IDEO's Adam Vollmer with "Faraday" at Checkpoint 2 of the Oregon Manifest

I suppose I was trying to be a bit coy with that last teaser shot from Oregon Manifest, which included the silhouette of the IDEO × Rock Lobster entry in the foreground, but savvy Googlers have most certainly turned up the full image sets from my fellow journalists Jay Greene of CNET and Jonathan Maus of BikePortland.

IDEO collaborated with Santa Cruz, CA-based Rock Lobster on an e-bike that can only be described as elegant: the frame itself is distinguished mostly by its double top tube and the beautifully welded front rack, but there's more to "Faraday" than meets the eye. Insofar as IDEO is involved, many of the key design features remain invisible: a custom algorithm controls speed based on rider feedback and internally-routed cabling runs connects the motor and lights to a discreet "brain" at the seatstay cluster.

Photo by IDEO

Photo by IDEO

Moreover, the signature aesthetic touches of the frame belie functional utility as well: the top-tube holds the Lithium ion batteries—reportedly the same as those in the Chevy Volt—while the front rack can be swapped out for other cargo units such as a trunk or child seat. (It's worth mentioning that the same is true of Fuseproject × SyCip's "LOCAL" design; in fact, Fuseproject is supposedly developing additional ideas for bringing their vehicle to market.)

In preparation of the Design Management Institute's upcoming annual conference, the folks over at Smart Design held a salon with the conference co-chairs. Smart Design VP and Partner Richard Whitehall, design journalist Helen Walters and DMI President Karen Reuther were on hand as seen in the video below.

At just under three minutes the video's a teaser of the upcoming conference more than it is comprehensive coverage of the salon, but it's enough to whet your appetite and give you an idea of what issues the conference will strive to illuminate.

A really fascinating video from 60 Minutes on the NYPD's Counter-Terrorism Bureau is making the blog rounds today. As fascinated as I am by all the Orwellian or futuristic technologies—including the supercomputer that can track suspicious packages—I'm more interested by the NYPD's attempts to solve what is seemingly an impossible problem: how to protect the 8 million citizens of New York City from any kind of terrorist attack.

Obviously there is some very serious systems thinking going on here, tackling the problem both as a unified whole and as miniature systems within the bigger picture. For instance, there are very different approaches to a nuclear threat (the segment on handheld and boat radiological detectors) and to a threat from recent immigrants (the segment on the cricket league). Each threat could potentially murder many New Yorkers, yet instead of going after the issue of a potential terrorist attack with one approach, many diverse ones are employed instead. And, for once, the "security theater" actually seems to be effectively deployed as opposed to anything the TSA has come up with—just ask Bruce Schneier.

Watch the video and let us know what you think!

Last year's "The Saddle" entry, by Atilla Tari/Hypo-Design, Hungary

Pursuant to the current prevailing business wisdom that less is more, Michelin has announced the theme for their 2013 Michelin Challenge Design Competition: "HALF! Lightweight with a Passion."

Participants are asked to explore lightweight vehicle development by designing a family vehicle capable of transporting between four and six people. The designs should also meet consumer demands for safety and comfort, be usable on the current road infrastructure and be production feasible using materials, powertrain solutions or manufacturing solutions that are in use today or in development for use in the foreseeable future.

Michelin's got a good track record for drawing entrants, with last year's design comp drawing over 1,800 concepts from 88 countries. And we like the company's line of thinking: As tire producers you'd imagine they'd focus on engineering or materials research competitions, but as they simply put it, "Design is central to the process of innovation. Design influences the marketplace... Michelin wants to assist in the evolution of transportation. Michelin's corporate culture places a high value on design and innovation...."

Last year's "Marketruck" entry, by Pai-Ching Hu, Taiwan

Last year's "Supple" entry, by Sadegh Samakoush Darounkolayi, Iran

As creatives we typically work with existing materials, with few of us having the facilities and chemical backgrounds to develop our own matter. But in the mid '60s artist De Wain Valentine broke the mold, if you'll pardon the pun, by developing his own resin to cast large-scale pieces.

