Sunday, May 30, 2010
Murakami Chair by Rochus Jacob
I was looking for opportunities to generate energy through activities we naturally do. The final result is a rocking chair that enables the user to experience production and consumption of electricity in a gentle and rewarding way. An abstract process becomes tangible and eventually cultivates natural awareness. Complexity is covered by simplicity. Advanced nano-dynamo technology which is built in to the skids of the chair and more efficient light sources such as the newly developed OLED generation makes it possible to build a rocking chair with a reading lamp running on electricity generated from the rocking motion. During daylight the energy gets stored in a battery pack. The construction of the flat and bendable organic light emitting diodes allows new form factors such as using the traditional shape of a lamp but instead of having a light bulb the lampshade himself turns out to be the light source. To have a drastic reduction of consumption the big challenge will be to make consuming less feel like getting more.
http://www.designboom.com/contest/view.php?contest_pk=28&item_pk=33866&p=1
Balloons from The Big Picture at Boston.com
Other great shots from this series here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/lighter_than_air.html
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) Mountain Dwellings
Monday, May 17, 2010
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Richard Wilson
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Vachel Lindsay's Gospel of Beauty
THE NEW LOCALISM
The things most worth while are one's own hearth and neighborhood. We should make our own home and neighborhood the most democratic, the most beautiful and the holiest in the world. The children now growing up should become devout gardeners or architects or park architects or teachers of dancing in the Greek spirit or musicians or novelists or poets or story-tellers or craftsmen or wood-carvers or dramatists or actors or singers. They should find their talent and nurse it industriously... They should, if led by the spirit, wander over the whole nation in search of the secret of democratic beauty... Then they should come back to their own hearth and neighborhood and gather a little circle of their own sort of workers about them and strive to make the neighborhood and home more beautiful and democratic and holy with their special art. . . . They should labor in their little circle expecting neither reward nor honors. . . . In their darkest hours they should be made strong by the vision of a completely beautiful neighborhood and the passion for a completely democratic art.
During his lifetime, Vachel Lindsay embarked on several walking tours of America in which he exchanged poetry for food and accommodation, distributing his pamphlets to the rich and poor. He was a renowned entertainer, eccentric and one of America's most famous poets. Written in 1912, Lindsay's Gospel of Beauty is a dream for a new localism that is increasingly relevant and exciting in a world where localism can transcend physical neighborhoods.