Yes, Topobo is out, you can buy it!

Hayes Raffle designed the famous Topobo robotic system for kids during the course of his Master and PhD at MIT. He finally decided to produce it, so you can now get it for your home or school!

Video

What is it like to sculpt with motion? Topobo is the world's first construction toy with kinetic memory, the ability to record and playback physical motion. Snap together Passive (static) and Active (motorized) pieces into a creation, and with a press of a button and a flick of your wrist, you can teach your creation how to dance or walk. The same way you can learn how buildings stand by stacking up blocks, you can discover how animals walk by playing with Topobo.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure

SMS pictures on a frame

For last Christmas my sister offered my grand ma a photo frame on which she can display digital pictures via usb upload/connection. It is a pretty cool idea, but my grand ma needs to constantly plug a usb key if she wants to update her pictures. Also she prefers the beauty of printed pictures rather than pictures on a "TV like frame".

It is interesting to see how printed pictures are important. They have a specific meaning. It is not about what the pictures represent, it is about holding the pictures in the hand, turn them and draw notes in the back, sliding them in a book, bringing it from places to places. During the war, my grand father used to send my grand ma pictures with his beautiful poems written in the back. They served a specific function with a letter.

Now that these digital frames invades the mass market, I wander what is left from the entire spectrum of photo-human relationship. I consider them being something that have little to do with the traditional picture. They conveniently randomly select pictures and display them.


The Vivien photoradio: They send picture emails. You get picture postcards.

One idea that I recently found, from interaction designer John Kestner who gave a talk today at Media Lab, is the photo digital frame that receives pictures from SMS. The designer repackaged the printer into a photo frame and its display is the out tray of the printer.

Vivien translates between generations. Vivien prints pictures with messages on the back from family and friends, placing them right into a photo frame. It is warmer and easier to maintain than current printers and requires no computer, receiving emails with pictures, subscribed photostreams and SMS messages through Wi-Fi.

On can print messages in the back of the picture."A Standalone device that receives picture emails, photocasts, and SMS messages from family and friends, and prints picture postcards into a photo frame." It is a good idea because it invites for a new relationship to the picture frame, here it creates a message with a surprise! Of course there should be some kind of filtering mechanism for spam SMS pictures.



Vivien photoradio also comes with Clark that provides a quick Internet connection to users without one. Nearby Vivien photoradios will begin receiving content!


Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Wooden Toys

After Paper Toys, one can update to Wooden Toys. Ben Wilson combines product and graphic design into his furniture kits. The chairs are routed out of one sheet of 8x4 15mm Birch faced ply-wood or MDF.



Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Hollow Voices

Hollow Voices by Laurent Massaloux

The product being designed hollow, the radio turns on when its open face is placed on the table.

Posted by Cati Vaucelle @ Architectradure
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Coded silverware

Organizing plane tickets, barcode, highway lines in term of their coded visualization, Rodolphe Dogniaux presents the visual common coded points between these objects. He proposes that if a weave pattern can be a structural element of a function, then he can use it to conceive objects. He starts by playing with a leather sofa under the principle of weave pattern. He ends up with two weave coded sofa!




He applies this principle on silverware and thinks in term of geometrical zone rather than geometrical weave. He creates “couverts zonés codés” Coded zoned silverware



Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure
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The subtle vibrations

Duncan Wilson created Otto with Manolis Kelaidis at the Royal College of Art.

OTTO (Greek for ‘ear’) is a device that makes hidden sounds audible. This is achieved via a thin polymer piezoelectric contact that senses weak vibrations and plays them as a sound through an integrated speaker. OTTO can be positioned on almost any surface through a combination of suction and magnets. By placing several units on different objects, one can select and create a new sonic experience and a form of ambient music appreciation, thereby utilising our space as a multidirectional audio platform.

Every object and surface in our environment has a whisper; subtle tremors and vibrations that are usually undetectable to the human ear, produced by the activity and movement of daily life. What if these sounds were audible? How would that change our aural awareness, perception of space and attitude towards objects? Would it be possible to ‘compose’ our own soundtrack using our walls and objects as a new form of instruments? Madsounds is a proposal for a different appreciation of our environment, space and objects by making it possible to identify, combine and manipulate these sounds.

More projects from the RCA.


Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure

Therapeutic objects

Having researched and designed haptic devices to support psychotherapeutic treatments, I am fascinated by French designer :) Mathieu Lehanneur's work on therapeutic objects he conceived with psychiatric consultants: Bernard Lachaux, Patrick Lemoine and model makers: Alban Danguy des Deserts. These objects are part of the permanent collection of the MOMA, NYC.

He proposes a series of objects not only as an attempt to bring design into the medical sphere, but essentially to design medications from the perspective of the patient and his/her illness relationship.

His scenario envisions: the placebo effect, a participation of the patient in his/her treatment, making the medication a communicative and sensory object, debating on the mechanistic approach of modern pharmacology, playing on emotions of attraction, desire, fear and repulsion towards a device or a particular form using gestures, usage practices and rituals.


Therapeutic felt-tip pen, 2001.

This analgesic for chronic pain is a systemic medication, which acts on all symptoms together. All that is required is to write on the painful area of the body each day and to remove the used cartridge at the end of each day. This transdermal product is coupled with a user-friendly ink that disappears after several minutes.




The Third Lung, 2001.

This project consists of a base treatment for asthma. The patient who refuses to accept his illness will reject even more the idea of taking medication unnecessary. The idea behind this therapeutic object is to establish a relationship of dependence.

But in this case the medication is dependent on the patient. Between two doses, the volume of the medication increases, this displaying its own physiological problem and indicating to the patient the urgency of taking the medication. Once the dose is administered, the volume decreases and returns to its normal level, only to expand once again until the next dose is administered.


The First Mouthful


Posted by Cati Vaucelle
♥ Architectradure

A special chandelier

Back from the ICA with Adam, I was struck by the work designer Tobias Wong a provocateur who creates the unexpected from the everyday and the everyday from the unexpected as he was being introduced during the exhibition, but I also think it is more than. What is so special about such art and craft work is to feel inspired in experiencing the work.

The object is special. It takes a refined sensitivity from the artist to make the careful design decisions exhibited by this piece. In the black shade chandelier, a classical design is made new by a switch between the form of the candelabra and the candle. These are two different objects, two different materials that create a single form in glass and insist on the simple mechanism of an oil lamp. These subtleties are the decisions that I love in this work.

In the exhibition was also presented the Disposable Crystal Cup, a sixteen-ounce paper cup printed with a trompe l’oeil crystal pattern. In this piece I felt Tobias Wong took the epidemic of the thrown away and juxtaposed it with the ultimate of luxury imagery.


Tobiad Wong also created this traditional crystal chandelier encapsulated in industrial white rubber

By Architectradure

USB with style

Design your own USB blank cassette just like the old mix tapes.

If you are a little nostalgic of your past, companies are investing solutions. The tech from the past becomes the trend of now. A classic such as these kind-of-cool usb-devices-looking-tapes by Mixa that can be tailored with personal digital stickers, like a day at the beach or your dog with some 80's hair style.

Typewriter

Ambo Dextro
Reconfigured typewriter, enamel
2005

A Poster with an alterable Structure

Jessica Nebel created this poster with an alterable structure that I discovered on Type for you. The poster displays tangible pixels as messages.“Pixel It” consists of two layers of paper. Cuts on the white outer layer allow the user to fold parts out and therefore create a "Pixel-Structure" by showing the colored layer underneath.

Toast messenger

Once upon a time, a morning, a child who would like to hang out with his friends and play Dungeons and Dragons instead of visiting his grand parents, well this toaster would do it. A subliminal request can be printed on the parents' toasts and the little gesture of preparing the breakfast will convince the parents that role playing games assure their child the development of a sense of otherness and care. I don't really know what designer Sasha Pure envisioned when developing this concept, but I believe there is a poetic and idealistic rationale behind it.

Chrono Shredder

The Chrono_Shredder is a device that makes past time tangible. It is a hybrid between calendar, clock and waste producing automaton. It has no on/off-button, thus it is unstoppable, just like time. It features the 365 days of the year represented on a paper-roll. The paper-roll is led through a hacked paper-shredder, which is programmed to use exactly 24 hours to shred one "day".

Designed by Susanna Hertrich the Chrono Shredder invents a near-future scenario, in which people have embraced human hibernation as common practice and efficient method to delay their natural ageing. The chrono_shredder is one product from a fictional series of products, which are developed under the umbrella of "memento vivere" (remember that you also have to live your life). Those products target at people with hibernation obsession.

