against an emerging understanding of the design problem.

From this perspective, conceptual design ideation can be thought as a tension between an emerging definition of the design problem, and the proposition of and reflection upon potential solution ideas. That is, the problem is defined through the proposition and reflection upon solution attempts which then iteratively provide opportunities for a greater definition of the original design problem. This process continues until a most appropriate solution is identified, or until time or resources run out.

In a recent study at the dpr.lab, a number of design protocols were conducted to compare the ideation activities of designers and non-designers, who were required to respond to a typically ill-defined problem. In this case, the participants were asked to identify a design direction for a sports watch for young people.

The resulting videos of conceptual design work were classified between problem and solution driven, whereupon it was found that the non-designers spent significantly more time in problem-focused work than the design participants. In contrast design participants engaged significantly more time in generative conceptual ideation and more frequently transited between attempts to define the design problem and explore the possibilities of solution candidates.

Interestingly, the design participants' extended time in solution ideation was seen to be driven by, or at least facilitated through, an ability to sketch. In contrast, the non-design participants spent a greater amount of time in naming particular items to focus upon within the problem space, drawing heavily upon written notes and annotations. Thus, the design participants' conceptual ideation work was very much sketch-driven, whereas the non-design participants tended to be very limited in their sketch work, preferring to offer notes and suggestions related to a definition of the problem.

So, in terms of apposition reasoning's role during conceptual ideation, we may say the design participants spent significantly more time engaging with sketch-driven, generative ideation, compared to those with little or no design ability. And that Their ability to employ sketching as means to identify, propose, and express possible solution candidates given a developing understanding of the design problem, was key to the generation of ideas and establishment of a design direction.

In contrast, when we looked at the same protocol for the non-design participants, their work was dominated by defining the problem. That is, it was dominated by attempts to express the problem, to get a stronger understanding of the issue related to it, but with far less time spent in the generative proposition of and reflection upon potential solution candidates.

This was the key significant difference between the design and the non-design participants. And it suggests that this is indicative of the ways that sketching ability or a lack thereof, inhibited appositional bridge building between the design problem and generative solution ideation.

Sketching is a critical way through which the designer expresses and explores ideas during concept design ideation.

This then appears to indicate how, through sketching, the designer is in a better position to explore potential solutions given a developing understanding of the design problem, facilitated through generative attempts at its resolution. Whereas non-designers tended to become stuck in problem definition, with little opportunity for appositional bridge-building between problem definition and the assessment of solution attempts based upon an emergent understanding of the design problem.

That is, the act of sketching supports the ability to ideate and to develop an emergent understanding of the design problem. To then employ this understanding in the evaluation of solution candidates during generative ideation appears critical to the phase of conceptual design itself. Thus sketching, in its provision of a means to propose and develop potential solution candidates, while concurrently providing opportunities to scope and (re)define the design problem, appears to be the reason for the sketch's continued and ubiquitous use during design ideation.

Finally, returning to the questions posed at the beginning of our article, we may say that sketching is a critical part of conceptual design due to its ability to provide opportunities to approximate solution ideas that are both assessed for their suitability in terms of an emergent understanding of the design problem, and concurrently contribute to such an understanding. As such, it is only through the representation of solutions that are able to approximate such things as form, design aesthetic, use and function that the designer is able to engage the kinds of appositional bridge-building required during conceptual design. This is why sketching acts as an important scaffold for reasoning between design problems and their potential solutions. Taking this further, we take the position that it is only through sketching that the designer is able to truly and effectively engage in the act of conceptual design ideation.

And so, the reason for sketching's continued and ubiquitous relationship to design, we would suggest, is its fundamental ability to provide for the kinds of generative reasoning so critical to design.

That is to say, to sketch is to design….

Co-authored by James Self (Design School, UNIST, Korea) and Eujin Pei (Department of Design, Brunel, UK). The above article is adapted from a conference presentation that was first made at iasdr2015 (International Association of Societies of Design Research), Brisbane, Australia.

Explore Global Architectures with Iwan Baan, Nendo's First Retrospective, Plus Urban Design Interventions in New York

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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.

Monday

In the latest AIGA@Parsons lecture series program, Designing the Future of Design Education, professors from CCA, RISD and Parsons will discuss the major shifts they've witnessed in design education over the past few years, discussing questions such as: What should design school teach? Is design education working for our industry? What is design education for?

New York, NY. June 6, 2016 at 6:30 PM.

