Simple is the new Awesome

I would live there. Designers at H23 must be some sort of geniuses. The chances are they will soon get the Nobel prize for "Just being plain awesome".

It is harmonious, it is subtle, it is spacious, it is simple. It is everything interior design to me must be. There is something about what I call "coffee colours" that just creates an aura of sophistication in a mellow way. Perfect.

Read more about this residence here.

Please, Just give me a second chance

We have been talking a lot about reusing materials in my Eco-design lectures.

Here is a new concept: reusing products. Giving products a second life as something else. It reminds me of the song "Tree Hugger" by Kimya Dawson: "the flower said I wish I was a tree, the tree said I wish I could be a different kind of tree, the cat wished that it was a bee, the turtle wished that it could fly, really high into the sky, over rooftops and the dive, deep into the sea."

I can just imagine that shopping trolley just sit there, wishing it was a chair. I think that's EXACTLY what happened.

I am (eco) friendly. Hug me!

I am really into environmentally sustainable design recently and this is no small part due to my eco-design lecture, which has really opened my eyes to what we are doing to momma-earth.

She used to be so gorgeous in her youth, you see, but now it looks as if she has been on meth for about 20 years. We are the meth, people, not greenhouse gases, we are! I have said several times before on this blog that once you put more than two individuals together, collective stupidity reduces our intellectual capabilities to that of a piece of lama manure. Which probably wouldn't be a bad thing, considering manure could be used to boost the soil on our beloved planet.

However, since I am not a critic, but a designer, I mustn't turn this into a guilt-campaign, but look to the future. Thankfully, there are brilliant people and products out there that help me on this quest to rid human kind of general pillock-ness.

The first one is an old concept and this comes in the shape of showers as well as sinks. I even think legislation has been passed to enforce these in areas like with drought problems like Brazil. Or was that the peeing in the shower campaign? Either way, I can't remember, am too tired to look it up and an convinced that both are actually splendid ideas held back by public opinion. Basically, the water used for washing hands and deemed "dirty" is used to flush your toilet. Simple.

The second (and third) design is a bit more interesting - it is the Zelfo Embrace by Elise Gabriel and is made from wood, obviously, and zelfo. At this point you should be asking me what zelfo is. Well, thank you for asking, it is a very good question. Zelfo is a 100% biodegradable cellulose paste that can be used to create strong, lightweight and highly complex shapes. AND it biodegrades. I know, what can be more amazing than that? Penguins of course, but that is a tale for another day.

One flew over the texture nest

I've been playing around with photoshop a lot recently (check out some of my work here) and naturally that involves working with textures.

Let's face it, there is nothing like finding a gorgeous texture of some old piece of paper on the internet and sticking it behind your work with a subtle overlay blending option. Honestly, there isn't. But once I saw this, I instantly realized how empty and meaningless my surroundings are. I'm starting to feel more and more like an occupant at a mental institution with white walls around me. Funnily enough, I do not live in a mental institution and this just makes me want to change my surroundings regardless of the fact that white surfaces are like canvasses and do not interfere with our inspirational flow.

I am not crazy! Am I?

LV? Louis Vuitton or Laua Viin?

Louie V you silly bee! What is all this nonsense?

I love the fact we are drawing attention to the disgusting consumer culture that all of us have the joy to live in. I am in fact so happy about it that I'm gonna go out and do a somersault.

Enough of sarcasm, let's get down and dirty - I sincerely hope that this was the aim of this design, drawing attention to the way we consume. And by that I mean the amount of material we throw away out of ignorance, laziness or plain stupidity. We actually barely use the things we own. Think about your day-to-day life... how many times do we wear a shirt, trousers or socks before we throw them in the washing machine again? Once? Twice? Three times, really? Oh that is really well done! Do you know what? The only reason clothes get damaged is because of washing them too much and once that happens, we don't mend them. We chuck them away. In all fairness... when was the last time you sewed a hole in the sock? Exactly. And then we bin them and it ends up in a landfill. Well done, you killed our planet!

Speaking of binning, if this was not the focus of Louis Vuitton, then all designers in the damn place should be buried in a landfill too, preferably alive, because these bags are hideous.

Is typo something like a nympho?

Recently, much thanks to the wonderful people at abduzeedo, I am somewhat into typography.

Last semester we had a lecture on it and even though I understood where the lecturer was coming from and what the message was, I didn't appreciate it. Then again, I hadn't seen these videos and now I feel my eyes are suddenly opened, I am suddenly awake. Writing two blogs and tweeting a fair amount, I started thinking about the visual side of what we "say." I wish whatever I wanted to tweet or say had the same appearance as some of these videos. Wouldn't it be amazing if type would be individual and conveyed exactly our moods and emotions?

Im now going to stop polluting the internet with this boring Arial type and leave you with something much more gorgeous to look at.

Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.

Come on in, the water's fiiiiine

Recently, as a part of my Innovative Materials module I have been researching swimsuits and especially the ones banned by FINA. It would be funny to think that this was merely because Michael Phelps lost to Biedermann in the World Champs in Rome 2009, but there is sense in what these people are saying. 50%-100% Polyurethane swimsuits have been developed by many of the leading manufacturers including Speedo, TYR and Adidas. Mainly, they work the same way aerodynamics works on any production or race car, as shown below on the Speedo LZR swimsuit that has now been banned.

Before this research, though, I did not understand how clever these suits are. Polyurethane suits have a sort of a foam in them which has tiny bubbles of air in it and naturally, trapping air inside your suit lifts you in water, giving you an advantage due to lesser friction, if you will. The detail to which these things have been engineered to is incredible - the suit is entirely glued together to reduce the negative fluid dynamics effects of the seams. The suit is very hard and doesn't stretch which means once on, it compresses muscles. Compressed muscles use less energy in motion and thus allow the swimmer to keep going for longer and harder.

All this makes me think of people like Dwight Howard, the Orlando Magic starting center in the NBA. He always wears an Adidas vest under his jersey and I can't help but suspect it's no ordinary wife-beater. In the post, a player needs his upper-body strength and I wonder if superman is getting a little extra oomph from his attire. I'm not accusing, because I know he has game, but still. And when we come to this discussion, what chance do normal athletes have against the engineered ones? Is this where design makes the rich nations dominate and poor disappear? What happened to the ability to put everything out in a fair battle on the field, court or ice? Well, not ice, because everything's rigged there anyway.