October 18, 2009 • 5:22 pm 0
The duo have renovated and settled.
In Neukölln.
In a former water pumping station.
With the help of architects Nils Wenk and Jan Wiese.
The result is stunning, and their art collection is truly at home.
See and read more in the NYT
Filed under: architecture, design
October 9, 2009 • 1:29 pm 0
Hundehalskrause Hasso & Friends
by Astrid Weber, Dorothea Koch, Bernd Reuss, Arndt Menke-Zumbrägel
The Design Reaktor at the Universität der Künste in Berlin has sparked off some crazy ideas. I am a sucker for innovation, and any faith in the power of design is sometimes manifested by a sigh and some head-shaking at certain ideas when one can only wonder “whatever next?”. But hope manages to survive through many past success stories, the serendipitous creation of the post-it, for one, or the marketing directors who thought the Walkman would never catch on.
Straight from the Design Reactor:
Noa Lerner’s Music Drop
The music-drop which fits snuggly in your ear and holds enough memory for one song to be played once. A definite marketing winner. Let’s just hope they’re 100% recyclable, I can see tons of these invading our lives very soon.
Elisabeth Warkus, Marc Pohl, Michael Jonas’s Treibgut
And I can totally see myself floating down the Spree on a Treibgut next summer, endlessly playing backgammon under the stars…
Annalisa Gottardo’s Seat Here!
Or then there is Seat Here! The long-awaited solution for those who go to events early and alone and are afraid to go to the toilet in case they lose their seat. Come on, we’ve all felt that way before. (You do loose the option of asking the hunk next to you to save your seat though)
And sometimes the “merging two ideas and seeing what happens” is a bit too random. For me. Unless you have a sick dog, as well as a fashion-logo fetish (maybe they can cutomise them to match your bag?), or very long legs, a penchant for bird patterns and ride a bike at night, and last but not least the mighty Mozzabrilla, food packaging for puffy eyes.
Keep the faith, remember the moral of the Post-it story.
More about the process and future possibilities in a book
Available for 32.40 €
Filed under: design
October 7, 2009 • 1:00 pm 1
The Outlet Wall, courtesy of Ironic Sans
Whether by convenience or by design (or by desperation) I have been on a wire-war ever since my first hairdryer, and I find one solution which has been grossly under exploited in recent times is the simple good old coil. It worked so well on phones before we went wireless, one can only wonder why this has not been more generally applied and updated with more modern materials and solutions? Unless you want to DIY it.
But the world, to my great relief, is going wireless, fast. The only kit that I never want to see without a wire is my mouse. One asks so little of this vital piece of gear and yet none of these qualities are found in wireless mouses (this is indeed a correct plural aberration). And so I stumble on the Wireless Power Consortium, which not only sounds like a very serious enterprise, it is. Setting international standards for wireless charging, developing technologies, researching efficiency and with a “Linked but not tied” motto, I can’t wait to sign on the dotted line for a wireless relationship. Their website is wonderfully accessible as all their articles avoid confusing jargon and take you through their coherent development process. Surely better late than never, it does seem slightly ironic that we are finally asking for global compatibility as a standard whilst going wireless.
Nonetheless, Nokia will soon give us a wireless charger, whilst others are looking into simple methods of developing self-generated portable energy…
But for now, I need to clean up my office. Tidying cables, hiding cables… Again, I wonder why computer appliances and chargers aren’t better equipped with integrated cable-hiding? This has had no problem in the kitchen appliances’ evolution: both my toaster and water boiler have space for coiling away extra length. For me, it’s the design’s equivalent of natural selection, given common sense, as my euros will go to the most wire-friendly apparel. The Xbox has also quickly grasped the need for hide’n tidy, although I shan’t speculate why here…
Integrated storage: this desk only lets the wires you need out.
Power grommets are a great solution but I don’t have time to DIY, I’d almost rather buy a new desk with integrated cable storage. Failing that, I could always shove’m all in a box, or I found Ikea has a simple unpretentious and affordable solution.
Ikea’s no fuss solution
Going by one of my favourite design solutions, if I hate a compulsory element, I put a neon sign on it or obsessively repeat it, and all of a sudden it looks quite sexy.
Julia Wolf’s wall stickers
Here, you can go for Lacie ‘s coloured cables, or some fun socket stickers by Julia Wolf, a Berlin-based designer. I also liked this eye-catching and honorably-designed variable to the multi-plug, but my definite favourite has to be the outlet wall. I want one.
If it feels too daunting and you have kids running around, I also found the idea of drawing with cables quite cute, or keep those kids busy while you work and get them to bead your cables or get fancy and braid you wires, although I think the skill set for that is a profession unto itself, and doesn’t leave much room for going mobile afterwards.
Filed under: design