Tuesday

A must-see exhibition of Italian architect Andrea Branzi's design work is currently on view at Friedman Benda through the end of the week. Interiors highlights Branzi's Plank series—a meditation on the history of cultural production, playing with juxtapositions between aluminum, raw wood and spray paint in miniature domestic environments. 

New York, NY. On view through June 11, 2016. 

Wednesday

The first comprehensive retrospective of  Japanese design firm nendo is opening this week at the Design Museum Holon. Aptly titled The Space in Between, the show will explore the studio's constant search for "what is in-between, what is un-design" through both old and new works and an extensive documentation of the studio's experimental, iterative process. 

Holon, Israel. On view through October 29, 2016. 

Thursday

In conjunction with the exhibition Artek and the Aaltos: Creating a Modern Worldcurrently on view at Bard Graduate Center, professor of color studies at Aalto University Harald Arnkil will discuss the colors of Alvar Aalto and Artek, exploring how they were influenced by Aalto's relationships with avant-garde artists of the early twentieth.

New York, NY. June 9, 2016 at 6:30 PM. 

Friday

Arguably one of the world's most renowned architectural photographers, Iwan Baan has an enviable gig—traveling the world and documenting the most interesting buildings, new and old. In 52 Weeks, 52 Cities, a selection of his work is shown in chronological order, taking viewers on a visual journey from city to city through Baan's lens. 

Copenhagen, Denmark. On view through July 10, 2016. 

Saturday/Sunday

In recent discussions of urban design, the word "disruption" has been cropping up more and more often, but what does the concept actually mean? Join the Van Allen Institute for Lower East Side Decoded, a tour of the downtown neighborhood focused on recent design interventions that are unravelling the official "rules" of public space. 

New York, NY. June 11, 2016 at 3:30 PM. 

Check out the Core77 Calendar for more design world events, competitions and exhibitions, or submit your own to be considered for our next Week in Design.


SMART SLAB: A Futuristic Table That Can Chill Your Champagne and Charge Your Phone

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My body now reacts in a visceral, often painful way to any product with the word 'smart' slapped in front of it, but the SMART SLAB from SapienStone is actually pretty smart—in concept, at least.

Debuted at Milan Design Week earlier this year, SMART SLAB is a table from SapienStone that integrates heating, cooling and sensor technologies directly into its surface. The product of a partnership with Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram of Munich and Stockholm-based design firm KRAM/WEISSHAAR, the table takes the durable, highly-engineered porcelain panels SapienStone is known for—resistant to household wear and tear as well as chemicals, stains, and anything else nature throws their way—and adds a stratum of technology underneath, creating a customizable table that can heat, cool, cook and even charge your phone.

"The idea to turn [SapienStone's ceramic tiles] into smart slabs came when SapienStone approached our office to think about what could be done with these quite amazing tiles," Weisshaar says. "We went and visited the factory and almost instantly thought of adding a layer of technology to the back of the tile."

With a penchant for blending new technologies into their work, KRAM/WEISSHAAR was eager to explore what that could look like for SapienStone's tiles and jumped at the opportunity to re-imagine the future of kitchen design. "The table is a technology demonstrator—a pace car for a new technology, basically," Weisshaar says. "While studying the potential of technology integration into the tiles, we decided to narrow our initial focus to the kitchen and we quickly realized that discreet technologies have great potential to fundamentally challenge the kitchens of today."

The duo began by building out an extensive catalogue of technologies they considered relevant. "From a variety of sensors to actuators, charging units, cameras, sprinklers and so on," Weisshaar says. They settled on a few elements (heating, cooling elements, cooking, and device charging) that made the most useful upgrades and seemed feasible to integrate into the surface of SapienStone's panels. Afterward, Weisshaar and Kram worked with a team of designers, mechanical engineers, electronics engineers and programmers across their offices in Stockholm and Munich to bring the table to life.

"Like with our other technology-centric projects—such as Robochop, OUTRACE or the R18 Ultra Chair—we were interested in making things actually work," Weisshaar says. "Our whole process is driven by the goal of achieving a fully functioning prototype. This means everything from the mechanical hardware, electronic hardware, tooling, assembly considerations, material choices, industrial design, interaction design and coding elements need to be deeply integrated. Otherwise, you never gain the pace and momentum necessary to pull off a project like this. We call this 'steam cooking' and we make it a priority to switch from 'think tank' mode to 'do tank' after two months of design and planning."

