BOX TOP (pop-up) SHOP in Miami

http://www.core77.com/blog/events/box_top_popup_shop_in_miami_11846.asp
Posted by: core jr

If you're heading to Miami for the 2008 hoo-hah, make sure to check out BOX TOP SHOP, presented by I.D. Magazine, Charles & Marie, and Areaware. They'll be selling limited-edition (natch) design objects from Areaware and Charles & Marie, as well as an edition of 300 I.D. tote bags featuring exclusive graphics by Konstantin Grcic, Tord Boontje, and the Bouroullecs. The space is designed by Rich, Brilliant, Willing (you'll recall them from our Greener Gadgets Design Competition last year), who've devised " a practical solution to create a temporary retail environment":

By using flat-packed hollow volumes (cardboard boxes), a shop is assembled in a single day. The boxes provide the necessary presentation requirements of merchandise using a minimal amount of material--the boxes themselves are readymade components drawn from a variety of manufacturers and industrial suppliers. Rich Brilliant Willing assembles these ubiquitous elements into a cohesive, functional whole: The Box Top Shop.
I.D., Charles & Marie, and Areaware present
BOX TOP SHOP
A four-day retail experience
Design Miami, December 2-6
Miami Design District
4141 NE 2nd Avenue, inner foyer
More info here

Saint-Etienne Design Biennale 2008: Energy Solstices, by Anais met den Ancxt

http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/saintetienne_design_biennale_2008_energy_solstices_by_anais_met_den_ancxt_11861.asp
Posted by: Allan Chochinov

One of our absolute favorite projects in the Saint-Étienne Design Biennale was Anaïs met den Ancxt's Energy Solstices, a project completed as part of her post-diploma at Ecole Supérieure d'Art et de Design de St Etienne, partnered with EDF R&D. The project was one of many inspiring design investigations in the school's "Réalisme énerg#233;tique" exhibition, and had us scrambling for our cameras and sketchbooks.

In Anaïs's project, the notion of daylight savings time is explored, arguing that its practical advantages have been blurred by technology, and that the purpose today would be to transform the practice "into seasonal rituals with a symbolic dimension."

She's done this with a set of incredibly poetic objects--all housed in a sweet wooden box, with which users can equip themselves for the changes that happen twice a year. Our favorite objects are the wind-up light bulb above, One hour of light (LED, small clock wind-up key, battery) which is used during the Winter solstice--when night falls one hour earlier. Its small clock wind-up key produces a symbolic hour of light.

Another favorite is Recto-verso clock, which slows down or speeds up the time over a four-day period, helping users to "update" their own internal clock. (That's the amount of time it takes us to adjust, apparently.) There are lots of other great items in the set, so be sure to check out the site to see them all.

More pics after the jump.

Virtual skyscraper: Everyone's got a story

http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/virtual_skyscraper_everyones_got_a_story_11848.asp
Posted by: hipstomp

A fun blast-from-the-past piece of eye candy is Mr. Wong's Soup'parmtments, a "pixel by pixel" project that had volunteers add their own illustrated "apartments" to an ever-growing virtual skyscraper. With everything from swimming pools and automobile showrooms to Lightsaber academies and zombie attacks, the endlessly scroll-able, virtual Tower of Babel is an entertaining low-res delight. Load it up on your iPhone for the perfect airport lounge time sink.

no more …

http://www.pantopicon.be/blog/2008/11/13/no-more/
posted by pantopicon

ironing shirts, wasting energy, shortening the lifespan of your shirt’s cloth. The Swedish brand Eton shirts has developed a coatingless cotton-fibre which returns to its original shape after washing. In fact bodyheat is enough to iron your shirt as you wear it. The fibre responds to heat - not unlike shape memory alloys) - to maintain its form.

