Sometimes the best interfaces are the simplest: take this touch screen interface for the NTT ICC (Tokyo) entitled Micro Presence by Kenji Kohiyama, masahiko Morita, Tatsuya Saito and Shuheu Wemler from Keio University. Having photographed insects at super-high resolution, the best way to engage visitors was to show the insects real size and allow anyone […]
Author Archives: leo
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 […]
Posted in energy, environment, fabrication, furniture, materials
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tunnel of light
Anthony McCall’s You and I, Horizontal is a stunning if very simple installation at the NTT ICC in Tokyo: a single projection of a slowly changing line is transformed into a space of light. The projected light is enhanced by a fog machine in a darkened room so that the shaft of light can be […]
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eye of the beholder
While in Tokyo last week I was lucky to visit the Light Insight exhibit at the NTT ICC, and I’ll be posting about several of the pieces over the next couple of days. The first one to strike me was the Thought Projector by alien productions. The installation projects room-sized images of the viewer’s eye […]
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money pollutes
Last Fall Grant Kristofek (“sustainability champion” at Continuum, the industrial design powerhouse responsible for the Reebok Pump and the OLPC) co-authored a report entitled Colorblind: How Consumers See Green. A team of designers, ethnographers and engineers visited households all over the US to document the attitudes that govern how we think and act with regard […]
Posted in energy, environment, product design
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map embroidery
The web has transformed maps into a dorm of personal expression: once used exclusively for personalized directions, online maps have become tools for scrapbooking and sharing our experience in social networks. We can see the influence of distributed online cartography in our real-world communications, such as these stitch cards that encourage the tourist to delineate […]
Posted in futurecraft, maps, visualization
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cereal craft
Mass Customization is generally thought of as a technological triumph combining the quality of the made-to-order with the efficiency of the mass-produced. Recently, it has been proposed that mass customization could also be desirable in terms of sustainability. Custom goods are always made on-demand, reducing inventory and waste. They may also warrant higher prices and […]
Posted in customization, energy, environment, fabrication, food
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renaissance map
While visiting the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence last year, Director Paolo Galluzzi treated us to a sneak peek inside a new feature on his musem’s media-rich web site: maps drawn by Leonardo da Vinci scanned and posted in a Google maps interface so we could compare the renaissance originals […]
Posted in art, blogogracy, free & open, maps, visualization
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