architecturalmeg

2009-03-13T07:08:00.008-07:00

So in honor of Miz Jess's birthday, I tried my hand at a full apron. I made little skirty aprons for a few of my girls for Christmas, but really, you don't get messy around the skirt-area when you cook so much as generally slopping things down your front. Maybe that's just me.

Previous post shows the sexy brown pillowcase. Who in the hell would ever think sheets like that were a good addition to a home? They're not even soft. But I digress.

I had to get kinda creative with the fabric distribution, because I was working with limited materials. I already had some plain muslin on hand to line it with, which I also used for the strings and neck strap.

A shot of how I pieced it together:

Instead of stenciling or applique'-ing a chicken, I found a cute hen pillow on etsy and decided to straight-up steal the idea. My twist, though: Hen Pocket! It's a Pocket. Shaped like a Hen.

Closeup of Hen all laid out:

Aren't you cute. The details were small sample bits included when I ordered some other fabric. I'm pleased at how well the colors go. I considered putting an egg on there somewhere, but I think it's fine without.

I'll skip the how-to, because there are lots of better apron patterns than the one I came up with on the fly out there on the internet, and cut right to the Finished Product, as modeled by the lovely Brahbrah (who is still Under Construction):

I'm pretty stoked on this, it is Hell of Cute. One note, though. The fabric came from the thrift store, and I didn't wash it before I started the project, because the laundromat was not in my plans until after I wanted to start on it. Ironing stuff straight from the thrift store produces a Seriously Disgusting Smell. It's like Thrift+. I'm going to wash it this afternoon before forking it over, but man. I think I've learned my lesson.

2009-03-13T06:36:00.006-07:00

I have several projects going right now, in various stages of completion, thanks to a Killer Lunch Break at the Thrift Store.One of my Homegirls is an artist, and we've talked about making a trade: I'll sew her something nice, and she'll give me a piece of art. I would say that I come out on top, because I love to sew and then I get something sweet in return? But she doubtless enjoys painting as much as I enjoy sewing, so... everybody wins! Even better. The Rainbow Thing is a medium-weight cotton shower curtain, and I'm envisioning a 1970s-style summer top and sundress out of it. Maybe something off-the-shoulder, Mama's Family-style (what?).

The Green Thing is a killer linen tablecloth. I'd love to make a 1950s-style wiggle-dress with a boat neck and pencil skirt, like This Nice Lady did here, also out of a tablecloth. I kinda doubt I'll have enough fabric for that, so it might be just the pencil skirt. And that is Oh-Kay too.

The Brown Thing! It is an Old Pillowcase. I started deconstructing it before I remembered to take a picture, so the grody, stained off-white thing is part of it too. This is for milady Jess's birthday. It's going to be an apron, because she has recently taken a serious interest in cooking, and I'll always do my part to encourage mutual interest in Awesome Things. I thought the pattern on it looked an awful lot like chicken wire or chain link fence, so the plan was to make some sort of chicken decal or applique' to go on it. Very reminiscent of something I would've found in my grandmother's house.

Next post: The Chicken Apron.

2009-01-05T12:51:00.006-08:00

So my folks had a wooden wine box they offered me a while back, and I took it with the intention of someday making something functional out of it. After six months of it sitting around on the floor, I got inspired Saturday morning to do something real with it. I'd planned on just going to the hardware store and buying turned legs to screw on, but I got lost and couldn't find a hardware store. I did, however, pass the thrift store on the way home, so I stopped in to see if there was a cheap piece of furniture in there that I could just saw the legs off of, keeping my contributions to the waste stream to a minimum. I found a perfect round side table, with long, very simply fastened legs that I didn't even have to saw off.

I'm giving the leftover tabletop and glass piece to my friend Tina, who is an artist and can doubtless make something wonderful out of them.

My next step is to successfully find a hardware store and buy some small hinges for the lid, so that it can be a functional storage piece as well as an auxiliary kitchen prep table.

This morning I discovered the 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse contest at Extreme Craft:

It is a call for precisely what I made: some sort of refuse, creatively repurposed to fulfil some need, want, or desire. The contest wasn't just furniture, but "paper and book arts, jewelry, clothing, home and personal accessories, furniture, art, and miscellanea for possible publication" in a coffee table-type book There appeared to be at least 1500 entries when I uploaded mine. The competition's not too stiff, and if I'd known I was going to be doing it competitively before the last day to do submit, I probably would have put forth my best effort with the hinges and maybe some tung oil, as opposed to making it piece. Even if it doesn't win anything, I have now jumpstarted my decision to enter design competitions and push myself creatively.

2008-10-20T06:20:00.011-07:00

Oh man, last part! The side pillows are probably the easiest, just because they're tiny. I deconstructed the old side pillow covers, to reuse the cording and zippers, and to use the pieces as a pattern for the new fabric. 2 zippers, 2 bits of cording, and the side panels for the pillows.