Let’s extrapolate such a development for a second: imagine a world in which no shirts need to be ironed any longer. Consequences: significant decrease of energy usage since irons no longer need to be heated, presses are no longer necessary, thereby also increasing the lifespan of the shirt since the cloth is spared from several aggressive interactions. Combine that with a waterless washing machine such as Electrolux’ Airwash system. In terms of saving the environment. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen how energy- & eco-efficient the production of the special cotton fibre (and the rest of its lifecycle) is before we can truly assess its impact. From a socio-economic perspective however - like any technological development which renders human (inter)action obsolete - the no-iron cotton fibre - if used on a large scale - might put extra stress on or obliterate ironing shops.

On a higher level of abstraction: think of all the kind of products which nowadays, because of their systemic or material makeup, require labour (implying usage of all kinds of other resources) in order to remain functional, usable etc. Windows need to be washed, houses need to be heated or cooled, etc.

What if … changes at the material/systemic level of these products, which nearly all of us use, could make these ‘wasteful cycles’ of energy. If employed at a large scale, effects (both positive and negative) of these changes can often be exponential in nature as they work their way through the chain of reactions linked to the lifecycle of the product. They alter the system of their ‘ecology’, their context (whether bio-, techno- or homosphere). Glass can be self-cleaning, houses can go without or using a minimum of heating/cooling energy, etc.

SNIF tag: Social Networking for dogs

http://www.core77.com/blog/technology/snif_tag_social_networking_for_dogs_11687.asp
Posted by: core jr

If you feel it's time for Fido to get into that whole social networking thing then this may be for you. The SNIF tag is a wireless gadget that clips onto a dog's collar. As you take your dog for a walk amongst all the other SNIF-enabled hounds at your local park, the tag records your dog's erm, interactions and shares the data with other tags.

Back at home, the tag uploads its data to your online SNIF profile, which allows you to share as much personal information with other SNIF owning dog lovers as you can handle. Creepy or cool? It depends on how hot the other SNIF owners are I guess.

For the designer backstory, here's a video clip of SNIF tag production and a Flickr set of SNIF's quest for a production facility together with their industrial designers from Readymade.

It's interesting. I have a dog and I really like this little staff. It is $199, too expensive! 

John Maeda: Line Calendar

Good idea, I can see every second of my life in this calendar.

I Want You To Want Me / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar

What an amazing project! This program not only is a wonderful interactive installation, but also it is an affectionate art work. It shows the vulnerable but sincere emotions needs of human. I was deeply moved when I saw the small balloons which embrace thousands of people connecting each other and forming a DNA shape. The visual presentation and the background music works very well too. I just can't help to watch it again and again.

When designers anticipate the next Big One

http://www.core77.com/blog/education/when_designers_anticipate_the_next_big_one_11675.asp
Posted by: Mark Vanderbeeken

A few weeks Core77 featured After Shock, the world's first massively collaborative disaster simulation, about a major earthquake affecting much of Southern California.

It turns out - as one could have expected - that there is quite a lot behind this unique serious game. It is actually part of a larger design initiative The Los Angeles Earthquake: Get Ready, led by Designmatters at Art Center College of Design, that has allowed them "to investigate the contributing role of design in disaster mitigation and public awareness".

Mariana Amatullo, (vice president and director of Designmatters at the Art Center College of Design), just wrote a long article on Design21 outlining the project's philosophy and ambition, that is recommended reading for anyone interested in serious games.

In a recent email to me, she said: "Our hope [...] is that the paradigms for communication created by this project can test the efficacy of different communications approaches in a contemporary media environment, and provide a blueprint for vitally needed mitigation efforts elsewhere in the world."

The project is, in my opinion, also particularly strong and commendable, because of the thoroughness with which it has been prepared, and the sense of civic engagement that drives the people behind it.

Assignment 5

• Theme：

         Genetically Modified Crops for Healing

• Tagline：

         Planting for Health

• purpose/uses/service: 

1. treat illness
   
2. help to prevent diseases
3. improve people's health

• treatment/scenario

1. A soybean is lying on a culture dish.
2. The soybean begins to germinate.
3. It outgrows a stem, several branches and leaves.
4. At the top of the branch, it brings forth a capsule.