"Valentine MasKast Resin No. 1300-17" was a high-strength, highly stable polyester that Valentine struck upon after numerous chemical experiments. It allowed him to create large sculptures in a single pour, and he'd use the stuff to eventually create "Gray Column," a free-standing translucent slab that stood 12 feet high. The piece is now on display in L.A.'s Getty Center:

Gray Column was one of the largest sculptures De Wain Vealnetine ever cast with polyester resin--the material with which he worked through the 1960s and 1970s to create his dazzling Circles and Columns. This monumental, free-standing slab, measuring 12 feet high and 8 feet wide, will be displayed to the public for the first time. The exhibition From Start to Finish: De Wain Valentine's "Gray Column" tells the story of how this extraordinary piece was made and features preparatory drawings and maquettes, videos documenting the fabrication process, interviews with the artist, and a discussion of the conservation of this sculpture.

For those out of L.A. range, here are a couple of the aforementioned videos:

Besides the myriad design events happening across the globe right now, Brooklyn's own DUMBO Arts Festival took place this past weekend. The programming sounded similar to projects and installations that colonize Governor's Island every summer, albeit within the much smaller footprint of DUMBO ("Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass," for the uninitiated): site-specific pieces that are experimental yet accessible, mostly by local artists.

Former Core clogger and creative polymath Emilie Baltz collaborated with musician/architect Jeremy Linzee on a speculative sculpture installation, "BUOYS," for the occasion:

For centuries, man has placed navigation aids in the water to orient himself to his surroundings. Even with today's sophisticated GPS satellite technology, buoys are still an essential analog part of the marine landscape, allowing mariners to find their way and safely navigate through waters of unknown depth and provenance.

The BUOYS project for DUMBO proposes the placement of five buoys in the basin of Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park, [which will] float on the surface of the water reflecting the surroundings. As a point of stillness in the water, it allows visitors to the park to take notice of their surroundings in a new way.

As the action of the water makes it move, the public beach, the sky, bridges and buildings of Manhattan and Brooklyn will be reflected in their surface. The change in light will make the buoy glow orange in the water as the sun sets and as the waves moves it, reflections from the lights of both the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridge will twinkle on its surface.

When Don Norman wrote that he is "made to read a lot of crap" in Why Design Education Must Change, he had me sighing in agreement. Around ninety-percent of the design and design education research I read sends me to sleep. I am interested in design, education and research and the futures of all three, but why is the strike rate of interesting material so low? It leaves me rather depressed about a discipline that claims creativity to be among its key attributes. When it comes to engaging in public discourse, design research has suffered a failure of imagination.

I should clarify here that when I am talking about design research, I am talking of institutional, mainly academic research. I'm not talking about research that designers do in design practice. That this needs explaining is part of the problem, of which more in a moment.

The media regularly contains calls from scientists for more research funding, more science to be taught in schools and claims for the enormous importance of science to the world. STEM subjects—an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics—are the centrepiece of curriculum development and the associated funding. Newspaper columns and sections are devoted to science. Entire television channels and expensive series, such as the BBC's highly successful Wonders... series featuring Professor Brian Cox, are directly aimed to inspire and ignite the imaginations of schoolchildren and adults alike. Where are the equivalents for design? Gary Hustwit's Helvetica and Objectified may have been seen by most Core77 readers, but I doubt the average schoolchild is aware of either of them.

To be clear, I'm not bashing science. Science is important, as are technology, engineering and mathematics, but this is just one side of the coin (and brain). Given that the world is not only filled with designed objects and media, but also suffering under the enormous weight and consumption of much of them, design clearly has a central role to play in society for good or ill. Where are the impassioned calls for the role of design and for teaching design in curricula debates in mainstream media? Where are the TV programs, magazines and books? I am not talking about superficial style magazines or the design periodicals that essentially print articles on the reverse pages of press releases. Where are the design equivalents of Scientific American or National Geographic? Why isn't design debated in government in the same way as STEM subjects?

