Ten Bhomer‘s ‘Rotational Moulded Shoe’ is an anti-craft exploration that seeks to replace the manual process of shoe-making with a machine. A plastic shank is placed inside a mold with rubber resin, and as the mold is continuously rotated the rubber hardens into a shell akin to the way rubber duckies are made. While seemingly […]
Category Archives: materials
Plastic Car
Have you ever wondered why cars are painted? Is it to attract scratches? To stimulate the car wax industry? In addition to begging for a fender bender, painted panels are expensive to make, nearly impossible to repair or reuse, and they are toxic to people and the environment. The Think City car is purposely designed […]
Also posted in energy, environment
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bristle branch
At the London Design Museum a number of ‘sustainable’ projects were shown, seeking to highlight the design opportunities afforded by the use of renewable materials and traditional craft. The CLEAN series by CinqCinq uses bent branches to secure synthetic bristles in a series of cleaning brushes. The use of bright red to indicate the mass-produced […]
Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, open objects
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community radio
Most sustainable design is focused on preserving the life-support systems of our planet, but true sustainability relies on a balance between survival of people and the persistence of culture. The Magno radio is at once a consumer product made from renewable materials, while at the same time it creates a means for a people to […]
Also posted in environment, fabrication, product design, supply chain
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paper products
In a small shop in the basement of the Axis Building in Tokyo I saw this elegant little dustbin and brush made from two sheets of paper fastened with pieces of string.
Also posted in product design, soft/glowing
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carbon fiber kitchen
Move over stainless steel: I spotted this carbon-fiber kitchen island in the Tokyokitchen gallery at the Axis building in Roppongi. When I used to work with kitchen manufacturers I learned that most people only buy new cabinets every twenty or thirty years. Considering the weight and size of most kitchen cabinetry, there is a major […]
Also posted in energy, environment, fabrication, furniture
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computer aided re-design
Freitag is well known for their messenger bags up-cycled from the tarps used to cover trucks in Europe. They have a very clever web-based design application that allows you to custom-design a bag from the tarps they have in stock, even accounting for the pieces that have already been claimed by other customers. It’s a […]
Also posted in environment, fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, product design, supply chain, visualization
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paper maker
With a recent announcement of the first in-office paper recycler, it seems like localized life cycles are finally here. According to Treehugger, their process (which only requires tap water) is comparable in efficiency to industrial paper recycling, without the need to ship heavy paper to the recycling plant, to China and back. Plus it’s billed […]
Also posted in environment, supply chain
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