Covering the cording is pretty straightforward: wrap a 1.5" wide strip of cloth around the cording tightly (right-side-out for once), and stitch it up. I might be mistaken, but I think it's advised to use a special foot for sewing things like zippers and cording. Since my sewing machine is an awesome old 1970s hand-me-down from my former landlady, it doesn't have all the fancy attachments, so I just did it with a foot ordinaire, and it turned out fine:

Cut out two panels per pillow, slightly larger than the pillow itself:

Since there are no edge-panels for these, to accommodate for the pillow's shape, cut a 2-inch slit diagonally inward from each corner, and stitch it together like so:

Putting it all together with the cording is only slightly tricky. Same basic concept as all the others: pin it all together, inside-out and tightly. Working with the cording, you have to feel at it the whole time, to make sure the cord-part of the cording is lined up straight on the seam you're trying to sew. I'll try to illustrate it with a few pictures, maybe it will be more understandable:
If you look closely, you can see that the cording is facing the inside, sandwiched between the two side panels of fabric.

Being stitched up.

Below is the mostly-finished side pillow cover. To accommodate for the zippers on the bottom, hem the bottom edge of the panels:

The couch, in all its glory:

I'm pretty pleased. Notice the attempt at aligning all the patterns across the component pieces. There's only one really badly matched part: it's discontinuous across the left and right seat covers. I definitely had enough fabric to do it correctly, but I took leave of my senses when I was cutting it out.
Secret: it's still not finished-finished. I haven't added the zippers to the bottom of the side pillows yet, mostly because I hate sewing zippers and was in a hurry to finally have a finished-looking project. I'm also going to make the little arm-covers out of the leftover fabric, because the left arm gets a lot of sitting, and I would like to keep it as clean as possible. I probably won't bother posting the how-to for the arm covers, because it's pretty much the easiest thing (next to a handkerchief) you could make.

2008-10-17T06:25:00.002-07:00

A quick note on supplies:
A good fabric store should have a reference on hand regarding amounts of fabric necessary. Bring in measurements and/or a photo of your furniture, and if there's anyone helpful working there, there shouldn't be much of a problem figuring it out. Mine, a smallish loveseat, required only 10 yards. Prints and geometric patterns generally take more, because you'll need to match the pattern on all the pieces.
As far as thread goes, go with something pretty heavy-duty (like a polyester) for the top, and then a lighter-weight thread to go through the bobbin, so it doesn't get jammed. It looks like I will be going through about 100 yards of thread total for this project (that is, 100 yards for the top and 100 yards for the bobbin). I could simplify and say 10 yards of thread for every yard of fabric you will be using, but I don't know if that's just a happy coincidence with my sofa or not.

2008-10-17T05:01:00.012-07:00

Now for the part you sit on! Seat cushions are not hard to do, but they are time-consuming. One takes about 2 hours, although the other one will probably go more quickly.
The method is basically the same as with everything else: cut out the approximate sizes and pin them inside-out to the pillow you're covering. I used the same double-flap method for this, but made a mistake. I made the double-flapped opening much too short, and had to wrestle the pillow pretty forcefully into the case. Fortunately it is a pillow and not a person. The double-flapped (or zippered if you are ambitious) part should extend around the back corners at least 2 inches, to make for a larger opening and subsequent easier dressing of the couch.
Pictured below are the top and bottom panels, the two too-short hemmed pieces for the opening, and the one strip of cloth that goes all the way around. It's a little tricky getting the pieces sewn together around the double-curve at the piece that sticks out in front of the couch's arm, but not too difficult. It seemed easier to make it look good when I sewed with the long-strip side facing up, as opposed to the large pillow-shaped panel, if that makes sense.

The same technique applies to the cushions as did to the rest of the pieces: pin it inside-out, stitch it once, try it on, and double-stitch it. Below is the once-stitched piece:

And here is the reason why I like to check it after I've sewn once, instead of going ahead and double-stitching it without trying it on:

Oops. An easy fix, but I would've been pissed if I'd gotten it all double-stitched and on there for good, only to have to take it off and fix it so the border didn't show.

The whole pillow, off the couch:

That tricksy little corner, up close:

Here is the much-referenced hemmed opening in the back of the cover. You can use leftover and misaligned pieces for this part, because it will pretty much never be seen.

Oh man, this couch is so close now:

I've done an OK job with aligning the pattern from back pillow to seat pillow to front panel of seat pillow to front panel of base cover, considering it's my first slipcover evar. This is, however, a good opportunity for anyone else to learn from my mistakes and plan it out a little more carefully; it's certainly possible for the whole thing to align perfectly.

2008-10-14T13:27:00.009-07:00

After a week of Ugly Sofa Time, I am finally in a position to start covering more pieces. Do not misunderstand, this takes a really long time. The base by itself took about six hours. A good way to break it up is a Sunday for the base, then one pillow a night after work until you're done. A week of transitional sofa is totally OK. Two weeks is borderline unacceptable, so I covered the two back pillows at the same time. While not as labor-intensive as the base, it still took longer than I thought: about 3 hours total.
The pillows are done in basically the same way as the base: take note of all of the separate panels on your existing pillow, and cut pieces out slightly larger than that. I really hate sewing zippers, so to get the covers on and off, I just made a double-flap at the bottom of the pillow where the zipper would be. Being that it's a double-flap, you cut out two pieces for the bottom.

Start out by hemming the bottom-double-flaps:

Then sew together all of the edge-pieces, bottom and sides. Lap the two hemmed bottom pieces over one another in a way that will make sense when it's a pillow cover. The picture probably illustrates that better:

The two hemmed parts are overlapping one another, facing in opposite directions.

