Vienna Design Week is in full swing and we are delighted to be able to share our impressions from the Austrian capital. Now in its fifth year, the festival has a wide and very diverse selection of events, exhibitions, talks and indeed very unusual locations on offer—to bring the world of design closer to the public, as well as to create a discourse amongst the Austrian design industry.

The curators of Vienna Design Week, Tulga Beyerle and Lilly Hollein in their Russian style fur caps and duvet jackets, just before they enter the cold storage.

Yesterday was a prototype presentation in the possibly coolest location that i have ever been to for design spotting: In a -25°C (-13°F) walk-in cold storage, the design duo Copa presented their frozen stool "Ljod" (Russian for "ice") to a rather chilled and thrilled crowd.

In order to avoid tension during the freezing process, which could cause cracks in the ice, the designers are cooling the water down to 0° before they pour it into the mould.

New month, new magazine: October 1st saw the launch of an exciting new New York-based architecture magazine, CLOG. Set to publish thrice annually, each issue tackles a specific subject—the premiere issue examines (and cross-examines) Bjarke Ingels; they're currently accepting submissions for round two on Apple— in a series of short essays (submissions for the Apple issue are due on November 1).

For its inaugural issue, CLOG focuses on BIG, a firm that keeps pace with the flow of online imagery, but which has largely been left unexamined. Bringing together contributors from backgrounds including art, architecture, criticism, journalism, parkour, engineering, comics, photography, philosophy, and more, CLOG : BIG presents the first holistic, critical examination of Bjarke Ingels and his firm.

The Danish starchitect will be present at the official launch event, dubbed "Interrogation 05: CLOG:BIG," this Friday, October 7, 2011, at Nolita's Storefront for Art and Architecture. We can attest that there will be limited room available, as these events tend to spill into the street (through the space's revolving doors and windows, no less). Per the event description, "The public is invited to submit questions to interrogation@ storefrontnews.org for Bjarke Ingels and his firm through October 6, 2011. A total of 10 questions will be selected by CLOG and SFAA for the discussion."

It's hard to tell from the photos, but the logo is embossed

CLOG came about as a response to the prevalence of new and social media as a mode of distribution and consumption, where architectural discourse is subject to the same double-edged sword as any discipline in the digital age:

Pioneer Millworks has been cranking out wood products since 1988, and the cool thing is the majority of it is reclaimed from existing structures rather than cutting down trees.

Arthur Espenet Carpenter, Wine Rack, 1968

Opening one week from today at New York City's Museum of Arts and Design: The Crafting Modernism: Midcentury American Art and Design show, spanning roughly three decades' worth of objects. I'm particularly excited about this one because although there are a few of the expected standards—an Eames Lounge Chair, a George Nelson bench for Herman Miller—there's also a ton of cool objects by more obscure designers. As the title of the show implies, there's a particular focus on craft as opposed to machine-made:

In the period immediately after World War II, characterized by mass production, the handmade object offered a humanizing counterpoint to the machine aesthetic. The exhibition looks at the connections between craft and the design world, through the work of textile designer Dorothy Liebes, furniture maker George Nakashima, silversmith Jack Prip, sculptor and designer Isamu Noguchi, among others....

Wharton Esherick, Chest-table, 1969

Boston- and New-York-based Continuum Fashion is a company comprised of computational designers Mary Huang and Jenna Fizel, hard at work "creating the future of fashion and stuff." Their N12 bikini is an early example of RP clothing, using Shapeways and an SLS machine to burn nylon into the desired configuration.

Tear resistant, water resistant and flame retardant paper? Vienna-based collective, Papernomad creates bags and covers for mobile electronic devices for this generation of urban nomads. Made of 100% organic materials, the company grew out of a quest to identify industrial niches where traditional materials could be replaced by paper.

The company considers their paper products, "the perfect analog counterbalance to the metal and glass digital world that surrounds us." With a sheep's wool lining and a magnetic hemp closure, their products are designed with a C2C lifecycle in mind. And the best of all...you can sketch directly on the covers!