So, what does it take to make a ceramic tile smart? Turns out, quite a few components. The main piece is the slab itself is a 6 millimeter thick (or rather, thin) tile up to 3 by 1.5 meters in size. For the SMART SLAB, a 0.8 by 3 meter sheet (produced in Modena, Italy) is used. SapienStone mixes the base component for the ceramic—a mixture of feldspar, quartz, and various sands—before pressing it out into slabs. The final slabs are fired, glazed and then fired again in a long kiln stretching 450 meters. Lastly, the surface is diamond polished.

Then, structural components milled from aerospace-grade aluminum are sandblasted, anodized and anchored to the slab, serving a double purpose as a heat sink to all the semiconductors and control systems directly attached to the underside of the table. The table can be outfitted with panels for inductive cooking, Peltier elements for cooling, resistor-based heating units for warming, touch sensors and even LEDs for backlighting. "The SapienStone ceramic slab is so thin that the LED lighting units of our control unit shine through," Weisshaar says. Future explorations include induction-based wireless charging, as well.

Legs and pull rods are attached to the aluminum backbone and all the components are surrounded by an insulating layer of foam—or as Weisshaar describes, "the tabletop sandwich." The entire assembly is then sealed at the bottom with a shell of hot-pressed, fiber-reinforced, recycled PET. The final table clocks in just under 70 kilograms (roughly 154 pounds). "We tried to build the thinnest and most lightweight table possible," Weisshaar says.

SMART SLAB's are created on demand, currently only available for ordering through SapienStone's website. From there, users can take their pick of a selection of modular units, including heating and cooling units, inductive cooking and charging modules. Using an online portal, users can quickly select the material and functions of their choosing to create their own custom SMART SLAB. Each custom SMART SLAB is produced by Iris Ceramica Group in their fully automated factory in Modena, Italy before being sent out to the customer.

Marketed as offering the ability to keep guests' dishes at a precise temperature while keeping champagne bottles perfectly chilled, KRAM/WEISSHAAR view the SMART SLAB as a first step to what is possible with this technology and see it being used in kitchen counters, as well as a range of other surfaces.

"Technology in buildings is still integrated on site and by craftsmen," Weisshaar says. "Moving the wiring of a wall into an industrial environment will boost speed and cost of construction massively." KRAM/WEISSHAAR envisions a future where every household surface has this type of technology, depending on the diverse needs of different spaces.

Attendees of Milan Design Week got a firsthand look at SMART SLAB, where chef Massimo Bottura used one to cook an exclusive dinner held in the Sala del Tiepolo of Palazzo Clerici. In the meantime, those looking to charge their phone while chilling their champagne will need to hang tight—there is currently only a limited edition of SMART SLABS available and no set price for future editions.


Root, the Robot That Teaches Children to Code

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Created by a research team at the Harvard's Wyss Institute, Root is an educational robot specifically designed to provide an interactive way for children to learn to code. The system is as intuitive and approachable as any tablet app, providing a framework easy for teachers to understand and comfortable for young students to use. Root operates on whiteboards by driving on the vertical surface magnetically and — using dry-erase markers — draws, erases, and responds to lines drawn on the board. This ability to interact with the robot by drawing opens up potential for a broad range of unique instructional activities and games.

View the full content here

Results from the Wanted Design Student Workshop 2016!

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One of the annual highlights of New York's Design Celebration, NYCxDesign, has always been WantedDesign's Design School Workshop—which brings together students and mentors from all over the world to collaborate on intriguing design themes, materials and problem solving. "More a collaboration than a competition," the event marks Wanted's commitment to innovation and to education. Remarks co-founder Odile Hainault, "Since the beginning, the Design Schools Workshop has been very successful in promoting schools—fostering an international network between young designers, as well as initiating partnerships between schools and manufacturers."

Adds co-founder Claire Pijoulat, "This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Design Schools Workshop, and this edition was so far the most challenging...but certainly the most exciting and successful!" 

The event took place from May 12th to 16th, comprised of 26 students from six U.S. and International design schools: Aalto University (Finland), Art Center College for Design (Pasadena), Centro (Mexico), ENSCI-Les Ateliers (France), Escuela de Communicacion Monica Herrera (El Salvador), and Pratt Institute (Brooklyn). The workshop was led by Matt Sindall, designer and teacher at the French school ENSCI-Les Ateliers, in conjunction with Oui Design, an initiative from the Cultural Services of the French Embassy. Students worked in a dedicated space in Industry City, Brooklyn, and presented their final work at WantedDesign's exhibition space in Manhattan.

