the shape memory alloy nitinol has the ability to spring back to its original forged shape when heated, allowing soft actuation without motors. italian fashion designers grado zero made a shirt that rolled up its own sleeves when the wire (and the wearer) overheat (above). later joanna berzowska and marcelo coelho made kukkia and vilkas, […]
Category Archives: materials
roll-your-own display
connor and i saw this eink display at siggraph earlier this month – it’s not the first flexible display, but it’s amazingly thin and supple. the combination of flexibility and a reflective screen make it an ideal candidate for wearable technology where it could be sewn on fabric, as well as for a generation of […]
Also posted in soft/glowing
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how things are taken apart
panasonic has a highly evolved electronics recycling program, in part because of japan’s mandate that half of materials be re-used or recycled by manufacturers. their metec site shows the extend to which televisions, air conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines can be broken down to their component materials for re-manufacturing. aside from the advantage of such […]
Also posted in fabrication, futurecraft, marketing, open objects, product design
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upcycled architecture
when i wrote about the WOBO, the bottle’s designer john habraken wrote me to tell of another up-cycling project he did in the seventies, this time using discarded industrial materials like oil drums and car parts to build buildings (see his image above). i drummed up some images of the proposed designs: which reminds me […]
Also posted in architecture, fabrication, open objects, upcycling
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mini-house
martin ruiz de azua makes essential designs such as this minimalist house (above) and nest house (below). maybe with all of the layers of social isolation made possible by earphones and wearable displays, the substance of our physical isolation can be diminished to thin sheets of mylar or leaves in a net?
Also posted in architecture, guerilla
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lubrication station
kiwon park‘s installation at the reina sofia museum in madrid features two rooms with walls coated in industrial grease and the floor covered in what appear to be once-inflated vinyl tiles. while most rooms don’t make you want to touch the walls, covering them in disgusting grease has at once the effect of making you […]
Also posted in exhibit design
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soft wing
following my theory that in the future everything will be soft and glow :rubber manufacturer flexsys is working with the air force on an adaptive compliant wing that replaces mechanical flaps with a rubber actuated mechanically inside the wing. via the new york times
Also posted in livingbreathing
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cement screen
innovation lab has exploited the idea of light-transmitting concrete to make a screen out of cement. the system works with a projector behind a wall filled with horizontal optical fibers. we all know that soon every surface can become an interface, but is this the way? with architecture-scale displays, resolution can be low while brightness […]
Posted in materials
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