| << | February 2010 | >> | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Su | Mo | Tu | We | Th | Fr | Sa |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | |
| 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 |
| 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 |
| 28 | ||||||
- Keechdesign News (29)
- Design Classics (8)
- Opinion (25)
- Creative Report (36)
- In The Know (14)
- Inspiration (18)
- Design Top Five (10)
Ones To Watch
Posted by: Keech on 22nd Jul 2009 in Creative Report
Hotbed of creativity is perhaps an overworked metaphor, but always does nicely for the Royal College of Art. Particularly around degree show and finals time when things get very warm indeed; creatively speaking. This year I was teaching a module in the college's Industrial Design Engineering department. Helping final year students with the process of metamorphosis whereby concepts and plans become fully functioning reality. The core philosophies of the department are an inspiration in themselves:
Innovation is the bedrock of IDE and our philosophy is that of the Enlightenment: creativity, design and science in harmony.
This year there were five Distinctions awarded in IDE. Here's the pick of the bunch...
SENSE!
by Katrien Ploegmakers
Most of what we perceive is through sight and sound. The senses of touch, taste, and smell are secondary. Up until now we have consumed food mainly with our eyes. Visually challenged people have proven that we have the capacity to develop other senses to a greater extent... but do we truly need to lack a sense before we'll put the others to greater use?
SENSE! is a set of tableware objects that challenges you to use ALL your senses and no longer 'eat with your eyes' only. SENSE! is a set of Scent Flowers, Hot Stone Plates, Palate Cleansers and a Hot Ice Tea Ceremony. The designs make you aware of your secondary sensory capabilities. They are surprising, fun to use and magical... turning an ordinary meal into an extraordinary experience.
1] Scent Flowers
The scent flowers can release a specific scent to accompany a dish. Do we actually need to swallow all ingredients to have the perception of eating them, or can we eat with our noses?
2] Hot Stone Plates
The porcelain plates with inlaid warm basalt stones heated in stock or oil allow for slower and therefore healthier dining.
3] Palate Cleansers
The palate cleansers create a desirable break in the dining scenario. Sit back, relax and enjoy sipping the mint vapour, which cleanses you palate but does not fill your stomach.
4] Hot Ice Tea Ceremony
The table and tea set are both part of a modern tea serving ceremony. Placing the tea carafe on the table will set of the crystallisation of the 'Hot Ice' that will run through the tabletop into the double walled tea glasses. Do not trust your eyes... the ice is hot!
MOVE-IT
by David Graham
Winner
Helen Hamlin Creative Design Award
Help the Aged inclusive Design Award
RCA Sustainable Design Award
Move-it is a compact self-assembly carriage system for boxes of up to 20Kg, made entirely of cardboard.
It is fully recyclable and lightweight and consists of a set of two wheels and two different types of adjustable handle. A combination of these components allows the user to move boxes of almost any size and shape.
Ideally the system will be available for a nominal price, in large shops such as Ikea, where customers who had not bargained for the weight or awkwardness of their purchases could utilise the system to ease their journey home. Once home the system can be disposed of by being recycled with the cardboard box, saved with the box for future trips or, reused on another box (condition permitting). The system is designed for and can withstand a typical trip across London on public transport and can even cope with rain and wet pavements.
What makes Move-it truly unique is that every single part is cardboard. Wheel, axle, chassis and handle can all be mashed up at the recycling facility and made into new cardboard products; and the special repulpable contact adhesive that sticks the wheels and handle to the box is designed to disperse harmlessly in water.
Three typical configurations of Move-it
MESS SEARCH & ENTROPY MACHINE
by Ross Atkin
Mess Search.
Mess Search is an experiment about embedding information in objects to bring order from chaos.
One of the outcomes of a project looking into mess and entropy Mess Search uses RFID to make a messy desk searchable like a computer. A mess is only really disordered if there is no information about it. If there is information then order can always emerge. Mess Search uses a computer database to contain the sort of information that is usually only in the head of someone with a messy desk and make it accessible to anyone.
Mess Search uses the organizational logic of Flickr and YouTube and applies it to reality. RFID tags are applied to objects on the desk and words are associated with the objects by passing the magnifying glass over them. If a new tag is detected the magnifying glass also takes a picture of the object for the database. The desk may then be searched by entering the word and sweeping the magnifying glass across the desk surface. When the glass passes over an object associated with the search word the computer emits a ding.
By revealing the organizational logic they apply to their objects the database compiled by the Mess Search user provides an interesting, and useful, portrait of their relationship to their stuff.
As our capacity to embed information in objects improves and searching reality becomes more like searching the Internet what consequences will this have for the organization of physical objects? Are we heading towards a messier world?
Entropy Machine
The Self-Sorting Objects and the Entropy Machine were outcomes of a project exploring the application of the concept of entropy to messy situations. As the Entropy Machine randomly jostles the Self-Sorting Objects, they gradually un-mix, sorting themselves into combines of their respective colour. This is based on the process through which atoms and molecules crystallise into solid materials.
By bringing order from chaos the technology behind the Self-Sorting Objects could be used to manage many messy situations. For example it could be used to create self-sorting packaging - thereby helping out with the notoriously messy problem of rubbish. This packaging would sort itself out both from the rest of the rubbish and from the self-sorting packaging of other companies.
Large combines of different packaging could then be easily reclaimed by their manufacturers for re-filling and re-use. The only equipment required by the processing facility would be a simple tumbler.
