with solar panels (once again) the craze, a lot of discussion goes into whether they are truly efficient and whether they do the environment any good. most solar cells require a lot of energy and materials to manufacture, and many do not produce much energy over the course of their lives. under optimal conditions (in […]
Category Archives: fabrication
mini-martians
few human artifacts have traveled beyond the earth’s gravity, and even fewer were designed to carry a message to those beyond. compared to the elegance of the messages included with the pioneer and voyager spacecraft, our latest extraterrestrial broadcast seems a little immature. on the other hand, it’s very very small. mark wadsworth and tom […]
Also posted in 2d, guerilla, possessed products, visualization
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almost made in china
atelier van lieshout‘s ‘almost perfect’ is a chair that was drawn on a napkin and sent to china without further information. most of the detail was achieved by the chinese manufacturer, lending a sense of imperfection and the mystique of a knock-off to the finished product. on the opposite end is the incessant attention to […]
Also posted in blogogracy, futurecraft, open objects, product design, soft/glowing
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kitchen blogs
olivier peyricot’s video set is a set of cookware with integrated cameras that allows their contents to be captured and displayed on computer. this reminds me of takashi okamoto’s kitchen blog project, in which a simple countertop device allows video to be recorded and edited and posted to a blog for friends and families to […]
Also posted in blogogracy, futurecraft, product design
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wastelands
today’s AP story about the falseness of e-waste recycling is a little late, nevertheless it points out the important fact the electronics can’t really be recycled (much like other products), rather they’re burned and hacked apart to salvage what little precious metals they contain. the most important point of the article is that recycling of […]
Also posted in materials, open objects, possessed products, product design
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artificial tusks
in the late nineteenth century billiard balls were the fourth most important use of ivory, after knife handles, piano keys and combs, but they required the largest and highest quality tusks. nearly 50 tons of ivory were made into billiard balls each year for the european and american markets. consumption had exhausted supplies almost entirely, […]
Also posted in materials, possessed products, product design
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green-washing bottles
today i forgot my water bottle and ended up buying one with my lunch, only to discover that poland springs had responded to the fury over bottled water in its own way: by using a new ‘eco-shape’ bottle, made from the same PETG as before, but containing ‘up to 30% less’ of the material. here […]
Also posted in energy, marketing, product design
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distressful
according to this report by the journal ‘environmental health practices,’ the practice of making cotton clothing is extremely damaging to society and the environment. globalization, consumerism and recycling have made it possible to produce massive amounts of clothing that end up largely unworn and sometimes redistributed to third-world countries after several trips around the globe. […]
Also posted in futurecraft, livingbreathing, open objects
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