Showing posts with label design. Show all posts
Showing posts with label design. Show all posts

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Coincidence?





Maybe it's just me, but the fantastical concept car pictured above appears to have more than a little in common with the purported alien-derived "drone" pictured below.





Both vehicles sport distinctive eggbeater-like protrusions and both make use of some form of unknown physics. In the case of the "drones," photos featured in cleverly crafted documents depict portions of the craft locked in position without making physical contact with the main body (see image below). The concept car's disembodied rear wheels would seem to make use of a similar concept.





So, is there a causal link? Your guess is as good as mine.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

If walls could talk

Trigger Point Mouldings by Touchy-Feely (Dezeen)





Architects Stephanie Davidson and Georg Rafailidis of Berlin practice Touchy-Feely have designed heated protrusions from a wall to assist in muscle-tension relief.


"Muscle-tension relief." Yeah, sure.





"The mouldings encourage heightened, physical interactions between bodies and architectural surfaces," say the designers.


Enough said.

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What will you be driving after the Singularity?

Ultra-futuristic concept vehicles (Pink Tentacle)





What will automobiles look like 50 years down the road? If they turn out to be anything like these concepts from the design studios of four major automakers, we are in for quite a ride.


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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

The chair that lives your life for you

Autonomous Living Unit by Eduardo McIntosh





Called Autonomous Living Unit, the project envisages furniture that could be installed in derelict buildings and deserted housing projects to "provide for the basic needs of the 21st century human being."


I don't see an espresso machine anywhere.

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Friday, May 22, 2009

Concept bots

Top Ten Robots That You Never Knew You Wanted

(Thanks to @bruces.)

Friday, May 01, 2009

The color of consciousness

I never thought parapsychological research would lend itself to interior design, but it appears I was wrong.

A lamp that reads your mind . . . maybe

The researchers claim -- and at this point the science sounds a bit fuzzy to the lay observer -- that the internal REG can be influenced by the human mind whether by intention, emotion, thought or subconscious processes. Apparently years of research have shown that REGs can be influenced by human consciousness. Even if the research sounds mind-boggling, the lamp is visually striking and most likely a source of light entertainment for family and friends.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Rock and read

This is way better than the jury-rigged domestic generator in "Soylent Green."

Sunday, April 05, 2009

Epidermits, meet LoveLump.

Scariest Toy Concept Ever: The Epidermits Thing





Oh, this is much worse than you think. The Epidermits toy is the Karten Design firm's bizarro, conceptual end of several current trends in the toy/gadget industry, like personalization, fuel cell engineering, and animatronics. It is the scariest concept design I've ever seen.


The scariest, you say? Obviously, you've never encountered the LoveLump, pictured below.



Sunday, March 29, 2009

Just a hint of "Blade Runner"

Geotectura's AIRchitecture: Flying Buildings!





The campus building concepts combines a static learning center for libraries, offices, lecture halls, and an auditorium, with flying workspaces and off-site "zeppelins" to allow for more dynamic collaboration and exchange. This concept might sound crazy, but it is certainly a great example of a minimal footprint.


Cover the "zeppelins" with heavy-handed neon advertisements for the off-world colonies and we're getting somewhere . . .

Friday, March 27, 2009

An "unpredicted need"





Full story here.

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Move over, triffids.

BLDGBLOG introduces us to the feral majesty of the Ghillie suit:

Manufactured under the tagline "It's what they don't see that's important!" Ghillie suits are made for paintball -- but they are an amazing example of fashion design and landscape simulation together in one. Less a style of dress, they use garments to represent -- and thus blend into -- the earth's surface.






These things are positively fascinating from a science fictional perspective; an entire series of "B" movies could be filmed using little more than a handful of suits and mock firearms. And, unlike most low-budget sci-fi monsters, they're authentically creepy.

(I have a strange whim to purchase one and transform myself into some rogue Gaian archetype, offing unsuspecting hunters as they prepare for the kill . . .)

Has Loren Coleman seen these things yet?

Power suit

'Pillows for working late' makes your desk better than your bed

From Polish product designer Maja Ganszyniec comes a boon for late workers: "Pillows for working late." The three-piece set includes a tie, sleeve and and collar, so matter how you fall asleep at your desk you're covered.


I love this idea because it seems so perfectly ridiculous and yet so tantalizingly plausible.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Do kidney patients dream of transgenic sheep?

Introducing the strangely plausible human-animal interfaces of designer Revital Cohen:



Revital Cohen's Pecha Kucha at Design Indaba 2009 from Design Indaba on Vimeo.


There's an unacknowledged element of surrealism at work here; I find Cohen's marriage of empathy and pragmatism pleasantly disturbing and unintentionally cautionary.

Dezeen has more.

Saturday, March 07, 2009

Obamicon


Friday, March 06, 2009

Skin condition

Birthmarks Tattoo

As the name suggests, Birthmark Tattoos, are fake - but permanent - birthmarks that you can add to your body. Aside from its decorative potential, birthmark tattoos makes it possible for your and your partner to 'exchange' birthmarks or to imprint your body with a secret message in braille.

(Via Next Nature.)

Sunday, March 01, 2009

World-building





The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism

For his final student project presented last month at Rice University, Viktor Ramos produced The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism.

The project explores how new forms of habitable infrastructure might be extrapolated from a geopolitical agreement -- in this case, materializing architectural form from the legal interstices of the Oslo Accords.

The result is a fantastic example of architectural speculation: genuinely massive -- and impossibly cantilevered -- bridges used as transport links, aerial housing, and skyborne agricultural complexes, all in one.


I can't help but admire the sheer utopian audacity at work here; I'm reminded of the vertiginous landscape of K.W. Jeter's "Farewell Horizontal" or even the megascale splendor of Niven's titular "Ringworld."

Saturday, February 28, 2009

Hovercar!





Yeah, it's "merely" a speculative design concept. But since when does that matter?

Monday, February 16, 2009

Farmers in the sky

Spiraling Skyscraper Farms for a Future Manhattan

As the world's population continues to skyrocket and cities strain under the increased demand for resources, skyscraper farms offer an inspired approach towards creating sustainable vertical density. One of three finalists in this year's Evolo Skyscraper Competition Eric Vergne's Dystopian Farm project envisions a future New York City interspersed with elegantly spiraling biomorphic structures that will harness cutting-edge technology to provide the city with its own self-sustaining food source.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Glorious implausibility

JetBike is an awesome way to get around





You know, a lot of concept designs pretend like they're based in some kind of reality, using plausible-sounding technology to make them seem practical when in fact they're based purely in fantasy. That's why I like the JetBike concept: it doesn't even try to pretend to be realistic. It's a JetBike!


Judging by that nozzle jutting out the back, I'm betting it leaves one hell of a carbon footprint.

Deathpod

Top 10 Bizarre Coffins

Check out #6.