Here's the design brief for "Playtime":

Objects which have an element of playfulness imbued within them express qualities that generate an instant connectivity with the user. As children, we discover the world by playing. Touching, manipulating, apprehending, and constructing are all means of forming a tactile and social relationship within the world around us.

Matt Sindall adds that, "there are many ways that 'playfulness' can be found in design, where humor can be imbued within object. It could be present in the form or function, the assembly, playful use of color and texture, or the 'detournement' of an object. This quality within an object is synonymous with the human condition." (Read the full interview of Matt Sindall by Core77 here.)

Matt Sindall, WantedDesign Design School Workshop lead 

This year featured professional materials and prototyping mentors for the students, which worked to great effect not only in connecting the participants with local artisans, but also in helping them to understand the real-world "pushback of materials" as teachable moments. And of course, the high fidelity of the finished models provided a pretty spectacular finale. (Wanted and its partners are currently exploring ways to show the work beyond its NYCxDesign display.)

The glass mentor was Leo Tocosky, glassmaker from Brooklyn Glass; The textile mentor was Elodie Blanchard, textile designer; and the wood mentor was Omar Muniz, cabinet maker at Industry City.

Jury from left to right: Allan Chochinov, Maz Zouhairi, Susan Szenasy

At the end of the workshop, the students presented their work in the Grimshaw Gallery at WantedDesign Manhattan, with a jury providing feedback and commentary on the work. Jury members were Susan Szenasy, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Metropolis Magazine; Caroline Baumann, Director of the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum; Maz Zouhairi, President and CEO of Lalique, North America, and Allan Chochinov, Partner and Editor-at-Large of Core77, and Founding Chair of SVA's MFA in Products of Design program.

Below are descriptions of each of the projects, along with images and videos. Enjoy!

THE BULL

TEAM: MONTSERRAT PAZOS GUIZAR, BEHNIA RAHMATI, DARIO VIDAL, ROMAN WEILL FATIMA ZAFIE ZARZAR

The Bull is a piece of furniture—a dynamic bench that's deliberately unstable, but a LOT of fun! Constructed of a simple rolling plank who's underside sits in a slotted disk underneath, the design offers a kind of "playful danger" that was frankly irresistible. "Although it is silent as an object," the team argues, "the rawness is seductive. It calls its observer to participate in the act of playing. The form is reduced to primary elements in order to bring the focus on the dynamic experience of the game."

Indeed, the slim profile of the seating surface makes it appear as if it is flying in the air, while the geometry of the "stoppers" underneath provide a bit of assurance that it won't fly away. "The massive wheel communicates between the player and the ground—providing support and guidance." The team submits that "The Bull's ultimate objective is to disseminate joy—both for participants and observers." The jurors found the design enchanting and compelling in its form, having a good time trying it out—both solo and with a benchmate!

MAKE or BREAK

TEAM: ANA KAREN GARZAR RAMIREZ, KRISTA HUMPHREY, SOFIA MUNES MENDOZA, CLE´MENCE PAGNARD

Make or break is a game. With an homage to classic construction and puzzle games like Tip-It, Make or Break turns up the heat with much higher stakes: Players take turns adding glass and felt pieces further and further out on the structure's limb, but if they fail, the glass elements will fall and shatter. "This game is for 'real players,' comments the team. "The kind of player that is not afraid of taking risks and facing real danger!" Jurors reactions ran the full spectrum—some found the piece a bit frightening and over-the-top, while others delighted in its transgressive approach to reimagining what game playing could be.

Make or Break video

PIX

TEAM: ALYSSA KUHNS, MARIANA LOAZIA, MIKE RITO, LINDA VANNI

Pix is an interactive and transformable modular panel system that serves as a space divider and acoustic element in open collaborative interior spaces. The system consists of two-sided felt modules that can be rotated around their axis. When the modules are turned, their color changes, transforming their atmosphere from neutral to vibrant to anything in between. Since the modules can also be configured to create patterns, the wall can be used as a visual communication tool in social spaces. Finally, the modules can positioned in "open" or "closed" orientations, modulating both airflow and transparency.

"The organic, soft, three-dimensional felt surface invites to touch, and therefore encourages play and interaction," submits the group. "The module system integrates play into a functional object—designed for often-serious work environments where creativity and collaboration should be nurtured—such as co-working offices and university campuses."