• Story Board
  

Story Board 2

Get your own at Scribd or explore others:

• style frame
  
• 
  

8

Get your own at Scribd or explore others:

Assignment 4

Singletown

http://www.pantopicon.be/blog/2008/10/31/s1ngletown/
posted by pantopicon

At the inspiring Venice Architecture Biennale - this year’s edition curated by Aaron Betsky, former director of the NaI - the famous Dutch design studio Droog Design & KesselsKramer showcase S1NGLETOWN.

S1NGLETOWN focuses on the world of contemporary singles. Its relevance is broad, as all of us are likely to belong to this group at some stage in our lives — and likely more than once. In fact, some sources predict that a third of people in developed countries will be living alone by 2026.

S1NGLETOWN is an exhibition that’s also a town, an abstract interpretation of a new kind of urban space. Visitors will be able to walk its streets and interact with its products and citizens, and view their homes.

The concept is a beautiful illustration of a persona-like approach, typecasting different types of singles and imaginatively describe their world, ways of living using their point of experience as a point of departure. Although designed in a beautiful, powerful yet fairly abstract way, one is fully immersed in this ‘view on the world’ being able to walk around in S1NGLETOWN through an exhibition.

wfs outlook 2009

http://www.pantopicon.be/blog/2008/10/29/wfs-outlook-2009/
posted by Pantopicon

The World Future Society recently published their top ten of future developments to keep an eye on in view of 2009 and beyond:

Everything you say and do will be recorded by 2030.
Bioviolence will become a greater threat as the technology becomes more accessible.
The car’s days as king of the road will soon be over.
Careers, and the college majors for preparing for them, are becoming more specialized.
There may not be world law in the foreseeable future, but the world’s legal systems will be networked.
The race for biomedical and genetic enhancement will — in the twenty-first century — be what the space race was in the previous century.
Professional knowledge will become obsolete almost as quickly as it’s acquired.
Urbanization will hit 60% by 2030.
The Middle East will become more secular while religious influence in China will grow.
Access to electricity will reach 83% of the world by 2030.
As 2008 flies by and 2009 approaches, prepare for more lists.

obesity system influence diagram

http://www.pantopicon.be/blog/2008/10/28/obesity-system-influence-diagram/
posted by Pantopicon

Within the ‘Foresight tackling obesities’ project, which we blogged about earlier, our friends over at Shiftn created an amazing map(http://www.shiftn.com/obesity/Full-Map.html) depicting the forcefield surrounding obesity. Congrats Philippe & Co.!

The causal loop map provides systemic insight into the wide variety of factors influencing the obesity epidemic. A thorough analysis of about 40 science reviews led to the identification of 108 drivers of obesity, interrelated through positive and negative effects.

Reflecting on the potential of maps like these: a next step of increasing the interactivity of the map could further enhance its value as an information insight or what-if tool. For example, select a relationship arrow and see what the relationship stands for. Or furthermore … select a few drivers, confirm or alter the parameters of their cause-effect relationship, push the action button and see what happens. Or … describe an effect (wishful or to avoid) and see which buttons need to be triggered in order to change the outcome as mentioned. In other words: the map, as an information visualization tool, can be a first step toward a full-fledged knowledge tool.

Storyboard

img040 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Assignment 3

A Multi-Sensory Experience

http://irenepereyra.blogspot.com/2007/08/multi-sensory-experience.html

POSTED BY IRENE PEREYRA

Obviously the web offers a great platform for telling a story, and in the past this was usually done in a very linear way. There was only one way to view information, and really no way to interact with any of the content.

“Interaction Design” in the past only referred to having the user move through the content on the entire site from an information architecture point of view, but didn’t allow any actual interactions or choices within the article or posting.

Now the options are endless. The way we tell stories on-line have become more non-linear, and now allow the user to view the content in any way they choose. Previously static stories (news articles etc.) are now able to offer alternate ways to engage with through streaming web-cam, animation, feedback, comments, sound, video etc.