Now do exactly like you did with the base of the couch: pin the whole thing together as tightly against the pillow as you can:

Then take it off through the bottom flap and sew it! Double-seams are a good idea here too.
It's worth pointing out that the original back cushions had two buttons on them. I contemplated doing that with the slipcovers too, but it would be really difficult to anchor them well enough to keep them from popping off. Feel free to try it yourself, if you're more ambitious than I.
It's... still an extraordinarily ugly couch, but it's on the way! At least it's more than 50% new upholstry.

2008-10-14T11:21:00.019-07:00

I am in the process of slipcovering a seriously homely inherited loveseat, pictured below. After a cursory Google search, I found little more than "Throw a sheet over it and staple it down!" Which is unacceptable. My mom gave me general directions of how my grandmother used to do it, and it's shaping up to be perfectly acceptable, so I felt it appropriate to share with the whole of the internets how I am doing it.

Cover the couch base separately from the cushions, to avoid the slipcover pulling apart from the sofa every time you sit down. This uses a lot more fabric than just tossing it over and stapling around it. The upside is that it looks consistently presentable and is not obnoxious.
To get the fitted base cover, measure and cut out slightly larger than the size of each fabric panel of the base upholstery. Then pin it all together tightly against the couch -- be careful not to pin the couch, because you're just going to have to take the whole thing off and sew it.
As far as the part that goes under the seat cushion goes, don't waste your nice upholstery fabric on it. I cut apart an old pillowcase, and it works pretty well.

Here's a closeup of the arm, all pinned up. The curves are pretty hard to sew, most of mine ended up looking janky.

After you're all pinned up, it's not a bad idea to take it off and put it on right-side-out, just to make sure your patterns line up and seams match.

Take it back off, turn it inside-out again, and sew. I actually drew on the exact line to sew, because I was really paranoid about screwing it up. It's not a bad idea, just make sure it's inside-out. Don't worry about the hem yet.
If you want, since couches get a fair amount of wear and tear, stitch the whole thing twice. You might as well, you're already sitting there with the sewing machine.
Once you're all sewn up and pins removed, put it back on the sofa inside-out. Trim up any extra fabric around the seams; it'll just make it bunchy and weird if you leave it.
Now for hemming, the easiest part. Flip it up, making sure that your pattern is even and that it stops just above the floor evenly all the way across. Pin it, take it off the couch for at least the third time, and hem it up. Be sure to iron it too, to get a nice crisp edge.

Because I am fastidious, I ironed the slipcover on the couch when I was done, so none of the fold marks from the fabric would show. This is not necessary if you are not crazy.

Ta-da!

The problem with taking on a sofa incrementally is that you are left with an uglier product than the original. Right now, this is pretty much the worst sofa that has ever existed.

2007-04-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

When I visited the Bauhaus, I passed this installation on the way from the train station:

It's called the "Expowurm," and if I had to guess, I would say it was for displaying projects. There was, unfortunately, no literature or people hanging around. It was some sort of membrane stretched over a wooden frame.

The interior could feasibly house temporary exhibits. Though the construction itself may well be a temporary exhibit. It's definitely not secure, because I wiggled up through one of the openings in the bottom to look around inside, because the doors (plain glass doors on each end) were locked.

2007-04-18T05:15:00.000-07:00

I took a train from Berlin to Dessau on Friday 13 to visit the Bauhaus. The train ride was the most beautiful I've ever experienced, and I met a nice couple who spoke about 20 words of English between the two of them and offered me bananas and crackers (must've thought I had the stomach flu).
The Bauhaus is a very short walk from the train station (on Gropiusstrasse, appropriately), and I got and understood directions, leaving me feeling nothing short of world traveler extraordinaire. A fair amount of these are already up on my Flickr gallery, but some I will repeat because I like them that much.Student dormitories.The dorms reflected in the buildings across the street.Everything, down to the light fixtures and door handles, was designed for the school.The building after WWII bombings.Gropius also designed houses for some of the professors, a few blocks down the road.A model of one of the houses, which were, I suppose, technically duplexes.
No kitchen cabinets -- I don't think Walter Gropius cooked much.

2007-03-24T13:33:00.000-07:00

In Venice, I took the vaporetto (water bus) to the island of Murano, to check out all the glass. A fair amount of the glass studios were open, and almost all of them were free, in the hopes that after you had watched the artists do their thing, you would go next door and purchase their wares. The first guys we saw were making vases. Apparently red glass is expensive because one of the things they use to make the glass red is gold. There was a line of well-dressed guys who worked there standing outside the door (cheap advertising!), and as we passed by them, one of them said, "Will you blush for me?" He knew not what stout stock I was made of; no, I will not. :)
All of the studios had cool detail work on the gates and doors, too, as would be expected.
Glass roses. It was fun watching all the big, burly Italian men sweating away to create these delicate little glass flowers.
Doorknobs on one of the shops.Glass rubble outside a studio.

2007-03-14T04:45:00.000-07:00

Last night being the professor's birthday, her husband organized a party, complete with hors d'oeuvres and a sommelier to try and learn us some class. Everyone got all dressed up, I wore makeup, we had tablecloths, and someone set up their Ipod over the speakers with Mozart. Which segwayed into Li'l John, because it was on shuffle.Irises and snapdragons Setting up the spread.Delicious vegan food. Like prosciutto, salami, and fresh mozzarella.The sommalier imparted upon us all sorts of wonderful knowledge, from how to properly smell and taste wine to colors. The three colors of red she told us about were purple (youngest), ruby, and orange (most mature). She was a little irritated that we'd started eating before we started tasting the wine, though she didn't stress the "don't brush your teeth, don't wear cologne, don't wear deodorant" that the hardcore wine tasters do. And while I usually consider myself good at picking out flavors in wine, I got none of them last night (raspberries, violets, and wood smoke). I could've said pencil erasers and petrol gas and wouldn't've been any further from right.

