"I think Industrial Designers can do everything, from a watch, to a car to a building," explains the ever-charming British designer Ross Lovegrove. "If you are an industrial designer, I am one of you."
Lovegrove speaks with Core77 live from the Triennale Design Museum in Milan. Watch this exclusive video with where Lovegrove discusses Liquidkristal, his new architectural glass walls for Czech manufacturer Lasvit. The process for creating these walls took over a year to develop and employed fluid dynamics to digitally explore large-scale distribution and densification patterns found in nature.
Working with mathematical models, the behavior of glass was simulated under controlled thermo induction. This produced a highly informed line code, which serves as the blueprint for the production process, where highly precise temperature control imbues the glass surface with the beauty of optical effects seen in water. Working with Lovegrove, Lasvit's research facilities, led by Tomá Kamenec, developed a special flexible mold system to capture this effect. The finished product is highly customisable, allowing large-scale pattern aggregations over multiple sheets.
Every year Tortona Design Week grows-up a little more, and while you might have to visit Ventura Lambrate to see some of the younger up-and-coming designers that would have formally exhibited here, it's still a design destination to be reckoned with. In fact, in scale and quality, it rivals the typical "design week" most cities around the world can put together.
Nendo-fans were treated to not one but three separate exhibitions with the minimal "Black & Black" furniture collection for K%, their "still & sparkling" glass work for Czech company Lasvit, and a new bathroom furniture collection for Bisazza Bagno. Reacting to the economic climate (finally) Established & Sons introduced several new pieces at a more affordable price point and once again their booth design was breathtaking, albeit a little hard to photograph with all the crazy rope lights— possibly that was the point.
Dutch company New Duivendrecht made their debut in Milan this year with a collection that was met with great enthusiasm, it was also inspiring to learn they are committed to working with local factories in the Netherlands. There was more Dutch goodness to be had at the Tuttobene show, the Chinese were out in force with their exhibition "Slow Seating—Contemporary Chinese Design," Diesel's successful living kitchen concept was surprisingly thoughtful, and the installation Past Present Future for Kusch+Co by Atelier Brueckner (pictured top) was stunning.
For those seeking a taste of Tortona-past, Danish design collective operating under the name Dennis Design Center built a temporary workshop in the Superstudio Più car park where they made and distributed free furniture to visitors with the promise of a new design everyday. It was kinda awesome!
Designers, ask and you shall receive! Here's your chance to turn your opinions into action!
Between now and midnight PDT Sunday, June 3rd, 2012 designers are invited to submit your redesign of the DESIGNED IN USA Logomark. Entries will be judged by the editorial department of Core77 and the Creative Team of RKS, and the three best will be determined and revealed. Winning designs will then be added to the website for download and use by the design and business community. Designs will be judged on the basis of creativity, appropriateness, applicability, and iconic potential. Good luck!
JUDGES:
Lance Hussey, Principal at RKS As the design guru of RKS, Lance oversees the design of virtually every project that comes in the door and ensures that the design intent is always framed in reference to his clients business strategy. With a knack for delighting and surprising his clients with innovative design solutions, and broad experience gained from working with clients that market medical devices, consumer electronics, consumer packaged goods and appliances, Lance has been instrumental in the rise of RKS as a global industrial design powerhouse for nearly 20 years.
LinYee Yuan, Managing Editor of Core77 LinYee Yuan is Managing Editor at Core77.com. She lives in beautiful Brooklyn, with Oski the cat, her Weber smoker and a random assortment of succulents and cactii. When not traversing the planet for Core77, she enjoys cooking for friends, gardening and reading on the subway.
PRIZES
Winner: $150 from RKS and $100 Gift Certificate to Hand-Eye Supply and opportunity to work with Lance Hussey to refine the final design.
As a vehicle to celebrate emerging artists in one space, The Pulse Art Fair opens today at the Metropolitan Pavilion with an array of artists and disciplines including video art, dance, and architectural installation. Last night, I had a walk-thru with Cornell Dewitt, the fair's director, to go over the spatial and architectural-bent arts present in the show. He says that Pulse makes it a point to be "accessible, literally and metaphorically." In a city that hosts dozens of art fairs like the monolith Armory show to the edgy Independent, Pulse tends to run in a glowing medium. It's central location and eclectic mix of galleries makes for great inspiration grounds. The art here can be as opaque as in contemporary art gallery but Pulse strives for diversity. From a young Estonian artist to Fred Wilson, and a Fred Torres collaboration, Pulse's manageable-sized gallery allows for intimate moments with the art and gallerists.
