An outdoor friendly version of the design award-winning Drift Benches from Amanda Levete. designer: amanda levete producer: established & sons material: cement period: 2006

A beautifully designed and intuitively engineered food scale, but most importantly, it helps people make sense of what they’re eating – which is often surprisingly different than expected. producer:

If a chair could resemble a playground apparatus, then that is exactly what Konstantin Grcic has achieved with his Chair_One Public Seating System 2. Die-cast aluminum bases are connected by a anodized aluminum plank, painted in polyester powder and connecting three seats together. One version of this seating system by Grcic is modified by adding a small, circular or square-shaped aluminum table in HPL laminate. This seating system has an industrial feel that is complimented by the design’s innately urban sensibility. Suitable for outdoor use, colors include: white, black and matte black.

designer: konstantin grcic
producer: magis
material: aluminum casting
period: 2000s

Daring bright colors and contemporary designs are key essentials of Angharad McLaren’s woven textiles. Inspired by a dynamic mix of human and natural influences McLaren’s latest Shibori Pleat collection is influenced by water sport activities such as sailing and windsurfing.

Her passion for the sea and water-sports visually inspired McLaren to create a collection which features Dobby and Jacquard designs which are ideal for indoor and outdoor applications such as blinds, screens, wall panels, floor mats and furnishings. Her textiles are created using traditional techniques which are updated using the latest computerized hand-weaving and industrial technology. Materials range from organic natural fibers to neoprene to performance textiles such as recycled ropes which are appropriate for climbing. While recycling and being super eco-friendly McLaren has an ethical production method of repurposing existing materials into new woven patterns.

Product: shibori pleat collection
Designer: angharad mclaren
Producer: angharad mclaren

World’s tallest skyscraper. formerly Burj Dubai. renamed Burj Khalifa in honor of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, president of the united Arab Emirates (UAE). The building officially opened January 4, 2010. The tower is being constructed by a South Korean company, Samsung Engineering & Construction [16] which built the Petronas Twin Towers and the Taipei 101. The tower is designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, who also designed the Sears Tower in Chicago and the Freedom Tower in New York City, among numerous other famous high-rises. The building resembles the bundled tube form of the Sears Tower, but is not a tube structure.

Current records:
* Tallest skyscraper to top of spire: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m (1,671 ft))
* Tallest structure ever built: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m (2,121 ft))
* Tallest extant structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m (2,063 ft))
* Tallest freestanding structure: 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m (1,815 ft))
* Building with most floors: 160 (previously Willis Tower – 108)
* World’s highest elevator installation
* World’s fastest elevators at speed of 64 km/h (40 mph) or 18 m/s (59 ft/s) (previously Taipei 101 – 16.83 m/s)
* Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 449.2 m (1,474 ft))
* Highest vertical concrete pumping (for any construction): 606 m (1,988 ft) (previously Riva del Garda Hydroelectric Power Plant – 532 m (1,745 ft))
* The first world’s tallest structure in history to include residential space
* Highest outdoor observation deck in the world (124th floor)
* World’s highest mosque (located on the 154th floor)
* World’s highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade, at a height of 512 m (1,680 ft)
* World’s highest swimming pool (76th floor)

Designer: adrian smith ( note: the architects are the chicago office of SOM. smith left in 2006 to open his own firm: adrian smith + gordon gill

for more photos and information visit the e-zine section

Many of the most unpleasant aspects of urban life are caused by cars. Large sweltering expanses of tarmac in cities contribute heavily to urban temperatures. Cars also become unbearably hot in summer sitting in these urban deserts.

Optimizing the heliostatic photovoltaic panels ultimately evolved into their leaflike shape. Though the concept did not intentionally look to mimic the form of a tree, the panels rotate to follow the path of the sun throughout the day – much like sunflowers – absorbing light whilst also providing optimal shading for cars. Although all parked cars can benefit from shading, electric vehicles can directly charge their batteries by plugging into the solar trees.

Solar Tree is unique among anti-auto pollution designs in that it empathizes with the automobile, but particularly with the electric car, providing a place for overworked, spent cars to regain their lost torque, to relax beneath the trees, to gain back their juice in an optimal stress-free environment.

Produce: solar tree
Designer: neville mars
[via] burb

Whether or not you must throw your trash on the street, what about pink and white polka dot designer trash bags? Or Anycoloryoulike?
Each bag is biodegradable and treated with repellent for even rodents of unusual size. Though this is a New York City art intervention initiative, you can splashy trash in your town too.

Milan, design capital of the world, will soon have a new ecological hotel called Green Business Hotel.

The brainchild of architect Giuseppe Tortato and Milano Layout, will turn an old mill into an innovative four-star hotel in the heart of Milan. The “carbon free” hotel will use only renewable energy technologies.

Sprawling over 13,000 square meters, the place will comprise 120 rooms, restaurant, lounge bar, gym, spa, conference rooms, hanging gardens, courtyard, garden and a roofed parking lot 3000 square meters in size. Chief attractions of this hotel will be its lovely green area and state of the art technology. The hotel will in fact feature a complex computer network, combining hospitality, technology and love and respect for nature.

Designer: Giuseppe Tortato

the farnsworth house is located about 60 miles southwest of chicago.

Designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the late 40s and completed in 1953, the house was a one-room weekend retreat for Dr. Edith Farnsworth, a kidney specialist from Chicago. In the architecture world, the house is a candidate for one of the seven wonders of the world.

Designer: ludwig mies van der rohe

See the full article with many more photos in the e-zine section

A new application for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad for “How It Is” for the new unilever series commission for tate modern’s turbine hall by polish artist miroslaw balka.

The How It Is application for iPhone™ or iPod touch® is an interactive interpretation of Miroslaw Balka’s epic work in The Unilever Series, How It Is. Drawing on Balka’s own handwritten notes, playlists and interviews about his Turbine Hall commission, it allows you to immerse yourself in a dark and mysterious 3D world. As an added bonus, if you can get to Tate Modern, opening the How It Is App on your iPhone there will unlock a secret game.

The How It Is application works with iPhone 3G and iPod touch (though the location service will only work with iPhone 3G). It is available on the App StoreSM. The App Store lets you browse applications and download them directly to your iPhone or iPod touch.

customer review: “While I have found apps often distracting (trenches) or addictive in short bursts (doodle jump), this is the first time I have experienced a fully immersive app. Play it with your headphones in the dark and allow yourself to be impressed with how you deal with the unknown. If you have no interest in what is an experience not a game then don’t bother, but I thought it was utterly brilliant.”

Designer: champayne valentine
Resources:
tate museum
itunes app store