art

Brush and Rinse toothbrush fountain
Brush&Rinse is a ingenious fun idea by Scott Amron at Amron Experimental which adds a simple curve to a toothbrush that creates a redirection of water from the sink faucet for a fountain like spout to sip and rinse from.

His concept won an ID magazine award:

“The jurors loved the way a common-looking toothbrush, gently tweaked, could shape tap water into a fluid parabola as perfect as the St. Louis Arch. They talked about the wonderfulness of harnessing the appeal of water play to transform a universally unloved chore, repeating comments about the power of design to create moments when ingenuity boosts utility to an emotional “A-ha!” Their solidarity was too strong to rouse any pithy debate, however. “Will it entice kids to brush their teeth?” (Tobias) Wong wondered. No matter, said Jeremijenko: “It rescripts a daily activity into something fantastical.” …(It) reminded the jurors of the deepest and most primitive powers of design: to create wonder where it’s least expected; to make something out of nearly nothing; to reduce people to two words. Wow. Cool.

– Barbara Flanagan”

This is pretty sweet! “HypoSurface is the World’s first display system where the screen surface physically moves! Information and form are linked to give a radical new media technology: an info-form device.”

Basically, it’s a Three-Dimensional moving surface even though in my mind, it’s just a scalable version of Daniel Rozins “Pixel Active” projects such as his fascinating Wooden Mirror which I posted about before or his Shiny Balls Mirror projects.

I’ve posted a YouTube video of Hyposurface above, but check out their website for more videos.

It would crazy cool to see this active wall combined with the Tunnel House!

I’ll post 4 videos after the jump.

Continue Reading

TED africa videos
Ooooo, TED Africa videos just started to get posted! If you missed out on the incredible TED Africa this past June in Tanzania, now you can enjoy a glimpse of this adventure online. If you prefer to read about it, I’d recommend reading 2 blog entries: Ethan Zukerman or LunchOVerIP by Bruno Giussani.

I’ll post the first 4 launched TED Africa videos after the jump.

Continue Reading



Very cool! Capturing spider-webs to make art! I love simple, random, some may think odd, hobbies that become a business!
via Coolhunting part 1 and part 2.

“The first in a two-part series, this video is an introduction to the real Spiderman, Emil “Rocky” Fiore, who captures and mounts spiderwebs on glass. Here, the episode documents his process—from spray paint and varnish to delicately aligning the glass—on a pier along New York’s Hudson River.”

“Our second video on Emil Fiore, New Jersey’s only spiderweb catcher, ventures into the forest to watch a few “catches.” Going a little deeper than Part One (which documented the capture of one web), this episode looks more closely at his process, as well as the spiders and their webs themselves.”

Second video after the jump.
Continue Reading

– Proof Aquafina and Dasani water is just local tap water!
– Super high res image of downtown boston via neatorama.
– IDSA Okala EcoDesign Guide.
Naoto Fukasawa’s project on how materials make a huge difference.
Dippy Egg set.. makes ya want eggs and toast!

– Tech guru GigaOm launches The GigaOm Show! The first episode was a great interview with co-founder James Hong of HotorNot, and CEO Bill Watkins of Seagate.
SoundBall! Pretty cool! Reminds me of Mario Brother in Reality! Watch the video!
– Double sided toothbrushes (brush your gums while brushing your teeth)(The Colgate 360 or the Reach Fresh & Clean) I think i saw this as a student project many years ago…great design!
Underwater Pool Installation! Fun fun! via Hemmey.

kameraflage
Very cool! Time to tag the whole city with invisible yet camera visible tags!

“With Kameraflage, now you’ll be able to plant subliminal messages on T-shirts, movies and billboards that can only be seen with digital cameras. This context-sensitive display technology, developed by Sarah Logie and Connor Dickie, works by using colors that are invisible to us but easily picked up by the silicon chips in digital cameras. As you can see, the lovely model above is wearing a shirt that only reveals that cloud’s lightning bolt when seen through an iPhone’s digital camera, although any ordinary unmodified digital camera would get the same result. She just as easily could have placed her phone number in that cloud. Hmm. Let’s think of some other uses for this cool tech.

Another use for the technology would be to watermark video and filmed content, so when pirates try to videotape movies by taking a camcorder into the theater, there could be a big bunch of funky-looking text all over it. Enabling this is a clever trick using a patented invisible light projector developed by Logie and Dickie. More Kameraflage clothing will be demonstrated at the ACM SIGGRAPH Unravel fashion show on August 6 in San Diego.”

via Gizmodo

column like basalt

Woa! These cascading column like basalt formations rock!

“Columnar Basalts are rock formations resulting from the quick cooling of lava flow. Fractures form in a random cellular network (similar to soap bubbles, organic cells, etc.), though the average distribution of sides is six, giving the hexagonal structures an eerie man-made appearance.”

Lots more pictures via centripetalnotion.com

newport rock cliff walk

I had a wonderful weekend venturing over to FooFest, Newport Cliff Rocks, Waterfire, and a few other activities while dining at Pizzico in Providence! Next weekends the Blackship Festival!

Here are some random cool links for the weekend:

Eureka Skydeck: An elevator that goes sideways, and pushes you out 300 meters above ground.(article)
– How to get free internet at Hotels.
Headhoods: Face prints on hoodies!
– Amazing landscape images from China.
– Wifi Blocking Paint!!!
– How to make a baby quiet by sipping water sommelier style.
– Womens dreamhome 84 sq ft space.

seattle central library rem koolhaas building

During my trip in Seattle I went to the new cascading Central Library designed by architect, and GSD professor, Rem Koolhaas.  I missed out on the guided tours, but had a good hour walking up and down the spacious, colorful, and vibrant new construction. I don’t have much to say about the design, but the details were very nice… including the many sustainable elements within the design… and from what I know about Rem, the ideas are probably very theoretical though compelling. If you really want to read more about the design, dive over to Arcspace.

tons of pics after the jump.

Continue Reading