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. […]
Category Archives: open objects
free chairs! (as in beer, not speech)
tom dixon had a chair grab in trafalgar square where hundreds of his polystyrene chairs were available for anyone to take home. but then, to make money, he coated eight of the same chairs in copper and has them on sale for an unnamed price at moss. i like this new application of the open […]
Also posted in blogogracy, marketing, materials, product design
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user-generated art
rudolf stingel makes installations out by covering the walls of a gallery with panels of celotex tuff-R, an insulated foil-covered foam that invited visitors to scratch, gouge, rip and insert objects like a giant graffiti wall. it’s a very moving experience because there is a chaotic overlay of multi-scaled art unique and predictable. these installations […]
Also posted in art, blogogracy, customization, guerilla, materials, soft/glowing
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rainbow builders
colour lovers is social network built around color palettes, where you can upload, browse and vote on user-generated color schemes. and the color palette generator automatically matches any image on-line. it’s nice to see user-generated content and web-based tools that can really start to be useful in designing things. it would be even better if […]
Also posted in blogogracy, perception, visualization
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stop&chop
i’ve been posting for a long time about open design, or the free dissemination of design knowledge. ponoko is a site that allows you to share designs for furniture cut out of sheet material like the plywood pepe baby’s chair (above). on the one hand, paying $120 for a tiny plywood chair seems expensive, on […]
Also posted in customization, fabrication, futurecraft, possessed products, product design
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improvisation
open-source design promises a lot of invention but has trouble motivating a lot of people to contribute design work. but one kind of distributed design is flourishing: improvised explosive devices, which are the most effective tool against the american military in iraq. () one video demonstrates the user experience:
Also posted in customization, futurecraft, guerilla, possessed products
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collaborative creation
i found peter b. meyer’s episodes of collective invention inspiring because he shows that in cases where technology has no clear application, sharing ideas is more valuable than keeping them secret. he bases this conclusion on some pretty weighty case studies: the invention of desktop computers, the spread of the bessemer steel process, and the […]
Also posted in blogogracy, conviviality, futurecraft, marketing, product design
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shared limbs
although few attempts at ‘open design‘ have endured, openprosthetics.org seems to be working. it is a forum for sharing prosthetic designs, and it is motivated in large part by amputees and their families who are seeking better, cheaper, and more functional alternatives to traditional prosthetics. take a look at the prosthetic fishing rod (above) for […]
Also posted in blogogracy, conviviality, futurecraft, livingbreathing, product design
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