2007-02-10T11:46:00.000-08:00

Peter Zumthor's Therme in Vals, Switzerland is the most worthwhile thing I've done in Europe. It was an experience almost beyond words, so I snuck my camera in during "Hotel only" swim and took some photos. Brief intro: Peter Zumthor built the baths in 1996, in Vals, a town that might not even be on a map without them. It's beautiful and in a valley in the Alps. The baths are open to hotel guests most hours, and open for free to residents of the town after 11 am. We arrived Thursday night, in time for the thrice-weekly night swim, completely in silence.The baths are set up so that there are different rooms with different "experiences." Everything is in grey slate, arranged in thin horizontal bands. Rather than a room with a pool, the rooms are the pools. The above picture is the only interior "pool" in the traditional sense; it was the largest one, in the center of the baths. For the rest, you walk down stairs and wade through chest-high water to enter the rooms,which have no windows and are only lit from under the water. One bath has yellow rose petals in the water, one is extremely hot, one extremely cold (14 degrees Celsius - I didn't make it in above my knees), one really creepy that I didn't stay in very long,and one that was actually a water corridor to a heated outdoor pool. It is so surreal to swim outside in Switzerland in February. Note the mountains in the background.This morning, before public swim opened, I swam laps in the outside pool, and it was wonderful.
We got gas around the Swiss border on the way home today, and saw these two guys hitching:
(Ein foto, bitte? Sprechen sie English?)
They were Danish carpenters, hitching to Italy (our van was full or we would've offered) in what they said was "traditional clothing," though we couldn't figure out if it was traditionally Danish or traditionally carpenter. Either way it was a pretty sweet outfit.

2007-02-05T00:57:00.000-08:00

11 days of running through central Italy at breakneck speed, and I am glad to be back in Genova, even if it means picking up studio work where we left off. The first few days, we were in Rome, and I have decided that aside from the Coliseum: and the Jubilee Church, I hate Rome. Mostly because I got lost around midnight as a result of misguided decisions (I won't bring a phone or a list of numbers out to dinner with me, and I won't remember the name of the hotel, and I'll decide to leave the group and go home early. Yay me!). But after a fairly stressful evening, I ended up safely collapsed back at the hotel. Next stop was Siena, which I really enjoyed. The weather was like walking through a 35-degree sneeze, but it was a neat, small, easily navigated medieval city, and I enjoyed doing my sketches even in the yuck weather.
After a day in Siena, we went to Firenze (Florence), and I really enjoyed it. Our hotel was right across from Brunelleschi's dome and its accompanying churches, baptistries, and so forth, so not only was it a lovely walk to get to, but it was hard to get lost. :) We walked up to the top of the dome (463 stairs; a piece of cake compared to living in Genova) and the view was beautiful, even when I stood in the way:I really liked Florence, and spent a fair amount of time just wandering around and absorbing my surroundings. We went to the Uffizi museum, which houses a LOT of famous antiquities, and I got my fill of Catholic iconography for a good long while. The hotel was really cool, too -- tile floor, big windows with quaint lace curtains, high ceilings, and good and warm. The best part of Florence, however, was taking a bus with a couple kids up to San Miniato al Monte around sunset and walking around. Construction began in 1013, and it's got a patterned facade that's different from the other ones that we saw.There were neatly planted firs growing all around the exterior wall that we walked through, and it was just beautiful. It was high up the mountain, hence the "monte," and had a beautiful view of the city, despite the haze.
The last place we went was Bologna, and I would be lying if I claimed not to have called it Baloney the whole time we were there, though not to anyone Italian, because I am trying my very hardest to represent the US well. The best part about the last few days was actually not in Baloney proper, but when we took a bus to a winery in Modena: There were tables with lovely food that was supposed to go well with the wines they put out (a sparkling white and a red), and sure enough, it was amazing. They also took us up the hill to the big steel vats where they ferment the wine, which reminded me of the tour of the Flying Dog brewery. Everyone wanted to stay longer, but we had to scurry off to Parma and hit up some museums.
We're now all back in Genova, and there is a long line for the washing machine, but it's good to be back at a home base.
Photos uploaded to Flickr.

2007-01-18T07:43:00.000-08:00

So for studio, rather than just a normal studio this semester, we are preparing for a HUGE deal. April 18 is the start of Salone Satellite, a several-day-long design exhibit. It is a design expo held in Milan, and (mostly) product designers from all over the world come and show their wares. Twenty schools, also from all over the world, are invited to participate as well, and show off their best studio projects. We have one of those twenty slots. So we are working on a product-centered housing project, and we've got to have really fancy digital renderings, since we don't have access to the laser cutter or 3d printer. It's exciting, and I'm not going to stress about it, merely do the best I can, go there, and goggle at all the lovelies. If I thought the interiors expo in Greenville was cool, I'm going to be absolutely beside myself at a worldwide one in Milan.

