The Shanghai World Expo see’s some pretty inspiring architecture with each country having it’s own ‘pavilion’. This one here is the UK Pavilion dubbed the ‘Seed Cathedral’, apparently inspired by a seed, featuring 60,000 slim acrylic rods which will quiver with the wind. Beautiful notion and wonderfully executed. Would love to go and visit, pity it’s so far away.
I was out on a stroll yesterday afternoon, nice typical sunny sunday afternoon activity, in the Cotswolds, Gloucestershire, and was suddenly struck by how ghastly Pylons look, tearing through the countryside like a raging torrent of steel and cabling. I think possibly, I’ve grown so used to seeing them that they’re almost not really noticeable anymore. Is this the eventual effect the designers/engineers were hoping for – give enough time and eventually nobody will notice them and they’ll almost become part of the landscape? If so it’s quite a long game they were playing, or if it was accidental then they are quite lucky with the ultimate result.
However, this does not detract from my initial thoughts upon really considering these metallic constructions, in that they give me the impression that when the sudden need for power distribution came about, Pylons were erected as a quick, relatively cost-effective and temporary solution with a view to developing something more discreet in due course; a ‘we’ll design it properly later’ moment. Unfortunately, if this actually was the case, the temporary solution has actually become ‘the design’, a snowball effect where once so many Pylon networks have been developed its impossible to justify the need to tear down vast mileage of them again to instigate the eventually-intended permanent solution.
I may of course be grossly mis-informed on the subject, but these are just my immediate thoughts upon standing beneath one on a sunny hill-side.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7969044.stm
Streaming of music is already becoming the future for music fans and now it looks like games and entertainment is advancing in the same direction. In the future an internet connection will be the fundamental lynch pin in connecting us to the virtual world, whether this be movies, music or gaming.
After a while of working on products revolving around power input and output etc. it’s wonderful to find this lovely example of a mundane, functional but necessary item redesigned in a considerate and practical fashion. 3 Pin plugs are among the most bulky and awkward in the world, storage of them on a product can be a nightmare, but this gives me hope: the pins given a rotational axis enabling them to be folded down for storage and finally a brilliant 3 way splitter, so much more discreet and elegant than the one you buy from the hardware store. Genuis.
Via designboom.com
I couldn’t believe this when i saw it. Yes, you can actually fly up to 10 metres with this thing and move up to 65 KpH! Truly awesome.
Found this nice little white-board doodle on designnotes.info today. I’m always quite a fan of graphic visualisations like these, you get to see how someones design brain works.
Found this illustrated video on good.is and upon watching was given the impression that IDEO doesn’t have a terribly cheerful outlook on energy usage in the future. Interesting and poignant it most certainly is, but in my opinion the black and white illustration and mildly psychotic fairground music make me think of Brave New World…Lets have some colour!!
Inspirational. I love TED.
Over the weekend I was in a hardware store and saw a shower unit on offer next to the cashier, this was most definitely not your standard old tried-and-tested, but a horrendous example of a single function product having been over-designed to propose a multitude of gimmicky controls. It even has a pause button! so you can apparently answer a call mid-shower and then press play again to resume.
Without wishing to sound like the worst kind of opinionated, outspoken dullard, but who seriously commissions/designs these products? I’m all for interesting use of technology and innovation, however I find it difficult to see the need for a touch interface shower with all bells and whistles, products like this are just creating need rather than fulfilling it.
This is quite a thought provoking visualisation into what AR could look like when it eventually becomes common place in everyday life.
Though what I find funny is that even though there’s visual concepts behind this that will make you fill your boots, it’s overlayed on quite old style appliances – the kettle is the standard cordless one most people have etc., however I know that this is not the focus of the video but it rather amused me, such a juxtaposition.