Identity, Sustainability and Sanity encompass our values in a world of constant change. Papernomads are sleeves and covers which capture our experiences as quick scribbles, coffee stains, finger prints, telephone numbers or the occasional lipstick impression. Not unlike a diary, they document our experiences and create reference points in time for us to remember.

Check out their great introductory video after the jump.

London based designers Joe Wentworth and Samuel Wilkinson have developed a new take on the pendular clock. As many of you may remember, Wilkinson designed the wildly popular Plumen bulb which we debuted in the United States at Hand-Eye Supply.

"Pendola," their contemporary take on the classic grandfather clock is rather technically complicated—the outcome, however, looks very simple. The clock convincingly meets their design objective of creating something that counteracts the busy lifestyle of our current times. It was part of the Slow Tech: Designs for Digital Downtime exhibition curated by Protein and Henrietta Thompson (Wallpaper Magazine) for London Design Festival. Check out our exclusive video with the designers explaining more about the design of the "Pendola" clock.

Our friends behind the Design Museum Boston, Derek Cascio and Sam Aquillano, are trying to Kickstart a project called "Designing a Difference" to unite nonprofit organizations with teams of industrial designers. This isn't the first time that Cascio and Aquillano have turned to Kickstarter for funding; we were glad to see their extremely successful "Retail: Retell. Recycle. Rethink." exhibit come to fruition at the Prudential Center in Boston. Each project will culminate with an exhibit of the process behind the collaboration in order to educate the public about design and innovation.

"Designing a Difference" already has its first client: Smallbean, a nonprofit from Boston. Smallbean provides solar-powered computer labs to schools across Africa, allowing citizens to participate in this globally connected world. Additionally, Smallbean's Citizen Archivist Project (CAP), developed with assistance from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, teaches computer skills by having participants make a digital history of their communities through oral interviews, photographs, and video footage. In this two birds, one stone approach, Smallbean helps communities left behind in the wake of technology both adapt to the current state of the world and preserve their old world.

Cascio and Aquillano have assembled a team to help Smallbean's computer labs generate revenue in order to keep them sustainable. This revenue takes the form of selling excess electricity generated by the solar-powered labs via rentable batteries. The technology and systems behind the ESCARGO, or Excess Solar as a Revenue Generation Option, program is being designed in conjunction with the Newton-Tanzania Collaborative. The Kickstarter funding will help the team purchase solar panels, batteries, and electronics to make ESCARGO a reality.

Interested in helping? Kickstart it here!

In fact, the designers were pleased to give Core77 an exclusive look at the sketching process behind the ESCARGO:

Product Designer
Timbuk2
San Francisco, CA

Timbuk2 is seeking a Principle Product Designer who can leverage his or her experience designing brand name bags, shoes, accessories, or fashion to create innovative, eco-friendly, tough-as-hell messenger bags, backpack and consumer electronics accessories for a brand that he or she truly loves. The ideal candidate has a passion for everything from blending function and style to ballistic nylon and specialty cottons to designing independently and working as a team and being part of a San Francisco manufacturing tradition. Timbuk2 bags outlast jobs, relationships and sadly, even some pets. This is an opportunity to not design a fad or a trend, but a lasting, indestructible product that they are proud to call Timbuk2!

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TreStykker is a semiannual workshop held for students from three architecture schools in Norway: The Bergen School of Architecture, the Oslo School of Architecture and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (also known as NTNU). This year's focus was to create an art and architecture exhibition pavilion in the Norwegian city of Trondheim, and working under the theme of "Re-use," 30 students banded together to create an unusual cube-like structure built almost entirely from parts of nearby office buildings scheduled for demolition.

Called RAKE Visningsrom ("RAKE Showroom"), the roughly 50-square-meter space boasts walls built from two layers of old windows and a ceiling built from doors. The students put RAKE together in just 12 days, then handed the space over to a local cadre of artists and architects who will curate exhibits for the space. For our Norwegian readers thinking of paying a visit, their (Norwegian-language-only) website is here.

We posted on California-based designer Jeff Casper's creations about a year ago (here and here), and in the time since, he's not been idle. Most recently Casper contributed to a project by friend and treehouse building expert Roderick Romero on a treehouse... with no tree.