When Don Norman wrote that he is "made to read a lot of crap" in Why Design Education Must Change, he had me sighing in agreement. Around ninety-percent of the design and design education research I read sends me to sleep. I am interested in design, education and research and the futures of all three, but why is the strike rate of interesting material so low? It leaves me rather depressed about a discipline that claims creativity to be among its key attributes. When it comes to engaging in public discourse, design research has suffered a failure of imagination.

I should clarify here that when I am talking about design research, I am talking of institutional, mainly academic research. I'm not talking about research that designers do in design practice. That this needs explaining is part of the problem, of which more in a moment.

The media regularly contains calls from scientists for more research funding, more science to be taught in schools and claims for the enormous importance of science to the world. STEM subjects—an acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics—are the centrepiece of curriculum development and the associated funding. Newspaper columns and sections are devoted to science. Entire television channels and expensive series, such as the BBC's highly successful Wonders... series featuring Professor Brian Cox, are directly aimed to inspire and ignite the imaginations of schoolchildren and adults alike. Where are the equivalents for design? Gary Hustwit's Helvetica and Objectified may have been seen by most Core77 readers, but I doubt the average schoolchild is aware of either of them.

To be clear, I'm not bashing science. Science is important, as are technology, engineering and mathematics, but this is just one side of the coin (and brain). Given that the world is not only filled with designed objects and media, but also suffering under the enormous weight and consumption of much of them, design clearly has a central role to play in society for good or ill. Where are the impassioned calls for the role of design and for teaching design in curricula debates in mainstream media? Where are the TV programs, magazines and books? I am not talking about superficial style magazines or the design periodicals that essentially print articles on the reverse pages of press releases. Where are the design equivalents of Scientific American or National Geographic? Why isn't design debated in government in the same way as STEM subjects?

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: The Exploratorium-- Mike Petrich, Karen Wilkinson, Walter Kitundu, Luigi Anzivino, Ryan Jenkins, Bronwyn Bevan
Location: San Francisco, CA, USA
Category: Design Education Initiatives
Award: Notable

The Tinkering Studio

The Tinkering Studio is a public space at the Exploratorium to support the creative ideas of visitors, collaborators, and staff. It is a place to explore science, art, and design in meaningful ways—based on personal ideas, questions, and explorations—enabling everyone to build a new understanding of the world.

The Tinkering Studio is based on a constructionist theory of learning which asserts that knowledge is not simply transmitted from teacher to learner, but actively constructed by the mind of the learner. Constructionism suggests that learners are more likely to make new ideas while actively engaged in making an external artifact. The Tinkering Studio supports the construction of knowledge within the context of designing and building personally meaningful artifacts. We create opportunities for people to "think with their hands" in order to construct meaning and understanding.

Core77: How did you learn that you had been recognized by the jury?

We projected the webcast of the award ceremony in our prototyping space and gathered as a team to watch. It was very exciting to even be nominated, let alone receive a notable mention among so many other great projects!

What's the latest news or development with your project?

We have been experimenting with ways of using home-made play-doh to play around with electrical circuits and LED lights. Inspired by the work of AnnMarie Thomas, we've taken that idea and run with it. You can check out a short video of our experiments here.

Also, we're in the very early stages of developing a paper pop-up workshop that incorporates structural paper-craft elements and, again, electrical circuitry, switches, and lights. Some very early work can be seen here.

Recently we've tried making our own popsicles to find out what happens when you lick it while passing electrical current through the ice... No joke!

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

You may have caught the Sustainability in 7 video series that Core77 ran earlier this year. I decided to create my own based on what I learned from my recent 1000 mile cycling road trip for sustainability called Ride the Talk.