2007-01-17T05:09:00.000-08:00

Tuesdays are travel-around-Italy days. Yesterday we took the train to Milan, 1.5-hour ride, which is truly not bad. We'd been told that it would be colder there, and MAN what an understatement. It was FREEZING. No sun, either. Apparently Milan is as such from September to April, then it turns to Sahara-like heat. Delightful. We looked at the modern architecture, which was stark and cold (and soon to be uploaded to my flickr account), and then took a running tour of the city (like a walking tour, but faster, and less enjoyable). WI went with a few kids to a cafe a few blocks away from Il Duomo (to avoid the touristy prices) for lunch, which was a pizza (everyone was eating pizza, to the exclusion of anything else on the menu) and a San Pelligrino -- I'm so Italian.
There was a huge crowd across from Il Duomo, screaming and waving signs and pompoms. I noticed a lot of 14-year-old girls dressed to the hilt, in all their faux Dolce & Gabbana (it's everywhere) finery. After asking around, I found out that it was the studio for Italy's TRL, and Take That (Robbie Williams's boy band) was there today. Hence the screaming.Screaming girls.
Camera crew filming screaming girls.

I'm considering going with a group of kids back to Milan this weekend, just for a day, to check out the shopping. I've gotta check and make sure it's doable, but Italy has sales only twice a year, January and August, and while I'm here, might as well check out the fashion capital of the world for some cheap fancies.
I love you all!

2007-01-08T08:03:00.000-08:00

Pencil sculptures mentioned below made me remember these. Everyone saw them a million years ago, but that makes them no less cool. The low-res pictures do make them a little less cool, though.

And while I don't know where this is from (found it in the Fark forums), it is neat:

2007-01-08T07:43:00.000-08:00

File this under "things that take too long for the end product to look like this." It's pencil-point art, and while I can entirely appreciate the fact that this took serious precision, skill, and patience, it looks like something you would find in that mountain house. Most fit into 3 categories:
Flowers:
Sea life:
Wallace and Gromit's runaway pants:

2007-01-05T19:35:00.000-08:00

Here's to hippies who like good design, and for lovely substitutes for petroleum derivatives! Monacca has created a line of lovelies, including furniture and bags, that use well crafted wood instead of plastic. This aligns with what I've been thinking about a lot lately -- purchasing fewer, nicer, more durable things, as opposed to throwaways. You'd be surprised at how far you can take it if you just think a bit.

2007-01-05T19:04:00.000-08:00

WOW, this is apparently one of the most blogged things to happen to the internet. Here goes one more.
Knitting by Quentin Tarantino. Or Patricia Waller. Whichever you find more apropos. (Note: some may be NSFW or NSF people with a soft spot for stuffed animals)

2007-01-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

James Lileks is a veritable pioneer of internets snark, and applied to a design-related topic, it's enough to make a lady split at the seams. Interior Desecrations is a hilarious review of various and miserable design trends from around the 1970s. He has them in book form, too, but there are amazing ones on the site (ay, me, for want that I could ever write such captions) :

"The ever-popular 'explosion in the consignment store' look is achieved quite nicely here." (Note: everyone knows someone with a mountain house decorated like this)
"No unauthorized cameras allowed, says the Old-Timey sign. Oh, don’t worry. Not when this hue and this pattern is described in most technical handbooks as 'the lens-cracker.'"

"This is the Age of Aquarius. If it’s moving, offer it a bong hit. If it’s not, paint it. "

2007-01-02T15:11:00.000-08:00

The only thing better than fancy artsy stuff is fancy science-y artsy stuff.

cluster of wildflowers:

staple through paper:
Velcro (pictures of Velcro never get old):
Broccoli!
Sweet stereomicroscopic shots from Trazy's Zoomified Flickr set, courtesy of Core77.

2007-01-01T18:45:00.000-08:00

Souvenirs from around the world as juxtaposed with their formsakes:Michael Hughes' site has them, but if you get irritated with the ubiquitous designblog Flash, here's the Flickr gallery.

2006-12-20T19:22:00.000-08:00

This would be really good wallpaper for a telephone nook:Made by Duncan Wilson in collaboration with Sirkka Hammer, it's interactive design that's both practical and attractive -- imagine! Wallpaper made of four layers of mildly tacky squares of grey paper, on top of a bright background. The patterns created as more and more notes were used, especially once it got really used and the only light greys were at the floor and ceiling, would be pretty fascinating. It would make for a really neat time-lapse study.
(from core77)

2006-12-20T18:49:00.000-08:00

Tanning made useful:It's a bikini made of 1" x 4" photovoltaic film strips sewn together in series with conductive thread. That is so fancy. It terminates in a regulator into a female (duh) USB connection. They're coming out with a dude-bikini that keeps your beer cold, too, although truly, the two functions could be interchangeable, as dudes like music as much as ladies like cold beer.

2006-12-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

Hanukkah a-go-go:
Minimalist, quick-burning menorah for your Festival of Lights on the run. 9 X 1.5 X 1 cm.
Thanks to Inhabitat.