Upon entry, the Lead Pencil Studio installation in the Pavilion's lobby brings the city into an art world space. The plywood set is an architectural take on a Chinatown street, with life-size re-creations of chain-lock doors, post box, fire escape, and storefront. The installation is meant to emphasize all of the formidable pieces attached to a building and it's street life that an architect did not put on that building. We are left with the stark imaginary formations of order and security from urban planning, emergency exits, and an attempt at street art. The plywood objects represent the hustle of city-life, but in their plywood manifestations we are hyper aware of their artful re-imaginings. We remember that we are in an art fair. Dewitt says of the space, "the world is falling away and you transfer yourself, bizarrely into this clarified art world."
"I wish to communicate with you" by Pablo Guardiola, 2011, 28 x 42 inches
That there is my personal drivers-and-bits kit for repairing vintage sewing machines, which require very specific bits and handles. Because no one offers all of the things I needed for it, I had to buy components piecemeal from three different gunsmithing manufacturers and assemble the kit as seen.
I hate the design of the case, which was the only one I could find that even came close to what I needed. The bits are only held in place by gravity and, when the case is closed, the top of each bit being wedged in place by the underside of the case lid. But as you can see, the holes are of different depths:
That means the shorter bits migrate when the case is bouncing around in your bag and wind up all over the place. To compensate, I used adhesive file labels to cover the holes for the shorter bits, then poked the bits through the labels. The extra material shoved into the hole provides enough friction to keep the bits in place in transit.
I had to sacrifice bit storage space to fit the extra handles, a ratchet and a stubby driver, I needed in there.
The iThrone was developed by two recent Art Center graduates, Amaya Gutierrez and Kenji Huang, whom I recently met at their Grad Show. Because they want to cast the iThrone in porcelain, a material too expensive for students to buy in bulk, they've turned to Kickstarter to help fund their project. Ceramic is not only a beautiful aesthetic choice and an appropriate material for a throne, it also has natural acoustic properties that enable the dock to act as a speaker without any electronic components.
You can, of course, plug in your phone while it rests cozily in either the sleek, white Art Deco iThrone or the more traditional, embellished black option. I tried out Amaya and Kenji's prototype with my phone, and even though the prototype wasn't made of ceramic, the basic geometry of the iThrone naturally amplifies the sound and directs it towards you.
I'm not a supporter of cute or clever design if it lacks functionality or if another product does it better, and I love the idea of a dock that doesn't use energy and is also a beautiful design object, whether its cradling your iPhone or not.
Our friends at Brooklyn-based consultancy Pensa have worked with the likes of Johnson & Johnson and McDonald's—not to mention ID idols OXO—but their multidisciplinary team has still found time to come up with independent projects such as the "DIWire Bender."
The DIWire Bender is a rapid prototype machine that bends metal wire to produce 2D or 3D shapes.
Simply draw curves in the computer, import the file into our software and press print. Our software can read vector files (e.g., Adobe Illustrator files), Rhino or Wavefront OBJ 3D files, text files of commands (e.g., feed 50 mm, bend 90° to right...) or pure coordinates (from 0,0,0 to 0,10,10 to....). All inputs are automatically translated into DIWire motor commands. During the print, the wire unwinds from a spool, passes through a series of wheels that straighten it, and then feeds through the bending head, which moves around in 3 dimensions to create the desired bends and curves.
What could you use a DIWire for? Wire models are often needed in design, whether they are for furniture (chair leg scale models) or housewares projects (wire baskets) or even engineering parts (custom springs). But why stop at prototypes? The machine can read any data, why not output artwork from a random number algorithm, or internet data like stock prices and weather stats. You can create mass customized products, like eyeglass frames that fit, or be a street vendor printing jewelry from a person's silhouette, on demand. And it doesn't have to be aluminum wire; in principal the machine could bend other materials, including colored electrical wires, some plastics, memory metals, even light pipes to create small light forms. And if you don't like the output, it could be configured to pass the bent wire through the straightener to start again.
In recent years, 3D rapid prototyping machines have gone mainstream. And we've been excited to see 3D printers spreading beyond businesses to individuals, with the aid of a little DIY ingenuity (e.g., Makerbots, RepRap, etc.). All these machines work on the same principal—to create a form, they split a volume into thin slices, and build up the form by printing a layer of material and bonding it to the next. The main difference between the build technologies (SLA, SLS, FDM and others) is the material and the bonding methods.
But there are times when we need to output lines in space rather than volumes. Most 3D printing technologies are not well suited for printing thin lines because the materials are weak, the machine uses a lot of 3D-print support material, and the process is slow. The closest thing to a machine that can output lines is a CNC wire bender, but these machines are used almost exclusively for mass production in factories. They are not used for rapid prototyping because the equipment is large, expensive and takes trained personnel to run. So, we decided to make the DIWire Bender.