1. Make a plan, then change it.

My ride really taught me that being prepared (physically and physiologically) for a challenge is very important, as is having a tentative game plan. However, I learned very quickly that a plan is just that, a plan. It's not set in stone and it shouldn't be. Whether it's a trip itinerary, class project, product concept or strategic business plan, remember that it is simply a guide. It's a starting place and a way to reflect on what is working and what's not. Be willing to flex and adapt to the challenges and opportunities that will undoubtedly arise. Doing so will keep you and your goals relevant and resilient, and it will afford you the opportunity to experience important opportunities and avoid obstacles.

2. Listen to and learn from the locals.

This is probably the most useful piece of advice that I can extend. No one knows better than the folks that use it, drink it, breathe it and live it on a daily basis. I learned all about the best places to eat, the safest places to camp, the must-sees of an area and true road conditions from locals. If you are designing a product, program or service, talk to the locals, the stakeholders and the end-users. Locals know what's happening—for better or for worse—and they will candidly tell you if they believe that you are really listening and caring about what they're saying. This will save you time, energy and resources in countless ways. Which leads me to my next piece of advice...

3. Do it right the first time.

This one is so important it needs repeating. Do it right the first time! Sometimes in the heat of the moment it seems faster and easier to just "get 'er done." Great but just do it right the first time or else you've wasted valuable time, energy, and resources. Never more than on my ride did I discover this to be true. There is nothing more exhausting than having to backtrack and do a "do-over."

4. Be patient.

Whether it's that new product design you're working on, the educational program your developing, the grant proposal your submitting, your backyard garden or climbing that next big hill: be patient. It takes time to make progress and it is challenging to realize change. But with every push and pull of the pedal and every other small action, change is happening, even if you can't always see it immediately. Just be patient, with your self, with others and with the situation at hand.

For years I've been washing my dishes in a peculiar way to extend the usefulness of the water consumed. I soap each item up and set it on the counter without rinsing. When everything's been soaped, I then rinse them in a stack, letting the run-off from one dish help to rinse the rest. When I'm finished I've got a large puddle of soapy clean water on the counter, where the dishes were waiting to be rinsed. I then sop that up and use it to wipe down the refrigerator, the backsplash, the trash cans, the floor, et cetera. I look at it as free Windex.

Spanish design collective La Muda has encapsulated this behavior in product form with their Ecucubo Sustainable Basin, a simple but brilliant concept for a sink whose drainage can be diverted into a bucket integrated directly into the sink's form. Greywater can now be handily used to mop the floor, promoting what La Muda terms "eco-behavior."

via treehugger

In just two weeks a new design conference will be held in Seoul, called the iDEA Herald Design Forum. Disappointingly they haven't bothered to build a website to promote it, despite pulling in some design heavyweights—Karim Rashid, Chris Bangle—o speak at the conference.

The "Herald" in the conference title refers to the conference's organizer, publishing company Herald Media, and while they've neglected to build a conference website, they're at least attempting to promote the event by publishing an interview with Rashid through their Korea Herald newspaper arm. Here's an excerpt from the interview:

Q: A design war is raging in the corporate world. As seen in Apple, design superiority seems to equal product superiority. How do you predict the future global trend of industrial design?

A: I love this question and the idea of a design war. What frustrates me though is the fact that many companies honestly are in a war for business market share, but don't realize that design is the only really brand differentiator today! Sony, Samsung, LG, Panasonic, Toshiba, etc. are all lost when it comes to finding their own vernacular, their own brand identity. They have no idea how to differentiate themselves as Apple did. Also since all these hi-tech objects are dematerializing, and most of the internal components are ubiquitous and the same it is even more important to use design to create and take ownership of a brand.

Read the full interview, which is nice 'n lengthy at 1800 words, here.

"A Change In Trade: Why the Linear and Prescriptive Innovation Process is No Longer Relevant in a Digital World."

