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Space Colony Form Factors, Part 1: Bernal Spheres
As fears of overpopulation took hold in the 1970s, NASA began giving serious thought to building space colonies. In the years since, they managed to solve Earth's population problem by sending everyone...
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Space Colony Form Factors, Part 2: O'Neill Cylinders
For forming a free-floating space colony, the Bernal Sphere we looked at earlier solved the problem of gravity, but didn't solve the problem of being, like, totally lame. In an effort to not be totally...
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Space Colony Form Factors, Part 3: The Stanford Torus and Beyond
So far we've seen two space colony form factors that arose from a 1975 NASA-backed study. The Bernal Sphere was round, the O'Neill Cylinders cylindrical. This third concept, proposed as part of the...
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Unstructured Seating
Does a comfy chair need to be bulky? Based on many of the offerings on the market, you might conclude as much. But Brandon Kim's new Lilt chair for Bernhardt Design proves otherwise—it is a sleek...
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The Closest Thing We Had to an Industrial Design–based Comic Strip
The longest-running single-artist comic strip in the world was not "Peanuts." It was "Wordless Workshop," a DIY strip begun in 1954 by comics artist Roy Doty. It's the closest thing there's ever been...
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Unbelievably Portable Personal Transportation Device from Japan
Japanese inventor Kuniaki Sato has come up with something that beggars belief: A small aluminum platform, about the size of a laptop, that can carry a human being for a distance of 12 kilometers under...
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Simple, Smart Product Design: The Qlipter, a Carabiner for Everyday Life
As I wrote here, a simple carabiner is one of the more useful items that I use on a daily basis. As I was making this discovery, fellow carabiner-lover and entrepreneur Mina Yoo was building a company...
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Art Bikes by Handsome Cycles at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts
To celebrate their 100th birthday, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) teamed up with Handsome Cycles to bring some of the MIA's most famous masterpieces to life in the form of three art-inspired...
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Super-Functional Jacket Designed for Air Travel Breaks Crowdfunding Records
World War I fighter pilots wore silk scarves for a very functional reason: In the pre-radar era, pilots spent a lot of time swiveling their heads around looking for the enemy, chafing their necks...
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Sunglasses Made from Recycled CDs and DVDs
While zero-waste pioneer Lauren Singer lives a trash-free existence, billions more of us are littering the planet with our waste. Architect Arthur Huang's Miniwiz design company is tackling that...
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A Driverless, Flying Version of Uber: The Quadro is a Single-Passenger...
Thorstin Crijns started his Autonomous Human Transport project for one reason: "To create a fully autonomous quadcopter that can transport people without any human intervention," he writes. "In order...
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6 New UX Prototyping Tools for Designers
The UX prototyping space is booming. Dozens of solutions are now available for a practice that was done largely with paper and flat deliverables less than a decade ago. Designers can now start building...
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MIT Figures Out How to Give a Robot the Reflexes of a Human
If I shove you, you might sway for a second, but your body will automatically correct the imbalance and right you. If you don't believe me, try it now; select a co-worker and randomly shove them.Have...
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You Can Stay in the Nakagin Capsule Tower Via Airbnb!
The Nakagin Capsule Tower in Tokyo is one of architecture's more interesting experiments. Under architect Kisho Kurokawa's plan, the NCT complex was actually two towers, to which were affixed...
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Brilliantly Simple, Low-Tech Device to Help Blind Dogs Navigate
First off, this much-"Liked" video, which has nothing to do with blind dogs, is currently making the social media rounds. In it we see a bulldog who apparently loves cardboard boxes, and is willing to...
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Who Designs the Fiendish Obstacle Courses for "Wipeout," and How Do They Make...
With obstacle names like "Big Balls," "Branch in the Face" and "American Sucker Punch," ABC's "Wipeout" competition thrills viewers who enjoy the potent cocktail of athletic competition, slapstick and...
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Beds With Storage, Part 2
Finding enough bedroom storage space can be a challenge for many end users, so beds that incorporate storage can help anyone needing more places to stash some stuff.As I've noted before, one of the...
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How to Get a Parking Space Back After Someone Swoops In and Steals It
So maybe you're at the dealership and looking to get yourself into a Jeep. The dealer's trying to upsell you on the front tow hooks or maybe even the winch package, and you're not sure you're going to...
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"Reverse Graffiti" Technique is a Dam Good Idea
The UK's Green Street Media agency practices spraypaint-free, "eco-friendly" sidewalk advertising, using a powerwasher and a stencil to blast messages into dirty pavement. We showed you some of their...
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Tianjin Blast: The New Multi-Perspective Disaster-Porn News, Brought to You...
As Chinese authorities scramble to discover* (or cover up) what caused a massive explosion in Tianjin, the internet is now awash in multi-angle, multi-proximity footage of the terrifying blast. In a...
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