Pretty neat little reuse of wasted material. In this instance, sheets of latex used to cut out shoe insoles are taken, rolled up, and turned into seats. I’m curious how comfortable they are, but as usual, any bright colored, odd shaped material placed in a clean space looks rather cool. About $80 each. I guess they would be easy to roll around…leaving footprints. ha.
Clever design.. I’ve always hated picking up a damp sticky wet soap bar… so why not keep it dry, and grate it. Clever design by Nathalie Stämpfli and her Soap Flakes project. I want!
Wine Punt turns everyday wine bottles into beautiful simple reusable glassware, 2 sizes. Pretty simple, and very needed! I think I’ll need a few sets of these soon. They also have a wholesale pricing for industries like restaurants seeking a sustainable fresh approach at glassware….especially those with lots of wine bottle consumption =). A great piece with a great story behind them.
Our friend Diana Eng (risd ’05) of the awesome book Fashion Geek($23), just launched a leather coin purse that looks like a fortune cookie($45). Diana has a few blog post as well about the process in making the coin purse (original sketch, the leather, and the making).
Upon my return from Hong Kong this holiday I was happy to find little box with a coin purse inside. A few pictures of it after the jump.
If I only knew about the Jointmaker during design school…. I love Japanese saws, but never thought about using them in the inverse where the saw sat static, and the wood was the object that moved to get cut much like a table saw. Pretty creative and simple. It’s a table saw with no flying dust, no need for electricity, no ear protection or eye gear needed, and a cut as thin and accurate as a Japanese saw vs the wide width of a table saw blade. Only problem I find is the price at around $1,200, but thats what you pay for innovation I guess.
Fashion Show with Google Image search! I’ve done something like this before, but I’ve gotta do it again after seeing this… Photo Shopping on top of someone is fun too!
I always loved the idea in the Seconds Hand Business cards, but to be more sustainable comes a real reuse by creating creating a stamp to put onto existing paper materials! I just might have to do this now.
“Fischer Portugal recently had the challenge of designing an ecological business card for an environmental consultant, Andrea Romani. Business cards are usually made of paper. But using paper, even recycled, is not good for the environment. To avoid this issue, the advertising agency decided not to print any cards at all. Instead they created a rubber stamp to turn re-usable material into business cards.
The Ecological Business Card was developed at Fischer Portugal, Lisbon, by creative director Diogo Mello, art director Marco Martins and copywriter Rafael Pitanguy.”
hmm, interesting. I never knew that to be a reason people hung up bottles of water near food. Makes much more sense now!
“If you can’t stand the smell or deadly poisons that come with store-bought bug spray, then this surprisingly attractive Anti-Fly Sphere 2.0 may just the pest deterrent you’ve been looking for. Designed by Netherlands-based José de la O, the Anti-Fly was inspired by the taco kiosks in Mexico, which use hanging plastic bags full of water to ward off flies by confusing their sensitive eyes with amplified colors and movements through light refraction. A little fancier that a Ziploc full of water, José’s design is a totally revamped version that consists of a beautiful glass bulb and stopper. Gorgeous, green, non-toxic and kill-free — these are words we’d never expect to use to describe bug repellent!”
I’ve always thought about spray on clothing, but I guess it’s only now that I’ve seen a pretty viable solution above, where ya spray it on, and it dries to fit to perfection. You can even recycle it for another spray on. Anyhow, how about some spray on socks… I get those sock holes all the time, but you just next to spray on a patch now!
“Particle engineer Paul Luckham and fashion designer Manel Torres from Imperial College London combined cotton fibres, polymers and a solvent to form a liquid that becomes a fabric when sprayed. The material can be built up in layers to create a garment of your desired thickness and can also be washed and worn again like conventional fabrics.
In addition to creating instant fashion, the technology could have a range of other uses – spray-on bandages, for instance. “It’s a sterilised material coming from an aerosol can, and you can add drugs to it to help a wound heal faster,” says Torres.”
“Through the centuries architects have used small construction works to experiment with spaces of limited form, scale and extent, but also to experiment with material and details.
As there’s a lack of well-equipped research laboratories, the research of material by architects focuses on potentials of existing (construction-) products in which mainly is sought for possibilities of improper use of materials. Our temporary residence is such an experiment. PVC tubes have inspired us to a design of a special object in which this material is no longer seen as a tube but as a hollow building stone.
The material is researched by its spatial characteristics and escapes its standard application. The transparency in the along-direction and the fixed wall in the cross-direction determine the spatiality.
By parallel stacking of the tubes as building stones a mass has been created which represents itself closed from four sides, but which is transparent, seen from the head sides. By hollowing out this mass a special residence will be created which will be provided by light seen from the head sides.”
more pics mirrored after the jump
Wow, check out this space in japan.. makes me want to be at peace with nature, relax, an live a very simple life… though it needs a small pool or Onsen somewhere.
“The Minimalist House in Itoman-shi, Okinawa, Japan, was designed by Shinichi Ogawa & Associates / Urbanist Architect. Just have a look a the floor plan and you’ll understand why it’s called the minimalist house.”
More images mirrored via todayandtomorrow after the jump.
(more…)
I started Designverb on January 18th, 2006 as a quick experiment to jot down the many things I found to share with my friends and anyone else curious. Today, August 1st, 2010, marks my 1000th post, and this one being the 1001′st.
I’ll admit the the opportunities, friendship, community, and insights I’ve received throughout the years has been amazing and it has surely kept me busy after a long day of work and on weekends. There are times where I’m flooded with work and have very little time to post, but I started a Facebook Fan page where I post quick fun links and have recently found some extra contributors to help find more great things to post about.
The Above picture is of sushi at O Ya here in Boston. I tend to eat sushi to celebrate so maybe I’ll go there this week again.
Anyhow, I had no plans to really celebrate, but I thought I’d share some of the most popular posts since starting Designverb.
1. Tunnel House
2. Stuck At Heathrow Airport
3. Paint Chip Card Holder
4. Red Bull Headquarters
5. Mark Khaisman Brown Tape Art
6. Stefans Stormtroopers a Day
7. Heineken World Bottle: Beer to Bricks
8. Creepy Snow Globes
9. Color Changing Mini-Cooper
10. Burj Al Arab: Tennis Court in the Sky!
11. Non-Metric Countries
12. Shoes That Make Everyone the Same Height
13. How 315 Billion Dollars Looks
14. GadgetOff 2007 and 2009 Recaps.
15. TerraCycle Inc
And one of my fun little trips came from GM here.
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