2006-12-17T17:36:00.000-08:00

After all the simplicity and concision I've seen recently, this project addles my brain. "Falling garden," by Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger, is complex and beautiful. I can't decide if the wording on their site is poorly translated or an accurate verbal representation of their artwork. The materials they used are as eclectic as the rest of it:

Plastic berries (India), cow pads (Jura), waste paper (Venice), baobab seeds (Australia), beech, elder and magnolia branches (Uster), thorns (Almeria), nylon blossoms (one-dollar-shop), pigs’ teeth (Indonesia), seaweed (Seoul), orange peel (Migros shop), fertilizer crystals (home grown), pigeons’ bones (San Staë), silk buds (Stockholm), cattail (Ettiswil), cats’ tails (China), celery roots (Montreal), virility rind (Caribbean), wild boar quills (zoo), banana leaves (Murten), rubber snakes (Cincinnati)...

Another of their projects, Meta-jardin, features junk juxtaposed with nature. "Growing and decomposing structures live in the same territories hand in hand. Values dissolve. A dense vegetation after the big crash!" Not unrelated to my post about Detroit.

2006-12-17T16:43:00.000-08:00

The V&A and PlayStation have sponsored a fantastic interactive experience: Volume (totally surreal and worth clicking). A grid of about 7-foot-tall pillars with LEDs respond to the people walking through them with sound and varying light patterns, taking it one step further than Dune 4.0. United Visual Artists collaborated with Robert Del Naja (3D from Massive Attack)'s music production company, one point six.

2006-12-17T16:22:00.000-08:00

More intuitive/interactive installations (and more alliteration) from MoCoLoco:
This one's Dune 4.0, by Daan Roosegaarde, featured at Montevideo, in Amsterdam. It consists of hundreds of fibers that dim or brighten separately in response to 70% motion stimulus, 30% sound stimulus. And it doesn't just glow happily -- based on the amount of motion and noise, it can turn into a veritable lightening storm. The video should be online in early January.

2006-11-24T10:15:00.000-08:00

Now here's a good idea for the exterior shell of my building: reclaimed wood. An article mentioning how teak wood is being salvaged from houses destroyed by earthquakes in Indonesia, then something incomprehensible at the end, but I think it's about green resorts.
(Found at Hugg)

2006-11-24T10:04:00.000-08:00

Tee-shirts are, of course, pretty multipurpose:
Linked from Treehugger.
I think there should be a "Napkin" one. Ooh, or one with "Kleenex" written on the sleeve. The graphic would be pretty funny, anyway.

2006-11-18T14:44:00.000-08:00

Arte Luise Kunsthotel can be called "a gallery where you can spend the night." A different artist designed each room, resulting in an amazing mishmash of design concepts and types. It's a big concept for me to wrap my head around, so instead, I'll just put up some pictures.
Comic, by Kehl:

Flight - the myth, by Silke Vollmers (reminiscent of Tim's project in which everything is suspended):
Boogiewoogie, by Tine Benz (possibly inspired by Mondrian's Broadway Boogie Woogie):

2006-11-15T05:35:00.000-08:00

Peter Callesen does amazing cut-and-fold paperwork. In his words, he does "white paper cuts/sculptures inspired by fairytales and romanticism exploring the relationship between two and three dimensionality, between image and reality. I find the materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3D form as an almost magic process - or maybe one could call it obvious magic, because the process is obvious and the figures still stick to their origin, without the possibility of escaping. In that sense there is as well an aspect of something tragic in most of the cuts. " His reasoning behind his work makes it that much more beautiful and fascinating.

2006-11-13T11:36:00.000-08:00

What can you create in 15 minutes?
I think about it and feel like I could do something spectacular, but think about it a little more carefully and realize I have no idea what I would do, but it's a pretty amazing contest; it's like Iron Chef for design. I'll be interested to see the results and hope they post them all.

2006-11-12T15:33:00.000-08:00

Reset Design asked several designers to design tattoos, then printed them on people. This was the result. Some weird,
some fun,
some artsy,
some terrifying.

2006-11-09T11:42:00.000-08:00

Dismantling expensive stuff in the name of science:I love this kind of thing. Take something well designed apart, and see how it got to where it is. Core77 featured a segment called "Dissection," in which you find something neato, research all of its little bits, take it apart, and look at all of its little bits. A Motorola V.70 looks pretty much exactly as you would expect: lots of circle-pieces.

2006-11-09T11:08:00.001-08:00

Hella good (oh man I couldn't resist, I'm so sorry.):Hella Jongerius's pattern Repeat, commissioned by Maharam, are designed "to create a single textile which would permit a suite of chairs around a table to be cousins – each unique but all related". She takes four seemingly unrelated patterns (stripes, polka dots, florals, houndstooth, etc) and unifies them all through a color theme. I encountered some this summer while working in the sample library, and this stuff is neat in person; the texture is just as interesting as the color and pattern.

2006-11-09T10:32:00.000-08:00

Grandma-style teacups made no-skid:
I'm surprised that they're actually made to be distributed (by Tassa, produced for Umbra), and not just part of an art exhibit. It recalls the modernized Victorian jewelry I posted. It also brings that whole idea of art down to an attainable level, even if they are hell of expensive (which I don't doubt). Michelle Ivankovic hand-dipped the teacups (and saucers, creamers, and sugars) in bright, food-safe silicone. The most fun part of doing this would be visiting various thrift stores and antique shops for the cups, so I really hope that's how she got them. Plus, it's reusing: taking something you wouldn't use anymore and making it into something you would. (from mocoloco)

2006-10-31T17:52:00.000-08:00

Neato video.
Process:

I wish I could output projects by doodling them in 3d space and printing them like that. The control over it is pretty impressive, though; i doubt i could make anything that resembled a chair just by drawing it in the air.