While official documentation of the project does not yet exist on the web, Casper was kind enough to fill us in:

The "treeless treehouse" was built high on a hillside site in Bel Air, California. The location lacked trees mature enough to support a structure of this magnitude, so this cantilevered, inverted octagonal cone of wood was anchored into a deep, cubical-shaped concrete foundation. A twisting tornado of Forest Stewardship Council (F.S.C.) certified mixed-species reclaimed Brazilian hardwoods were milled, pre-drilled & mounted around a burly framework of reclaimed vintage Douglas Fir beams.

This year, Canadian designer Philippe Malouin was paired with the renowned Viennese glass company of J. & L. Lobmeyr through the annual Vienna Design Week Passionswege program. Erstwhile purveyors to the court, the company has devoted itself for nearly 200 years to the refinement and finishing of glass material.

In order to enforce the exchange of expertise, the preservation and further development of knowledge and the virtuosity in craftsmanship and manufacturing, the Passionswege ("pilgrimage ways") program is an integral part of Vienna Design Week. Six months before the festival, the organizers invite nine different designers to collaborate with local Viennese producers and businesses.

The Passionswege involve the use of workshops, experimentation in situ, and interventions in local businesses and shops. Meanwhile, the partnerships are completely free of the pressure to generate commercially viable products (although we don't exclude this as an option).

It would be too easy to make a crass joke about iPhone mounts that suck, so let's just say that suction cup-based designs are getting a foothold—gaining traction suction, perhaps?—in the Apple accessory market. While the "Orbit" just made funding two and a half times over, it may have met its match in the "Barnacle," an even more minimal mount by iLoveHandles, an accessory startup based in Portland, OR.

There isn't much to explain except that it's a steal at $4.95—plus six bucks S&H in the continental US—compared to the expected MSRP of the "Orbit," which has jumped from $19.95 to $30 (the Kickstarter price tag came in at $15). I'd also like to point out that both products have launched with an eye-catching orange colorway along with the usual grayscale versions.

El Vocho as shot by Adrienne Bard in Mexico City.

Combine the iconic Mexican culture expressions of the psychedelic Huichol and a Volkswagen Beetle or El Vocho as Mexicans have nicknamed it—and you get El Vochol, a beaded VW bug. This dynamic manifestation of indigenous folk art is being used to promote the artisan heritage of the indigenous Mexican communities to an international audience.

El Vochol was first commissioned by the Association of Friends of Museo of Arte Popular in Mexico City to elevate the work of traditional artisans in the public sphere both nationally and internationally. The project took on a greater message to the world: indigenous work is not to be forgotten, and in fact, celebrated. Sonya Santos of the Museo says, "People all over the world are responding in a fabulous way....They are all surprised by the magnificent work."

The Huichol, or Wixaritari as they call themselves, are known in Mexico for their intricate bead work lain into beeswax by needle one bead at a time to cover entire objects such as bowls and figurines. The Wixaritari live in the Sierra Nevadas of Western central Mexico and are praised in folkloric markets for their colorful and spiritual works of art produced mainly for tourism. The symbols represented in the bead and yarn work reflect their deep centuries-old shamanic traditions, with veneration to principal deities of corn, deer, peyote, and the eagle.

Materials company 3form's 100 Percent is a resin panel made completely from recycled HDPE bottles. Formed into 4x8 sheets, it has good impact-, flame-, chemical- and abrasion-resistant properties that make it ideal for counterop and tabletop surfacing.

The company has recently figured out how to striate the colors and called the resultant product, pictured above, LineUp. Users have the option of ordering the stripes either lengthwise and crosswise, and we dig that they've rendered the hues from recycled milk and detergent bottles into design elements while simultaneously reminding the end user of the material's provenance.

Over the last week, we've seen two instances of vaguely sci-fi magnetic levitation IRL: Light Light's hover lamps and a Mag-Lev Train Set. The recent press has surfaced older projects, including Luc Fusaro's train set, which dates back to 2008, and it so happens that this is the "Year of Superconductivity" in the ol' physicists' zodiac.