BULLE BULLE

TEAM: ANDREA GONZALEZ ARE´CHAGA BELLOT, MAXIME LOUIS, EMILY NYBURG, MARIA REGINA SERPAS CACERES, CHRISTINA VENSON

Bulle Bulle was one of the more arresting of the workshop results. "The objects explore the interaction of two materials: blown glass and wood," the group observes. "Glass is a volatile material whose formation is fluid and less controlled, while wood is stiff, structured, and fairly easy to control. Their forced interaction creates a dialogue, leaving evidence of their contrasting natures."

Indeed this was true. The group showed the process video of the Bulle Bulle stool coming together and the audience was mesmerized. Check it out below:

The designers argue that "the resultant forms are whimsical—puns on the materials. The stool seat in particular is unexpected and surprising because it is made from glass. Its creation and form reference childhood activities such as blowing bubbles with gum or inflating pool toys. The charred evidence of their interaction is left on the wood, allowing the user to understand and imagine how Bulle Bulle came to be." Jurors reacted to the shear beauty and unexpected nature of the objects, though none were too quick to run up on the stage and attempt sitting. (The students were pretty eager though!)

BOB

TEAM: KEVIN NOE CIBRIAN AGRIETA, HELI JUUTI, CAROLINA MOYANO IZQUIERDO, PAUL REAMEY

Bob is a "whiskey wobbler"— a playful ceremonial object that people can interact with. Designed for mixing and serving all types of whiskey-based cocktails with a group of friends (at the event the students mixed scotch with ginger ale!), the object can be rolled around to stir, tilted down and back up to pour, and passed around however you'd like. And despite the wobble, the form was engineered to never lose its balance.

"The design for the movement is based on objects from childhood playthings such as seesaws and rocking horses," submits the team, "and the form is largely defined by the physics of motion. The function stems from finding a middle ground between a Kiddush fountain and a shotski—the former used in religious ceremonies; the latter focused entirely on 'the fun of the party.'" Jurors were enchanted with the form, the attention to the stopper and lid details, and the overall show business of the presentation.

MAGNIATE

TEAM: MARI LINDBERG, ARTURO NEUMAN, GABRIEL ANTONIO TUSSEL MIRA, ECE YILMAZ

Magniate is dinnerware set whose forms "comes to life" when used with a complementary cutlery set. The glass plates, bowls, and glasses are each double-walled—hollow to contain magnetized liquid (think ferofluid). When the cutlery—outfitted with magnets at their ends—approaches the glass, the liquid inside follows its movement.

"The form and function of Magniate reference the metaphysical nature of matter," offers the group. "Items such as dining plates are usually perceived as 'solid', yet only a small fraction of the universe's energy density is made up of actual 'matter'. With these products, their nature shifts from stationary to organic when the substance inside interacts with the user. The magnetic energy between the inside and outside of the seemingly solid material is the essence of this fun and playful object—an intellectual item designed for reflection and recreation."



Memories Not Disposable: A History of Single-Use Cameras

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I was born in 1991. Film still reigned over digital, but the non-celluloid movement was certainly starting to make waves (and scare folks at Fuji and Kodak).

I first used a dinky (sort of) auto-focus Minolta and Canon cameras, crunched my way through a healthy number of disposables, and then learned more about photo-photos in my teens with a digital camera in hand. Now, I like to think I've struck a healthy balance—just one digital camera, a Canon that's more computer than camera, and a hefty lot of 35mm and medium format cameras. I find genuine value in both digital and film photography. My dissertation on that debate can be saved for another post.

We talk photos a lot at Hand-Eye—it's a big part of what I do here and a fascination/hobby for many of us in the store. And while we dream and boast of Canons, Hasselblads, and under-appreciated Argus bricks, I still find myself picking up a disposable about once a month. The feeling in-hand drops me back into the mid-nineties, neck cranked back to capture a towering tree above. The flip of the film-advance turns me back in a moment-catcher, not a picture-maker. There's an immediacy and an ease offered by this pocketable picture machine. Single use cameras offer a cut of nostalgia, a chance to make memories (not perfect images), and they have a storied past. And I hope they have a future...

