Jeth Koh set out to design a contemporary mood light that requires a minimum of material and easy production. Koh stripped back the design, “chopping off unnecessary parts of a traditional lamp and redefining the functions of the different parts of the lamp”. Lamp Chop is laser cut from a single piece of sheet metal and folded to form a wall hanging lamp. While it resembles the silhouette of a traditional lamp the stand and base is “re-functioned into the bulb holder”. I like the efficiency of this design, the minimal material use and a minimum number of cuts and the way it reminds me of pop-up books. It’s the kind of design you look at and think to yourself “why didn’t I think of that?”
The reactable, is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.
This instrument is being developed by a team of digital luthiers (Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger and Marcos Alonso), at the Music Technology Group within the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.
You may have heard/seen it used by Bjork during her current “Volta” world tour.
The reactable intends to be:
collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely)
intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions
sonically challenging and interesting
learnable and masterable (even for children)
suitable for novices (installations) and advanced electronic musicians (concerts)
Importantly for Ponoko type people, reacTIVision, the software driving the reacTable is an open source, cross-platform computer vision framework for the fast and robust tracking of fiducial markers attached onto physical objects, as well as for multi-touch finger tracking. It was mainly designed as a toolkit for the rapid development of table-based tangible user interfaces (TUI) and multi-touch interactive surfaces. This framework has been developed by Martin Kaltenbrunner and Ross Bencina at the Music Technology Group at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain as part of the the reacTable project, a novel electronic music instrument with a table-top multi-touch tangible user interface.
Rock on..
Artist, Carsten Nicola’s identical three-dimensional forms have been designed to physically interlock with each other in order to build a repetitive surface. visitors are encouraged to interact and create new structures.
along with it monochrome silk-screened panels are hung to the wall − interpretations of repeating patterns from which segments are blacked out in order to create a virus-like effect. since the entire regulatory mechanism of the design is based on random personal decisions, new patterns are continuously emerging. modular re.strukt is a project focused on the notions of modular standardization, industrialization and self-repeating systems contained in the utopian ideals of modernism.
Similar in a 2d kinda way is Michael Kutschbach’s puzzle like patterns.
Seen here at KoCA, kiosk at Sophienstiftsplatz, Weimar
Its easy to see where our childhood toys and our adult gadgets cross over: kits. In both instances, users are buying into a kit, a product system within which they have the freedom to build according to instructions or to diverge into the realms of adaptation. Ladyada reported recently on two “heartwarming stories of mass kitting” in which her kits were used as tools for learning and teamwork - clearly her kits straddle the camps of ‘kits for play’ and ‘kits for products’.
So when our products inhabit a platform that is so easy that anyone can edit their own products, what does this mean for designers? A Core77 article asked this very question of its readers quite recently, and the response is interesting as a synopsis of the arguments.
From the blunt:
“… [design] is a 360 degree approach and how you integrate other disciplines into it. if you can’t do that, then yeah, joe six pack is going to eat your lunch with the 5 axis cnc he built in his garage.”
to the rather more considered:
“It’s possible there may be a time where, when you buy your next iPod or Nokia or Dyson, you don’t get a physical item, but a disc full of 3D files which you assemble into a unique product. Some of the parts will be mandatory and unchangeable, some will be optional, some might be modifiable if that’s what you want to do. Then you take your “design” to an authorised store who manufactures it for you. Doesn’t in any way mean that the role of the designer disappears, but it would change the consumer landscape significantly.”
It appears that yet again, the answer depends on how the designer defines themselves. If you are a designer of objects exclusively, you may find your business slowing. However if you’re a designer of product systems, (ie. if you’re making the kits), then as Sir Clive Sinclair found out, your future could be secured for years to come.
Michael Bihain trained as butcher and then as a carpenter before switching to interior design and furniture design. He currently teaches furniture conception at the St Luc Institute while also working with companies and distribution firms developing furniture, jewels and accessories. One of Bihain’s new designs is the iris table. He has used laser cutting to transform a single sheet of steel into a coffee table that resembles an iris. Unlike most tables the iris is stackable. I imagine stacking would come in handy along the distribution line and in a café or restaurant setting if they owned a few of them but probably not a necessary feature for home use. I don’t know of anyone who would need a whole stack of coffee tables in their house (although it does look quite cool). The tables come in black or white lacquered steel.