You prefer reading your information? This is possible. Are you more of a visual thinker? Check out the video. Care to listen to the content while working? Stream the audio. Wonder what other people are thinking? Read the comments.

Web design is moving into a realm where we have to think of all the possible senses, all the possible preferences, all the differences of all the different users, and it’s slowly becoming the most tailor-made experience you can have with a product, brand or service.

This is exciting stuff…

With the up and coming of blogs as a legitimate source for information, Web 2.0, social network sites, and the prevalence of broadband, what “interaction design” means is changing. Web designers are now designing less in the traditional sense (sure we’re still interested in type, color and layout, but it doesn’t end there anymore), and we are now focusing more on designing highly personalized experiences.

Today’s web designers are looking at the whole thing more holistically. Before any design even starts we are now interested in telling a compelling story, and creating a memorable experience. The whole focus has become much more user-centered.

We listen first, and design later…

When you enable your users to choose their own path through your content, and allow them to have a highly interactive and personalized experience you can make them feel less like a faceless user and more like a human being, which sometimes we forget that the users accessing our sites, are well… euhm, actual people.

Good human-centered design is now not only simplicity, support, clarity, encouragement, satisfaction and accessibility, it's also about creating a platform for a highly personalized experience. Allowing the user control of your content is a great way to create affinity and foster positive attitudes towards your brand, company, product or service.

The Pratt Preview of "A Day in the Life of a Networked Designer's Smart Things or A Day in a Designer's Networked Smart Things, 2030"

http://irenepereyra.blogspot.com/2007/11/pratt-preview-of-day-in-life-of.html
POSTED BY IRENE PEREYRA

Tom Klinkowstein and I have been working on this project for about 6 months now, and last Friday was the preview mini-opening of the project at Pratt. Which means, well... it's finished! The project was made for the Singapore International Design Festival and is about an imagined designer's day in the year 2030.

The diagram goes through her day and explains how she gets things done with the help of all her smart things.

We began with 4 presentations, Tom Klinkowstein spoke about "Experience Design", Leo Bonanni from the M.I.T Media Lab spoke about "Living Objects", Anthony Townsend from the Institute for the Future spoke about "Living Environments" and I spoke about "Blogs".

It was really a fascinating night about what the possibilities could be in the future of design.

Smarter Design Choices for the Environment

http://irenepereyra.blogspot.com/2007/08/smarter-design-choices-for-environment.html
POSTED BY IRENE PEREYRA

Okay so sustainability is totally hip right now. Everyone cares about the environment. Green is the new black. Al Gore's film was the most watched documentary ever. Yes, yes, yes and yes, but what can designers do to help the environment?

Not many designers know how to properly design with the environment in mind, and us designers are some of the world's greatest polluters. Packaging, printing, recycling, paper-making, inks, foil stamping, binding... All this and more is what we are putting out there in terms of energy (ab)use. According to the Environment Protection Agency, as much as a third of the developing world's non-industrial solid waste streams consists of packaging.

There are some myths out there that the energy needed to recycle minimizes any savings in the use of recycled papers versus virgin paper (paper directly from trees), but by using recycled papers there is less energy consumption, fewer greenhouse gases, less waste paper and less solid waste.

So designers. What can we do? Turns out we can do a lot. Here are some ideas.

Plan ahead
Consider 100% PCW uncoated paper, or elemental chlorine free or totally chlorine free paper.
For long shelf life, choose a paper that meets the American National Standards Institute standards for product longevity.
Plan ahead to avoid air shipping, and use targeted, updated mailing lists.
If designing packaging, design it to last, can it be used for something else?
Design packaging closest to the product's size, and at a most efficient size for shipping. As much as 50% of packaging waste is from the outer packaging that the consumer will never see.

Production
Use the fewest materials necessary to be effective.
Consider standard paper sizes to maximize positioning and bleeds (4up? 6up?).
Design with multipurpose use in mind (can an invitation also be self-mailer?).
If the printed piece isn't reusable, ensure that it is recyclable.
Use digital photography when possible.
Use PDF digital proofs instead of paper printouts.