The Beginnings / The First Patent

In 1886, one hundred years before single-use cameras would achieve true relevance and permanence, Alexander Pop Whittell founded the Ready Fotografer Company and released a, "portable photographic apparatus." In an effort to make photography accessible to the masses, he patented a camera made almost entirely of paper and a dry photo plate. With no focusing required, Whittell's camera was made for any person of average ability. After taking the photo, yes, one photo, you needed to carefully cut through the cameras in the bevel, remove the plate, and get it developed. A cut up camera—ah, a disposable! These cameras sold for 25 cents, came with a 24-page manual, and to a degree, achieved Whittell's goal. However, they were manufactured for less than five years. Though Whittell's design had it's limitations, it kicked off the "democratization of photography"—a sentiment and energy that still guides consumer camera today.

Aside from Kodak's introduction of roll film in 1888, right in step with Whittell's efforts, the disposable camera race slowed until after WWII.

The Middles / A Camera for the 'Average Person'

And then, in 1948, with the baby boom just starting to rev it's fertile engines, two disposable cameras started the new convenient camera race—Frederick Bierhorst with his Picture Box, billed as "The World's Most Convenient Camera," and the Photo-Pac made by Alfred D. Weir, an engineer from Dallas. Poor little Mr. Bierhorst was simply outdone by Weir and the Photo-Pac. Weir, like Bierhorst, made his camera out of paper and 35mm roll film, but there was one material that set it apart and gave it staying power: plastic.

Weir debuted the Photo-Pac at the 1948 Texas State Fare at 98 cents. A year later, he improved the camera from 8 to 12 exposures and raised the price to $1.49. The intrigue of the Photo-Pac was it's unique durability, and the convenience of shipping your camera right to the company for development. In 1950, Fawcett's Inventor's Handbook named the Photo-Pac one of the "15 Winning Ideas of the Year," but as the trend would have it, Wier's company did not survive the next few years. It was the "Imp" camera introduced by Arthur W. Beaurline, one made entirely of plastic, that made the next big splash. Designed to be sleek, simple, offering 12 exposures on 35mm film, the Imp and the later addition, the "Pro," hung around for two decades.

Disposable cameras were starting to get a grip on the market. Other companies, including Technicolor were trying to compete, adding exposure stops and unsophisticated metering. They were starting to show up in drug stores, hotels, and amusement parks. And two big giants, Kodak and Fuji, were about to get into a film war—one that would inspire innovation and provide the biggest breath into the life of single-use cameras.

Fuji v. Kodak / The Film Race

By the late 1980s, thanks to some aggressive advertising and a little risk-taking, Fuji had caught up to the once seemingly unconquerable giant of Kodak. In the spring of 1987, Fuji released the "Quicksnap," a disposable of 35mm film for $10. Kodak responded with "The Fling" a disposable loaded with 110 film for only $6.95. Kodak was likely thinking, "We're selling a worse camera, but hell, our price point is better. We'll stay competitive." They didn't. In less than a year, they released a 35mm version. And in 1988, Fuji responded with the "Quicksnap Flash," the first disposable with a flash. This set the standard for disposable cameras moving forward. And with the race fully on, both Fuji and Kodak in a war of disposability in an effort to insure their permanence, people were starting to question the legitimacy of these little throw away machines.

Over the next few years, photo pros would question using something temporary to capture something forever. Kodak and Fuji would continue to add to their designs—underwater versions, telephoto lenses, "panoramic" and "3-D" capabilities, and so on. Now, if disposables were first made to democratize the form, we have to say Fuji and Kodak were losing sight of the original subject within Mr. Whittell's viewfinder back in 1886. But they had reason to run with the trend. In 1988, only 3 million were sold in America, and in 1990: 21.5 million.

As they became more relevant throughout the country and the world, disposables not only appealed to people that planned to leave their nice camera behind, but more importantly, impulse buyers...

"Look, the world's largest ball of twine!" says Dad, Teva sandals tight around his untanned peds. "I wish a had a camera," he bellows. Dad then spots a convenience store nearby, picks up a Quicksnap, and there's a victory for Fuji.

Disposables continued to enjoy a healthy life through the 90's, but they had a new, very scary beast breathing down their paper and plastic necks: digital. Kodak, Fuji, and just about every executive and professional photographer wet the bed and refused to believe they were now living in the future. Kodak and Fuji failed to fully evolve, and in 2004, for the first time, digital photo sales surpassed film sales. And in 2011, Kodak filed for bankruptcy.

Staying Disposable 

We're in the digital age. That's undeniable. And the gritty evolution from film to digital is for another post. But there's beauty in the disposable's ability to hang around. In 2011, 51 million rolls of film were sold in the United States with an estimated 31 million of them coming from disposable sales.