The design world is in a state of flux; the big agency and linear budget-busting approaches to solving problems are breaking down. New brands are born daily and old strategies no longer suffice to support them. This presents an exciting opportunity for the field of design to rethink its trade and either continue to innovate, or break.

David Thorpe, Oved Valadez, and Tom Lakovic of INDUSTRY discuss this shift in "A Change in Trade: How approaching design with an adaptive perspective is necessary in today's design world."

Visit Industry

"Plastic Classic Loop" Collection," Pili Wu. Resin coated solid wood.

Reflecting the philosophy behind Hong Kong-based creative space Ilivetomorrow, the chimera is a mythological creature composed of multiple animals—the body of a lion with a tail that ends in a snake and a goat's head that sprung from the beast's back. Founder Nicola Borg-Pisani explains:

Our collaboration with designers, craftsmen and manufactrues is based on the synchronization of past, present and future...ilivetomorrow proposes to experience the production of fictional (not narrative) 'objects' and 'environment'.

Wen Fang's oversized bone and straw broom and mop.

At Beijing Design Week, the gallery produced a provocative show with a collection from European and Chinese designers that explored the theme of collaborative fictions. Along with some more familiar pieces from established designers, there was also a small handful of pieces produced in collaboration with Ilivetomorrow. (Warning, somewhat NSFW after the jump.)

Chimera Pavilion
751 D-Park
Park Building C
Through October 3rd

"Fire and Desire" pendant lamp, Pili Wu.

Freserique Morrel's tapestry taxidermy. DAZ's "Atlas" mirrors

"Main" wall sconce, David Dubois. Created in collaboration with ilivetomorrow

Since arriving in Beijing, we've seen all types of work bicycles and tricycles, not so disimilar to fuseproject x Sycip's final design for Oregon Manifest. Beijing-based Canadian media and installation artist Nicholas Hanna made quite the splash with his Water Calligraphy Device on display at the No.8 Dawailangying Hutong in the Dashilar Alley Design Hop. Drawing from the esoteric tradition of using water to write calligraphy in public spaces, "as a contemplative and poetic act," Hanna hacked a flat-bed tricycle to create a moving dot matrix printer.

Passages of chinese characters are input to a computer. Custom software on the computer processes the characters and transmits them to an electrical system that actuates an array of solenoid valves. The valves release droplets of water on the ground as the tricycle moves forward, thus forming Chinese characters that slowly pool together and eventually evaporate completely.

Check out the awesome video of the "Water Calligraphy Device" in action on the streets of Beijing after the jump!

Dashilar Alley Design Hop
No.8 Dawailangying Hutong
Xicheng District
Through October 3rd

With London Design Festival in full swing, we finally had a chance to sit down for a drink and what better place than the opening of Designmarketo's newest pop-up project: Bar Alto. Everyone who has ever been to Salone Milan Design Week, will be familiar with the infamous Bar Basso—the ultimate afterhours hang out where designers and design lovers make a pilgrimage to after all the shows have closed.

With Bar Alto, London Design Festival now has a similar spot (at least for the duration of this year's festival), Designmarketo teamed up with Maurizio from Bar Basso in Milan, to create a pop up twin location in the British capital.

Designer Harry Thaler in front of the glass shelf that he designed for Bar Alto—in loving memory of the very wonderful Nicola Zocca, who sadly passed away this year.

They commissioned Harry Thaler to design the interior space in which they not only served exclusive locally brewed beer, but also Bar Basso's famous Negroni cocktails in the most authentic tumbler you can find: The Duralex.

Maria Jeglinska's Duralex re-design, featuring Maurizio's face.

Various designers were asked to re-design this classic drinking vessel, the results of this brief being exhibited on a large table in the middle of the bar.

Lars Frideen's Narcissus, with a mirror reflecting inwards and the back of the mirror being outside the glass.

Harry Thaler's Handy Duralex re-design.