By reducing the cost of sorting, self-sorting packaging could provide the technology that makes re-usable packaging economically viable here in the UK, and in the rest of the developed world, providing significant benefits to the environment.
Example of self-sorting packaging:
There are no comments. Be the first to post one.
Posted by: Keech on 22nd Jul 2009 in Creative Report
Hotbed of creativity is perhaps an overworked metaphor, but always does nicely for the Royal College of Art. Particularly around degree show and finals time when things get very warm indeed; creatively speaking. This year I was teaching a module in the college's Industrial Design Engineering department. Helping final year students with the process of metamorphosis whereby concepts and plans become fully functioning reality. The core philosophies of the department are an inspiration in themselves:
Innovation is the bedrock of IDE and our philosophy is that of the Enlightenment: creativity, design and science in harmony.
This year there were five Distinctions awarded in IDE. Here's the pick of the bunch...
SENSE!
by Katrien Ploegmakers
Most of what we perceive is through sight and sound. The senses of touch, taste, and smell are secondary. Up until now we have consumed food mainly with our eyes. Visually challenged people have proven that we have the capacity to develop other senses to a greater extent... but do we truly need to lack a sense before we'll put the others to greater use?
SENSE! is a set of tableware objects that challenges you to use ALL your senses and no longer 'eat with your eyes' only. SENSE! is a set of Scent Flowers, Hot Stone Plates, Palate Cleansers and a Hot Ice Tea Ceremony. The designs make you aware of your secondary sensory capabilities. They are surprising, fun to use and magical... turning an ordinary meal into an extraordinary experience.
1] Scent Flowers
The scent flowers can release a specific scent to accompany a dish. Do we actually need to swallow all ingredients to have the perception of eating them, or can we eat with our noses?
2] Hot Stone Plates
The porcelain plates with inlaid warm basalt stones heated in stock or oil allow for slower and therefore healthier dining.
3] Palate Cleansers
The palate cleansers create a desirable break in the dining scenario. Sit back, relax and enjoy sipping the mint vapour, which cleanses you palate but does not fill your stomach.
4] Hot Ice Tea Ceremony
The table and tea set are both part of a modern tea serving ceremony. Placing the tea carafe on the table will set of the crystallisation of the 'Hot Ice' that will run through the tabletop into the double walled tea glasses. Do not trust your eyes... the ice is hot!
MOVE-IT
by David Graham
Winner
Helen Hamlin Creative Design Award
Help the Aged inclusive Design Award
RCA Sustainable Design Award
Move-it is a compact self-assembly carriage system for boxes of up to 20Kg, made entirely of cardboard.
It is fully recyclable and lightweight and consists of a set of two wheels and two different types of adjustable handle. A combination of these components allows the user to move boxes of almost any size and shape.
Ideally the system will be available for a nominal price, in large shops such as Ikea, where customers who had not bargained for the weight or awkwardness of their purchases could utilise the system to ease their journey home. Once home the system can be disposed of by being recycled with the cardboard box, saved with the box for future trips or, reused on another box (condition permitting). The system is designed for and can withstand a typical trip across London on public transport and can even cope with rain and wet pavements.
What makes Move-it truly unique is that every single part is cardboard. Wheel, axle, chassis and handle can all be mashed up at the recycling facility and made into new cardboard products; and the special repulpable contact adhesive that sticks the wheels and handle to the box is designed to disperse harmlessly in water.
Three typical configurations of Move-it
MESS SEARCH & ENTROPY MACHINE
by Ross Atkin
Mess Search.
Mess Search is an experiment about embedding information in objects to bring order from chaos.
One of the outcomes of a project looking into mess and entropy Mess Search uses RFID to make a messy desk searchable like a computer. A mess is only really disordered if there is no information about it. If there is information then order can always emerge. Mess Search uses a computer database to contain the sort of information that is usually only in the head of someone with a messy desk and make it accessible to anyone.
Mess Search uses the organizational logic of Flickr and YouTube and applies it to reality. RFID tags are applied to objects on the desk and words are associated with the objects by passing the magnifying glass over them. If a new tag is detected the magnifying glass also takes a picture of the object for the database. The desk may then be searched by entering the word and sweeping the magnifying glass across the desk surface. When the glass passes over an object associated with the search word the computer emits a ding.
By revealing the organizational logic they apply to their objects the database compiled by the Mess Search user provides an interesting, and useful, portrait of their relationship to their stuff.
As our capacity to embed information in objects improves and searching reality becomes more like searching the Internet what consequences will this have for the organization of physical objects? Are we heading towards a messier world?
Entropy Machine
The Self-Sorting Objects and the Entropy Machine were outcomes of a project exploring the application of the concept of entropy to messy situations. As the Entropy Machine randomly jostles the Self-Sorting Objects, they gradually un-mix, sorting themselves into combines of their respective colour. This is based on the process through which atoms and molecules crystallise into solid materials.
By bringing order from chaos the technology behind the Self-Sorting Objects could be used to manage many messy situations. For example it could be used to create self-sorting packaging - thereby helping out with the notoriously messy problem of rubbish. This packaging would sort itself out both from the rest of the rubbish and from the self-sorting packaging of other companies.
Large combines of different packaging could then be easily reclaimed by their manufacturers for re-filling and re-use. The only equipment required by the processing facility would be a simple tumbler.
By reducing the cost of sorting, self-sorting packaging could provide the technology that makes re-usable packaging economically viable here in the UK, and in the rest of the developed world, providing significant benefits to the environment.
Example of self-sorting packaging:
Comments
There are no comments. Be the first to post one.