The concept, then, is fairly straightfoward, but it still makes more sense when you see the video. The first clip shows the machine producing a simple 'pound' sign, as well as a fairly complex distended helix:
Photographer Kevin Bauman's "100 Abandoned Houses" project showed the empty domiciles of Detroit, but French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre have gone further: Their photo book The Ruins of Detroit is far more chilling because it displays the disintegration of livelihood at every level. It's one thing to see empty houses, but Marchand and Meffre's shots show abandoned banks, train stations, dentist's offices, police stations, ballrooms, hotels, schools, churches and more.
Over the past generation Detroit has suffered economically worse than any other of the major American cities and its rampant urban decay is now glaringly apparent during this current recession. Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre documented this disintegration, showcasing structures that were formerly a source of civic pride, and which now stand as monuments to the city's fall from grace.
The Cooper-Hewitt announced the winners of the National Design Awards this morning. The NDA, which is in its 13th year, typically recognizes finalists in each category, but this year Cooper-Hewitt is doing away with finalists to keep the focus solely on the work of the winners.
Out of thousands of nominees the NDA has recognized some phenomenal work this year, especially in the Corporate and Institutional Achievement category, which was awarded to Design that Matters, a "nonprofit design company that partners with social entrepreneurs to design products that address basic needs in developing countries." Some of their projects include a projector for nighttime adult literacy education in Africa, a low-cast neonatal incubator that uses spare car parts and a phototherapy device for treating newborn jaundice in Vietnam.
NeoNurture, the "Car Parts" Incubator has received a lot of attention in recent years. You might have seen it on display at Cooper-Hewitt's "Why Design Now?" exhibition as part of the National Design Triennial. It successfully addresses several needs in developing and rural countries, namely the lack of training to properly use and care for expensive medical equipment. In their research, Design that Matters found that "up to 98% of donated medical equipment in developing countries is broken within five years." They also found one hospital in rural Nepal that "hadn't changed the filters in their incubators in over five years, when filters are meant to be changed every six months."
It's not so much that the parts are expensive to replace, but that not many people know how to repair them. However, Design that Matters found that the one thing that does tend to get fixed everywhere in the world is cars, so they designed an incubator that someone who knew how to repair a car could fix just as easily.
"NeoNurture takes advantage of an abundant local resource in developing countries: car parts and the knowledge of auto technicians. This incubator leverages the existing supply chain of the auto industry and the technical understanding of local car mechanics. Among other components, it uses sealed-beam headlights as a heating element, a dashboard fan for convective heat circulation, signal lights and a door chime serve as alarms, and a motorcycle battery and car cigarette lighter provide backup power during incubator transport and power outages."
From a design standpoint, how do you increase the information made available to the driver of a car? More and more cars are coming with built-in dashboard screens, but it's obvious that anything that takes the driver's eyes off the road is a bad idea. Audio cues provided by turn-by-turn GPS are a step in the right direction. Another non-visual method of communication, now being experimented with by a research team at Carnegie Mellon, is to use steering wheels equipped with haptic feedback mechanisms.
In conjunction with AT&T; Labs, Carnegie Mellon's Human Computer Interaction Institute researchers are using mechanics more sophisticated that current iterations of the technology, which can merely vibrate:
Salone del Mobile Milan 2012
Case Study: Reinventing Wool as a Performance Fiber
Architectural Digest Home Design Show 2012
International Home + Housewares Show 2012
New York CityVision Competition
Snarkitecture - Funiture 
Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving, by Jon Kolko
Where They Create, by Paul Barbera and Alexandra Onderwater
The Key to Sustainable Product Creation: Engineering + Design
One Chair a Week 
IKEA Takes on Consumer Electronics
New Philips LED Light Bulb
Core77 Design Awards 
SHIFTBoston 2012 Glow Competition 
"I wish to communicate with you" by Pablo Guardiola, 2011, 28 x 42 inches
Google Maps: Designing the Modern Atlas
The Messy Art of Saving the World
Big Idea, Little Printer
The Landscape of User Experience Design in Asia
TORTONA DESIGN WEEK 2012
NEW YORK AUTO SHOW 2012
ADHD SHOW 2012
INT'L HOME + HOUSEWARES SHOW 2012
Wallpaper's City Guide: What's Hip in Tel Aviv
Paper View: Sight Unseen's Printed Edition
Book Review - Wicked Problems: Problems Worth Solving, by Jon Kolko
Where They Create, by Paul Barbera and Alexandra Onderwater
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Imperialist Tendencies: The Real Design Imperialism
New Amsterdam Bicycle Show Recap
Case Study: Icebreaker Merino - Reinventing Wool as a Performance Fiber
Logic over Lust: Remembering Butzi Porsche
Designing Handwashing Part 2: Diverse Nudges in a Hospital