We spotted the "DrinKlip" at the opening of 100% Design and we can't quite decided whether its complete genius or totally superfluous. Resembling a giant clothes peg, the product keeps your coffee at a safe distance from your laptop and papers, clipped to the side of your worktop. Is this the space saving device that messy creative types have been searching for, or is this just the physical manifestation of health and safety gone mad?

Over the next months we will be highlighting award-winning projects and ideas from this year's Core77 Design Awards! For full details on the project, jury commenting and more information about the awards program, go to Core77DesignAwards.com

Designer: Alexei Mikhailov
Location: Toronto, ON, Canada
Category: Transportation
Award: Student Notable

TrakRok

TrakRok vehicle is an alternative design solution intended for all season off-roading mobility. Powered by sustainable renewable energy, the vehicle is composed of light weight exoskeleton assembly construction. Utilizing a wheeled locomotion swing arm design, delivers TrakRok performance advantage in environments of rough terrain, and harsh seasonal conditions.

ATV vehicles are responsible for more casualties in children and adults than any other leading recreational transportation out there. Safety and sustainability are the social value of my design, offering an alternative new outlook at problems of safety, the TrakRok is the design solution that introduces new features in a conceptual context which would decrease hypothetical number of casualty rates. At the same time taking into account the sustainability factors, which play a major role in the product life cycle and the effect on the environment. Utilizing new biodegradable materials provides a greater efficiency in recycling and disposal of parts as a whole.

Core77: What's the latest news or development with your project?

The project initially was a concept, I now have plan's to develop a possible working prototype in upcoming future.

What is one quick anecdote about your project?

I asked my self "why don't snowmobiles have wheels?" the answer was Trakrok.

Read on for full details on the project and jury comments.

Human Factors Specialist
IDEO
Boston, Massachusetts

IDEO Boston is looking for a Human Factors Specialist to collaborate with interdisciplinary teams and to create innovative products, services, spaces, interactions and experiences that leverage and enhance the client's brand. Human Factors Specialists play a key role in the IDEO process, leading the team to uncover insights that guide design and innovation.

They are looking for a naturally empathetic, passionate and entrepreneurial person, who has a natural skill to engage with people at a deep level. The ideal candidate is passionate about representing a human and humane perspective and should have skills in bringing this passion to life for the internal design team and client organization.

» view

The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.

Last week, Braun announced the details for the 18th edition of their preeminent design awards program, a competition that they've held every three years since 1968. This year sees a couple of notable developments since last time around: for the first time in the history of the BraunPrize, they're opening the field to "design professionals and enthusiasts"—i.e. the general public—instead of just students, who will be judged in a separate category. To this end, the total prize money comes in at $100,000 and they've added a new Sustainability Award.

The jury, this time around, consists of esteemed design innovators Naoto Fukasawa, Jane Fulton Suri and Anne Bergner, led by jury captain Oliver Grabes, Braun's very own Head of Design, who explained further:

Our new awards theme is 'Genius design for a better everyday' embracing the high relevance of innovative, well-designed products for everyday life. As ever, we want to support great ideas that lead to innovative, practical, beautiful and intuitive product solutions tailored to everyday needs—the trademarks of Braun's influential design process. We want to ensure that the BraunPrize not only provides a showcase to those design students and professionals who want to pursue a career in design, but that it also encourages design enthusiasts outside of an academic context to enter.

Top, L to R: Naoto Fukasawa, Jane Fulton Suri, Anne Bergner; Bottom, L to R: Oliver Grabes, Dirk Freund (Director of Braun R&D)

Registration for the BraunPrize opens this Saturday, October 1, and they will be accepting submissions for six months, until March 31, 2012; winners will be announced at the "lavish BraunPrize Ceremony on September 26, 2012, in Kronberg, Germany." Once again, Braun has the blessing of icsid, the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design, who will support and endorse the 2012 BraunPrize.

Learn more here.

2009 Winner Clam I OLED Lamp by Johanna Schoemaker