When I romp around with an Ilford HP5 single-use or a Kodak FunSaver, without fail, someone says to me, "I didn't know they still made those." They do, and while some of 70's America feared we were heading toward a culture of careless disposability, I think we could use more of this easy-to-use, truly unpretentious stuff. At least here, you can pin the prints you like on a wall and physically, tangibly throw away the ones you don't like—it's more than hitting the trash can icon on the back of a big do-anything camera. Keep both, use both, but it's worth flinging around these single-use boxes of sentimentality for a quick snap now and again.

Some of the photos here are from a 2014 trip through Olympic National Park. I only took disposables with me, it rained, it poured, I got prints/scans poorly developed at Walgreens, and these photos remain some of my personal favorites.

Written by Jeff Rutherford, originally for Hand-Eye Supply

Alternative Furniture Design: The Study Cube

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One of the heartbreaking things about visiting South Korea is seeing that most children, including very young ones, wear eyeglasses. Years ago my cousin (a native) told me it's because kids there put in long hours studying, practically from infancy, and that the constant exposure to desktop fluorescents ruins eyesight from a young age.

That may or may not be apocryphal, but there's no doubt that parents there are obsessed with having their children study. So perhaps it's not surprising that a South Korean company is selling this piece of furniture, the Study Cube:

The phone-booth-like enclosure features a hinged door with a window, a desk surface that's tiny by American standards but par for the course in space-tight Korea, overhead shelving, and brightness-adjustable LED lighting.

The first question you probably have is why, in a country not known for their spacious apartments, would anyone buy this bulky item rather than a regular desk and chair? Here are my guesses:

1. Privacy. This raises interesting questions about how physical constructs do or don't confer a sense of privacy. Think about office cubicles, or the hanging sheet you used to divide your college dorm/apartment. And in a domestic situation where there aren't enough rooms, having a way to limit the light in a room might be beneficial when one person is studying and another is sleeping.

2. Focus. When you're inside this tiny thing with no room on the desk for an Xbox, it seems clear that you're only in there to do one thing.

Responses to the Study Cube on South Korean social media have ranged from "I want one" to WTF to outright disdain; one poster suggested that parents in Seoul's Gangnam district would purchase these, have a lock installed on the door, and lock their children inside to force them to study. (Gangnam is not only the Beverly-Hills-like enclave popularized in Psy's Gangnam Style music video, but is also the unofficial education capital of South Korea, allegedly producing some of the nation's top students.)

That last ridiculous (I hope) suggestion aside: For those of you that aren't claustrophobic, would sitting inside something like this help you to focus on the task at hand? I can't decide if I would feel confined, or actually lose myself in the work.

Design Job: Wanted: Fashion-forward Industrial Designer for Lifestyledesign in Santa Barbara, CA

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Are you tired of the corporate grind or of working in dull product categories? Do you want to work in a fun and energetic environment and work on inspiring projects? We are looking for talented Industrial Designers to join our team. Exciting

View the full design job here

How a Small Design-Build Firm Survives and Thrives in the Age of Mass-Market Furniture Retailers

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How can a small design/build firm survive in the age of Ikea and Crate & Barrel? Industrial designer Nathan Hartman has figured it out: "Make something specific for somebody." 

His firm, Kerf Design, thus focuses on custom furniture, kitchens, living rooms, offices, bathrooms and more. 

Ikea might be able to produce flatpack bookshelves by the millions, but they're not going to come to your house to measure that dead space beneath your staircase or the precise height of your ceilings.

But that's not the only thing Hartman's figured out. He's structured Kerf Design to only produce the kinds of work he likes to do, as well as be a fun place to work in itself. 

Take a look inside the Seattle-based firm, and ask yourself if you wouldn't dig working at a place like this:

Kerf Design's material of choice is plywood, but not the crappy stuff; their material of choice is Europly, which we'll have more on later. In the meantime, take a closer look at the firm's projects and capabilities here.

A Friendly Reminder of Eva Zeisel's Enduring Excellence

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This is the latest installment of our Designing Women series. Previously: Seven Things You Probably Didn't Know About Eileen Gray

Throughout her life, Eva Zeisel aspired to design modern housewares that were both useful and beautiful—creating balanced shapes with sinuous lines and functional simplicity. "To create things to be used, to be loved, to be with, to give as a gift, to fit into a normal day, to match a festive mood, to be proud of," Zeisel wrote in 2004, "is to create the culture of life that surrounds us." Zeisel started her design career in Europe, immigrated to America during World War II and eventually became famous for her curvy designs, which range from ceramic and glass tableware to furniture, rugs and even a belly button–inspired room divider. You may already be familiar with Zeisel's friendly Town and Country ceramic table service or her graceful Hallcraft/Tomorrow's Classic tableware designs, but here are six things that you might not know about Eva Zeisel.