2006-10-27T22:07:00.000-07:00

Before:

After:
It's a lamp that "blushes" in response to the pitch of a cell phone conversation. It's a pretty interesting concept: humanizing technology, responsive environments. Presumably the pitch of your voice gets higher when you're upset or excited, but being the shrill harpy I am, the lamp would be all pink all the time. which isn't so bad.

2006-10-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is Anya Kivarkis's neato postmodern-ish take on jewelry:

It's a play on Victorian jewelry, using similar shapes and styles, but coated in resin and way cooler.
It reminds me of this chair that I was looking for online today; an acrylic sheet, bent into the approximate shape of a chair, with a formal-sitting-room-looking chair printed onto it. It's really neat, and I was going to blawg about it, but I couldn't find it.

2006-10-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

How simple. Sieger Design's Alape washing table is nuts. It's just a spigot coming out of a table, pouring onto the table. Lovely for a public restroom or a half-bath, not so practical for a real bathroom. I wouldn't want to spit toothpaste on it, plus I would forget that the whole thing was a sink and try to put my stuff all over it.

Detail of the faucet running water on the table:

2006-10-25T08:45:00.000-07:00

All of the political issues aside, this building is just silly:
It is the ironically named "House of Free Creativity," in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. You'll never guess what they keep inside.

2006-10-19T05:42:00.000-07:00

Dumb:

This is a nice idea, how it's modeled after old mesopotamian pottery, and it looks so simple and uncluttered. Now think about holding it. Full of scalding hot tea. And trying to drink or pour from it. It's impractical. You would have to hold your wrist at such a dumb angle to avoid pouring it all down your front. The bulb handles look like they would feel nice in your hand just to hang onto while the mug's still warm but you're done with your beverage, but that's about it. And I'm not saying that the current ear-handle design of most coffee mugs is perfect, but it's definitely better. After considering the human body's interaction with products as we have been in studio, this just seems silly.
La Familia, Ole Jensen, www.normann-copenhagen.com.

2006-10-18T05:03:00.000-07:00

This chair is pretty ugly.
According to the site, which is a wealth of information, it's polyester impregnated with resin, which was one of the materials I used in the last project. I feel like my case studies looked better than this, but I can appreciate the fact that this stuff gets unwieldy and smelly when you're working with it.

2006-10-17T17:03:00.000-07:00

On the subject of the earth reclaiming civilization and the discussion in studio today, here are some great pictures of Detroit:

Once again, while some people would see it as depressing, I think it's lovely, and would really like to see it in person. It might be a little upsetting to see the city being overtaken if you've lived there all your life, or even worse, all its life (at least all its life as a big city), but not to this guy. I'm not even artsy, and I'd love to go take pictures there.

It sortof reminds me of this:

but not as terrifying.

2006-10-16T16:41:00.000-07:00

Treehugger's timeline of Earth's recovery from human inhabitation if all of civilization was wiped out at once:
Some people might think this is creepy or depressing, but I am not one of those people. I think it's great, and would love to be alive to see it (logic isn't my strong point).

2006-10-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

Ta-da: the first LEED certified home. Tom Kelly, who is interestingly enough a developer, built this house with all kinds of energy-saving features. It's a 2,000 sqft, "'net-zero energy use' home, meaning over the course of a year, its photovoltaic panels will track the sun and are projected to generate more electricity than the home will consume." I personally like the fact that there is no "lawn," per se, just rocks and shrubs. Treehugger had this picture:

Which is weird, because it's not at all of this house. But when I saw it, I got all excited, because it looked very Laura Ingalls Wilder.

(read about at Earth Advantage)

2006-10-13T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Honey Pop chair, by Tokujin Yoshioka, is an interesting concept. It's pleated paper, like those holiday decorations you get at Winn-Dixie, but couch-shaped. You spray it with water and sit on it, and move it around you until it conforms to the shape you want. It's a one-shot deal, more for the initial experience than anything, but it's an interesting method of creating it. Once again, thanks Yuichi for pointing it out.

2006-10-13T07:58:00.000-07:00

Jewelry design is pretty fantastic. It doesn't seem like something that every silly little girl wants to do, like some of the other corners of the design trade (i'm looking at you, fashion), and it could be a cool area to work in. I took clemson's lapidary arts class, and it was super, despite the fact that it was for 3 hours at 6PM on a Wednesday. Some examples from the Design Innovation Award, 2006 (Several of the pieces look like mall jewelry; the others are delightful) : Georgia Wiseman's ring of rings, from Scotland.

whirlwind ring, by Alexa Blampied:

although I couldn't find a very good picture of this one, it looks like it could've been made in Form-Z, which puts an interesting perspective on scale in those programs. I know engineers use 3d modeling all the time for designing parts, and that's most likely what the programs were created for, but it's interesting seeing something created entirely for aesthetics that could be done. in other news, platinum isn't really the best material for making jewelry out of; it's not that shiny, mostly just rare.