We live in a dynamic economic and commerical world, surrounded by objects of remarkable complexity and power. In many industries, changes in products and technologies have brought with them new kinds of firms and forms of organization. Portals like Ponoko are discovering news ways of structuring work, of bringing buyers and sellers together, and of creating and using market information. Although our fast-moving economy often seems to be outside of our influence or control, human beings create the things that create the market forces. Devices, software programs, production processes, contracts, firms, and markets are all the fruit of purposeful action: they are designed.
Using the computer industry as an example in their book Design Rules: The Power of Modularity, Carliss Y. Baldwin and Kim B. Clark develop a theory of design and industrial evolution. They argue that the industry has experienced previously unimaginable levels of innovation and growth because it embraced the concept of modularity, building complex products from smaller subsystems that can be designed independently yet function together as a whole. Modularity freed designers to experiment with different approaches, as long as they obeyed the established design rules. Drawing upon the literatures of industrial organization, real options, and computer architecture, the authors provide insight into the forces of change that drive today’s economy.
Brought to you by the good people at MIT Press.
Create your own old school analogue Flip Book animation by uploading a video to FlipClips.com. “FlipClips are individually crafted flipbooks, created using your own digital video. FlipClips are available in three styles, and are made using only the best materials around. Acid and lignin-free, heavy bond digital paper makes your video spring to life. Industrial-strength binding ensures your book will feel like a quality paperback, made just for you. Our design team can create customized covers to match a special occasion. Just ask, we’d love to work with you!” -
Available as Flip Books, Greeting Cards or Story Books, you can custom make your old school analogue animation..
Would be interesting to see what could be done by sending in some hyper processed animation, or maybe even your reinterpretation of the Radiohead video clip
Mass customization in the palm of your hand, Flip It
Swissmiss had a moustache necklace on her blog the other day. That’s right a moustache necklace. That’s definitely a unique jewellery idea, so I had a look at some of the designers other stuff. The moustache necklace was designed by Melanie Faveau, who it seems has a quirky sense of humour. If you’re having trouble writing a description maybe these will help.
“Some people think that they’re sexy. Others whould say that they’re creepy. Me? Well, I just think that they’re the perfect way to express yourself! Seriously people, I think I’m losing it!:P”
“Maybe it’s not perfect, maybe it’s a little bit crazy sometimes, maybe it doesn’t make any sense most of the time… But, you know…Well, come on in!:)”
“So, that’s it folks! We are all going to die in a painful and horrible way! Well, if you look at the news every night, it seems like the end of the world is near! So, you’ll asking me:” What do we do now!? Please help us!” And I will tell you this: ” Who do you think I am? I don’t know! Go to work, pay your taxes and leave me alone!” LOL;)”
You can see more of Melanie Faveau designs and descriptions at supermarket.
I suspect, perhaps pessimistically, that the reason that I do not program my PC like I programmed my Spectrum is not to do with the technology per se: rather it is due to the propensity for creative construction lying predominantly in a) the naivety, and b) the abundance of time peculiar to childhood.
It is in the child’s market that I am sure we can see the best innovation - for one thing it seems to inspire toy designers in a way that adult gadgets don’t. For example PKNTS’s Alle Meine Klange - a modular sound toy that Make reported on recently - looks like great fun: a simple, highly potent platform for playing with electronic sounds between computer and tangible blocks. Lego, Meccano, Quadro were all kits that I and countless others revelled in as children and I think are responsible for many people’s DIY and ‘hacking’ tendencies, not to mention simple mechanical knowledge, a theory that is borne out by the prevalence of these kits in design studios generally!
The wikipedia article on constructionism as a learning theory postulates that:
“learning is an active process wherein learners are actively constructing mental models and theories of the world around them. Constructionism holds that learning can happen most effectively when people are actively making things in the real world.“
Clearly the trick to designing products that people love to play with right through into adulthood, and can still apply, is in building a product platform, a system, that users can bend to their own needs, and that doesn’t require huge amounts of skill or experience. Which is basically what is slowly happening now in industrial design thanks to CAD, the web, and digital fabrication.