Zeisel at work in her studio. Image from the cover of her 2004 book, On Design: The Magic Language of Things
A prototype for Zeisel's ceramic Belly Button Room Divider manufactured by Manifattura Mancioli, 1957. Photo by Brent Brolin via the Eva Zeisel Archive
A sauce boat and ladle from Zeisel's Hallcraft/Tomorrow's Classic line of tablewares for Hall China, 1949–50. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

1. Her career spanned nine decades and over 100,000 objects

Born in 1906, Zeisel's prolific output as a designer began in her late teens and continued until her death in 2011 at age 105, even as her eyesight failed and she had to design by touch. Even more impressive, in her later years she estimated that her designs numbered more than 100,000. Zeisel also worked far and wide, apprenticing first as a potter in her hometown of Budapest (she was the first woman member of the Hungarian Guild of Chimney Sweeps, Oven Makers, Roof Tilers, Well Diggers and Potters) before designing for factories in Germany and Russia (where in 1935 she was given the prestigious title of artistic director for the China and Glass Industry) and then embarking on her long career in America.

A service set designed by Zeisel early in her career at the Schramberg factory in Germany, 1931
Zeisel was 100 years old when she designed this brushed-stainless-steel kettle for Chantal in 2006.

2. She spent a year in solitary confinement

While working in Russia, Zeisel was falsely accused of plotting to kill Stalin and spent 16 harsh months in prison, during 12 of which she was kept in solitary confinement. The brutality of the experience would define her personally and professionally. "You feel the difference first in the way you see colors," she wrote of her time in prison. She was ultimately freed with no explanation.

A photograph of Zeisel taken shortly after her arrest in 1936. 

3. She changed how ceramics are perceived

In 1939 Zeisel rejected the label of "craft" when she began teaching ceramics as an industrial design class at Pratt Institute. It was the first class of its kind in America; in it, Zeisel emphasized how mass-production techniques could be applied to ceramics and gave her students opportunities to apprentice in the field, helping shift ceramics from the realm of handicraft to design.

4. She was the first female designer to be given an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art

All-white plates may seem de rigueur now, but in the early 1940s Zeisel's unadorned Museum dinner service was a bold step forward. Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and Castleton China, the design was celebrated with the 1946 exhibition "Modern China"—MoMA's first devoted to a female designer—and the museum hailed Zeisel's achievement as "a landmark in [the] American ceramic industry."

Designs from Zeisel's all-white Museum dinner service, 1942–45. Image via the Museum of Modern Art

5. Her designs are never lonely

"I have rarely designed objects that were meant to stand alone," Zeisel wrote. "My designs have family relationships. They are either mother and child, siblings, or cousins. They might not have identical lines, but there is always a family relationship." Certainly it would be hard to think of Zeisel's career without recalling an image of her popular Town and Country salt-and-pepper shakers snuggling together on the dinner table.

Zeisel's 1945 Town and Country salt-and-pepper shakers were inspired by a mother cuddling her child. Image via the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
Some additional designs from Zeisel's "family" of objects include the Town and Country creamer from 1945 and a baby oil pourer in the shape of a rabbit from 1940. Image via the Brooklyn Museum 
Zeisel's Hallcraft/Century dinnerware service for Hall China, 1957

6. She advocated for fluid curves

Zeisel was no fan of modernism's straight lines and simple geometric shapes, writing that when the strict rules of modernism were applied, "things lost their magic"—and even going so far as to call Le Corbusier's chaise longues "gynecologist's chairs." Instead, she preferred fluid curves and softer edges, which she felt brought design closer to natural beauty, exclaiming, "hurrah, hurrah for the friendly curve!"

Zeisel's curvy Resilient Chair for Hudson Fixtures, from 1948–49, was made of chrome-plated tubular steel and cotton. Image via the Museum of Modern Art
Prestige lowball glasses for the Federal Glass Company, 1954. Image via the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum
This delicate tea set designed by Zeisel in 2005 for the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory in Russia. Image via the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum


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