Brush and rince!

I stumbled upon this very fun project, a toothbrush that can redirect water from a faucet to your lips for easy rinsing.

Vital monitoring system concept

Dan Bishop has designed the Vital Monitoring System concept that enables medical staff to take and record a patient's vital signs effortlessly. The baseline vitals must be taken manually initially for future readings to be based upon it, but subsequent readings are made much easier. All the patient needs to do is swipe the temperature sensor across their forehead, where the device will then get to work by activating its blood pressure/pulse sensor on the inside of the monitor. The patient is alerted to do so via a light vibration (although a slight electric shock on April Fools' day would have been funny). When will we see hospitals feature the Vital Monitoring System? Not anytime soon.

Via ubergizmo

Felt rocks

Just because I find them beautiful ... Felt rocks by Molo.

In their raw form, a felt rock is technically a lump of felt formed when small bits of wool fluff gather while making polishing wheels for optical lenses, spun around in a drum with them. With steam and pressure, each stray piece of wool begins to entangle itself with others roughly creating a completely unique rock-like shape without the help of any bonding agents. Each felt rock is then carefully selected by molo and then finished through their own process. Felt rocks are solid all the way through, made out of 100% pure wool felt, and carefully dyed. they come in hand selected sets of 5 ( 2 natural and 3 grey, or 2 moss green and 3 grey ) and are packaged in a natural grey wool felt bag.

Paperless or techno flat?

Miquel Mora Mor | Paper Alarm Clock | Printed electronics on paper

What ever happened to the paperless future?
What if we could enhance paper instead of getting rid of it?
The Flat Futures project deals with this future. A future where, through printed electronics we could print technology (displays, batteries, speakers...) in flat and flexible surfaces. Objects will wear technology instead of carrying them inside. It will become their skin.
How will this affect our lives? How will our relationship with these enhanced objects change? If any surface can display anything, where will its value be? In the physical object? Or in the information itself?

Bracelet for moods

An interesting, beautiful but difficult concept design idea, Sense by Patty Yuan, a wrist-based bluetooth device that senses your emotion by reading your heart rate, skin temperature.

Mapping emotion to biometric data is a difficult research question, especially when it supposedly presents itself as a nonverbal communication device. What is communicated here? What is the language? What is the feedback loop? Many devices from this category deal with the same complexity: how to map these data to a visual or haptic language.

Framework: the four pleasures?

Designing Pleasurable Products by Patrick Jordan presents four pleasures to understand human experience (with products and services). In an interview for design and emotion he explains: "The Four Pleasures is a framework developed in the field of anthropology. In his book, The Pursuit of Pleasure, Lionel Tiger identifies four different ways in which humans can feel pleasure. These are: physiologically [the body and the senses], psychologically emotions and thoughts], sociologically [relationships], and ideologically [values]. I thought that if we applied the framework to understanding people and what they wanted from products, it could provide some useful insights and help guide design, marketing and branding decisions as well as business strategy."
His book aims to help designers structure their approach in understanding their users.

Playground for all ages

The company Lappset designed Smart Us, a technological playground to connect all age users. Even though it is a very interesting concept and I cannot wait to try the interactive playground, I could not determine how it can really connect users of all ages, especially ederly. Thank you Susanne Jacobson for introducing me to this innovative Finish company!

SmartUs is a product concept developed by Lappset that uses technology to link the playground and its users. SmartUs offers interactive games for all age groups. The users can create games and applications based on images, sounds and text that support learning on the playground. The SmartUs product concept can be made use of in learning through play, playing computer games physically and in different kinds of well-being applications for special groups.

Among the four games available, the conquistador is a game of conquest, which gets people moving. Conquistador is played over the whole SmartUs field and players compete to be the first player or team to gain a specified number of different territories within the field. Territorial conquest is achieved by getting to the iPosts message poles and showing your iTag ID at the pole’s identification point. "It is especially suitable for players who are agile and alert. On the field, each player tries to conquer his/her own part of the game's fantasy world, and helps his/her team towards a common goal. The game develops tactical ability and teamwork skills."



Players carry on the iTag with them. The iTag sensor, distributed to users of the SmartUs environment is a key-sized sensor, that can be carried as a wrist watch or at a key chain.