Inks & Finishing
Consider vegetable-based inks.
Use fewer ink colors, consider 2 color jobs over 4 color jobs (less inks are also cheaper for the client, and can have amazing graphic impact).
Consider less ink coverage.
Avoid metallic and fluorescent inks when possible.
Consider using aqueous varnishes and coatings instead of UV coatings and laminates.
Consider alternatives to foil stamping.
Consider water-based glues.

Printing
Choose an FSC-certified printer.
Consider filmless and plateless digital printing for small runs over off-set printing.
Send artwork to printer electronically.

Then lastly there is that old myth that recycled papers always look, well, recycled, and that 2 color jobs miss out on the graphic impact. I couldn't disagree more. Here's a self-mailer I designed that was printed on recycled paper and made by only using 2 inks (purple and black).

Can you tell it was designed with the environment in mind?

Superstruct

http://www.pantopicon.be/blog/2008/10/10/superstruct/
Posted by Pantopicon

For those of you who have not heard yet: Superstruct is live! Our colleagues over at the Institute For The Future have launched the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game.

“By playing the game, you’ll help us chronicle the world of 2019–and imagine how we might solve the problems we’ll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It’s about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.”

Superstruct is developed by the IFTF’s Ten-Year-Forecast team led by Kathi Vian. Jamais (Cascio) is scenario director. Jane McGonigal (cf. iLoveBees) watches over the gaming aspects. Game interaction is a perfect match to the ‘what if?’ question central to futures studies: people are presented with challenges, they make choices which have consequences leading to new challenges. Several have advocated tapping into the opportunities that games offer to explore, learn about, envision and prepare for futures and future-oriented action (e.g. Eliane Alhadeff at Future-Making Serious Games ).

While gaming in general is getting more serious attention, especially so called serious games are on the rise within educational, corporate and policy contexts (e.g., see here). As such, the timing of Superstruct probably could not be better. In a recent blogpost Jamais notes how once again we are ‘flirting with the boundaries of the participatory decepticon’, as also Superstruct uses the fakes-as-real strategy (e.g. news items, commercials, blog posts, etc.) to bring the future to life. Yet again, these ‘alternative realities’, even infused in real reality (e.g. ARG’s), are exactly what attracts people as well. Considering its massive size as well as its develop-as-we-go approach, as a learning tool - not only for the IFTF - but also for their player audience, Superstruct offers lots of potential.

Stay tuned for more reflections …

Everyone could help to invent the future, this game is so attractive cause we all curious about tomorrow. The more people join in this game, the better we can augment our collective human potential. Also this game has serious meaning to evoke thinking of changing the world.

The rain in Spain stays mainly in the Hog

http://www.doorsofperception.com/
Posted by John Thackara

Harvesting rainwater is key for any town or city determined to use its water sustainably. Rainwater HOG is a rain rescue and storage tank designed as a water-filled building block. It was conceived and developed by an Australian architect, Sally Dominguez, who had been designing drought-ready buildings but was frustrated by a lack of options for domestic scale urban rainwater catchment. HOG’s flat walls, and use of through-holes as bracing, allow water to flow in any direction. This enables HOG to store water horizontally and vertically. Because HOG modules are deliberately slim and compact, they are easy to retrofit into the tightest spaces. As Dominguez explains,"the problem with a drought is that when it rains, it often gathers in the wrong areas for it to be of use. As an architect I wanted to fit in rainwater storage without giving up valuable real estate". The product has taken off so fast in California that Dominguez has moved her family and the business to Marin County. Hog is on display at the Autodesk Design Gallery in San Francisco as one of the winners of the Spark design awards.

I can't judge whether the system can be used as it stands in a European context, but the potential market in London must be 35 million units on its own. It never rains but it shines, at least for this designer.

Good design. We designers should always concern about environmental conservation.