2006-10-09T17:11:00.000-07:00

Praline Noir, by design student Fredrik Kjellgren, the fanciest recliner you'll ever see (although I'm not sure why it's sitting on that table). The opposite of the squishy beige one that came with my apartment. Kjellgren came up with the idea by considering the concept that most easy chairs are, in fact, big, squishy, and ugly.
Funny, I mentioned researching "human-informed" furniture the other day, and someone asked if I meant La-Z-Boys. Not exactly. Not necessarily this, per se, but this is delightful just the same. Black, utilitarian, seemingly comfy, and crumbs fall right through, onto the floor, where you can ignore them. Each cushion is made of a different material, giving it an eclectic charm, but the fact that it's all black keeps it from looking like hippie furnuture.

2006-10-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

On the subject of mass customization, Yuichi told me about something cool: A-Poc. It means "a piece of cloth," and that's what it is. A continuous tube of dress, able to be customized by the user; they control lengths of sleeves, skirts, shirts, anything. which is nice if you're 5'9". Probably nice if you're short, too, but I'm not, so I don't relate.

Another cool aspect is that it's an additive process, rather than the normal subtractive process used to make most clothing, which means almost no waste in the formation process. As quoted from the site, thread goes into a machine and re-emerges as a complete project, be it clothing, accessory, or even furniture.

2006-10-07T11:20:00.000-07:00

This is a totally bizarre video.
The project is called "Dynamic Terrain," by janisland, and it certainly took a lot of work, but the movement of this thing grosses me out a little. It reminds me of the bog of eternal stench from Labyrinth.
The concept of a plane (wall, floor, ceiling?) being able to adjust to suit different functions is a perfectly acceptable one. I would definitely like to play around on this, if nothing else, and I guess the speed of the undulations (plus the weirdo music) is just to exaggerate the concept. It's still like something from an alien movie, though.

2006-10-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

I saw this image first in an Autodesk advertisement in a magazine. It's cool to see a company showcase something like that in an ad; i guess the drawing was made with Autodesk. Whatever, that's not the important part. Vertical farming is apparently a well-studied concept. This particular one is called, "The Living Tower," and it's by Pierre Sartoux. It's an interesting idea, but thinking about it too much makes me mad. seriously? scraping all the topsoil off plantable land to make housing developments, then building skyscrapers to house farmland. it seems like people have their priorities backward. nevertheless, it will sadly become increasingly relevant.
More on vertical farms.

2006-10-05T14:06:00.000-07:00

Our current project design parameters have nothing on minihome. At a bitsy 400 square feet, this house is technically defined as an RV (it has wheels), but its intent is to be used as whatever you want, wherever you want it, although I wouldn't particularly want it anywhere in Tornado Alley, because it's still a very portable home. It's modernist, but I have no problems with modernism.
From the outside it looks like a trailer and a diner had a baby with school spirit. But it is interesting.

There aren't any good, cohesive shots of interior spaces as relative to other interior spaces, possibly because the whole thing is so small you can't back up far enough to take a comprehensive photograph.
The bathroom's pretty cool, though:

This is what tomatoes look like inside your new minihome:
The website has a really good FAQ, if you're interested in reading more.

2006-10-05T13:18:00.000-07:00

tell me this doesn't look computer-generated:
You can't, because it 100% does. or at least 60% -- the bottom 60%. Thomas Heatherwick designed this for Longchamp, which appears to be a women's retailer, or one that makes really feminine man-purses. They describe it pretty accurately as a landscape, rather than a staircase. These photos make me want to climb up it lengthwise, which is probably frowned upon, considering I'd have to hop over the railing that is likely there for a reason.
It's nice to see that bendy shapes don't have to be completely lawless in terms of geometry; this shot shows beautiful symmetry through the change in elevation:
I scanned the images from "Architectural Record," which explains the magazine-y text.

2006-10-03T19:48:00.000-07:00

continuing from my last project with the concept of the unexpected, these lights, by iris design studio, are super:
this one caught my eye, considering I thought throwing a light bulb and a 9v battery in a bowl of salt water would work. apparently this light bulb is just used as a shading device, and there is actually a halogen bulb or something like that inside it. the incandescent bulb is cut in half and mounted in a resin bed, and its reflection makes it look whole.
these presumably work in the same way, halogen bulbs inside; it mostly just looks neat. although i wouldn't really want an unshaded lamp.

2006-10-02T17:19:00.000-07:00

I'd never really cared about going to Austria until I saw this in Architectural Record:

I would 100% stay in one of those. If you don't feel like following the link at the bottom, I'll sum it up here. Designed by Andreas Strauss, Dasparkhotel (The Park Hotel? I'm not German) is minimal and cool. The 9.5-ton concrete tubes are sealed with a clear varnish to keep out moisture, and the thickness of the walls is enough to keep renters cool. Each appears to have a bed, table, lamp, skylight, and cheerful painting on the back wall, which I guess you would need if you were sleeping in construction materials.

www.arplus.com/broch/articles/july%202006%20pdfs/arjul06straussdone.pdf

2006-10-02T15:19:00.000-07:00

here's the product I envisioned using in my last project: LiTraCon. It's light-transmitting concrete (hence the name) that does so by embedding fiber optics (I mistakenly thought it was glass fiber) in concrete. Created by Hungarian architect Áron Losonczi, this stuff is pretty sweet. on the site it looks to be small modules, where I had envisioned my entire building to be a relatively monolithic pour, regardless of real-world feasibility.

LiTraCon homepage: http://www.litracon.hu/
where this image usually lives: http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/light-transmitting-concrete