In all seriousness though, 2011 marks the hundredth anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity, and it's all the rage in Paris. In an effort to break out of the laboratory, SupraDesign explores potential applications of superconductivity as it might be adopted by designers in the not-so-distant future.

The SupraDesign project is a partnership between the Ensci-Les Ateliers and physicists from CNRS and the Université Paris Sud on the occasion of the Year of Superconducitivty Supra2011, organized by the Institut de Physique of the CNRS. It was supported by the Mairie de Paris, Nexans and Universcience.

There are ten projects in total, though Delphine Mériaux's "Pare - d'Ombre" Superconducting Jewels (above & top) and Samuel Bernier & Udi Rimon's "Cocorico" Superconductivity Breakfast (below) stood out...

Like most urban centers, Beijing is a city of migrants and transients—this year's inaugural Beijing Design Week dovetailed with National Day when people return to their hometowns to celebrate the extended holiday with their families. Fittingly, designer Naihan Li showcased a collection of mobile pop-up furniture CRATES at No. 8 Dawailangying Hutong in the Dashilar Design Hop district. Inspired by Li's experience unpacking crates of artwork for the Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan, the collection is a commentary on "the moody impracticality of globe-trotting." Unpacking the collection from their shipping shells reveals an entire lifestyle "on the move." Sofas, foosball table, storage, entertainment centers, workstations, wet bars and beds stand ready for uncrating or packing for the next location.

Li herself is a transplant from Harbin, moving to Beijing in the mid-80s. After a stint in the UK studying design and architecture, she returned to Beijing to, "find the city in its most rapid and volatile state of urban development and simultaneous decay." This urban flux has inspired her personal work as well as the curatorial work of Bao Atelier, a design consultancy she co-founded with Beatrice Leanza.

E13 is a design workshop founded by Joseph Kinzelman, Ryan Ball and Travis Hope, a trio of Ohio natives who met at the University of Cincinnati's architecture program. Insofar as "the architectural design process is subject to great economic, political and time constraints, their "interest lies in the connection between the design process and the physical outcome of that process," where E13 is an outlet for "a design process driven by the act of making," with special focus on materiality as it constitutes both utility and beauty.

This approach is embodied by E13's latest design, the Day Bag. It's more or less a standard duffle with a removable shoulder strap that can be stored in a dedicated pocket when not in use, with the advantage of packability: "The day bag can be rolled up to cut down on space when it's not in use. The handle strap can be unhooked and strapped around the rolled up bag to keep a compact shape."

Of course, there's more to the Day Bag than meets the eye, lest its minimalist form factor and rugged functionality belies its humble provenance...

As we mentioned with yesterday's report on the Philippe Malouin and J&L Lobmeyr collaboration, the Passionswege ("pilgrimage ways") program of Vienna Design Week hooks up young international designers with Viennese companies renowned for their high quality products in order to create an exchange of traditional craft skills and contemporary design approaches.

Spanish-born, London-based designer Tomas Alonso developed a project with the Wiener Silber Manufactur. He approached the collaboration with the "functionality of pattern" in mind: A plain tea-set with fluted pattern on the underside of the set interlocked with the upper side of the tray.

Product Designer
Crayola
Easton, Pennsylvania

This position develops innovative and creative products for the Crayola portfolio of product offerings. The Product Designer aims to provide an enjoyable creative experience through unique play patterns and technologies. He or she is responsible for generating innovative products with creative play patterns, creating 3D working models in the model shop using foamcore modeling equipment for design review and presentations and ultimately ensuring that new products are exciting and relevant to both the trade and the consumer. The Product Designer works within the company product development schedules to ensure timely delivery into the marketplace, managing projects through external vendors, internal team members, and working with the Crayola Hong Kong office. Lastly, the designer works closely with all functional areas of the company to accomplish tasks with-in predetermined budgetary restraints, contributing to brainstorming sessions as well as facilitates brainstorming session with cross functional teams.

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The best design jobs and portfolios hang out at Coroflot.