Personal transportation is all the rage at the moment. The Segway was the first to gain success and continues to convince people that maybe it just isn’t always necessary to own a car. Toyota have now entered the game with this tiny little unit called the Winglet.
The Winglet comes in three sizes, Small, Medium and Large, and has a top speed of 6kph. The smallest device conveniently folds into an area small enough to carry or store on a seat in your car. Whilst the Winglet doesn’t present itself as a viable option for car replacement, it certainly offers potential for those with longer distances to cover on foot. And, let’s face it, this certainly has something that the Segway lacks - the cool factor.
That said, it’s difficult to know where these devices actually sit in environmental terms. My personal take is that this particular model is essentially useless - it’s not fast enough to replace a car and/or public transport like the Segway, meaning it’s only capable of replacing walking. Which is something that we should be encouraging. So this unit can really only replace the greenest method of transportation that man can use with a not-quite-so-green and not-quite-so-good-for-you alternative. Shame, it looks like a lot of fun to use.
Personally I can’t wait to have a go on these bad-boys. Even if I can actually walk faster than these move.
This small wooden bridge in England is deceptively primitive. Designed by Valentin Bontjes van Beek and Natalie Rozencwajg, the apparently improvised structure is rather carefully designed, - a dynamic web of rough timber struts, steel cables, and computer-milled wood decking that hangs lightly from the existing trees.
This funny looking structure, designed by Specht Harpman, is aims to not only have a host of green technologies, but also to be smarter than other homes. Rather than just throwing a few solar panels on a standard design, zeroHouse maximises it’s efficiency by controlling all aspects of energy management. The house is powered by solar energy, taken from the array of photovoltaic panels that span the roof and stored in an onboard battery. The clever control of power means that the house can operate for up to a week without any sunlight. Perfect for patchy winter months.
On top of this, the unit collects and stores rainwater and even processes it’s own waste - turning it into a clean, dry compost. Even with regular use, this system need only be emptied twice a year.
As mentioned before, the real advantage of this is the fact that it’s fully controllable and adaptable to the owners personal usage patterns. An interesting looking design and a thoroughly sensible answer to making a modern, adaptable living space environmentally friendly.
The art world is a highly ponderous arena, and subsequently open for analysis. Here at Modern Design we pride ourselves on forming honest opinions, and when it comes to art, we occasionally - in fact invariably - disagree on certain artists, works and collections. Sporadically these opinions become so incredibly opposing; our office can become a hostile environment – so strong are the opinions a small faction of art contra-rebels break off and hang out by the coffee machine until reprimanded and brought back into line. Cy Twombly almost had this effect, so to avoid an in-house revolt, the editor decided to give the art insurgents a chance to flank the general consensus…and here it is.
Cy Scribbly. Why on earth, established octogenarian art deity that he might be, would you waste precious wall space at the Tate Modern (something thousands of unrecognised yet incredibly talented artists would give-up their deft brush hands for) with a bunch of old teenage scribble? Okay, I don’t mean representative art is necessarily always the best, but frankly, my senile great aunty has got more interesting stains on her carpet than some of Cy’s crude canvas ramblings. To flag it up as an abstract form of philosophical graffiti is an insult to aerosol wielding hoodie gangs across the UK and the decorated London Underground carriages that channel poor punters to the Tate Modern. I’m afraid the notable critiques, the ones who decide the great and the talented, have been swindled – so in effect, hats off to you Cy, you pulled it off – conned everyone and made classic fools out of some of the most revered experts on the planet. Cy Doodly, has just thrust his finger up at the British art fraternity and walked away laughing.
Crisp planes. Glossy white finishes. Honestly, will architects ever get tired of them? Judging from Jean Nouvel’s recently completed baths building in Le Havre, France – probably not. Enjoy stunning images below.
With the amount of natural disasters increasing, it is becoming more urgent to come up with new ideas for temporary housing to shelter the 1000’s of found homeless. The idea of reusing shipping pallets as a building material was originally developed by I-Beam for a Transitional Housing contest aimed at housing refugees in Kosovo. The pallet houses can be easily assembled and disassembled and they can not only serve as temporary houses, but can also be the framework for more permanent housing. One transitional shelter measuring 10′ x 20′ would take 80 pallets to build and cost approximately $500.
This car is pretty exciting. Borne out of the British love of all things sleek and fast and out of the new sense of environmental duty is this electric sports car designed and built by the Lightning Car Company in England.
The design of the car is stunning, with flowing lines that wouldn’t look out of place on an Aston Martin, but with a slightly more futuristic feel, mainly on the rear of the car. But looks are only a small part of this machine’s draw.
Only the second electric supercar to have been built, the first being Telsa’s delightful Electric Roadsters, the Lightning breaks automative convention to match it’s gasoline powered counterparts. The main problem with electric motors is they simply just don’t have as much get-up-and-go as petrol ones. the Lightning tackles this in a unique way. Rather than burden a single engine with moving the mechanics in the car and the car itself, each wheel has it’s own motor, removing unnecessary mechanics and providing much more power than would usually be available from a single engined vehicle. Plus, the lack of an engine reduces the components that can go wrong, essentially making a maintenance-free motor.
The Lightning Car Company explain:
Hi-Pa Drive™ from PML Flightlink Ltd. is a revolution in motor technology and it’s a British innovation to boot! With its integrated motor and drive electronics in one single unit it produces an ultra high power density - up to 20 times more than conventional systems.
The compact, energy-efficient, electric wheel motors produce unrivalled levels of torque with internal heavy-duty tapered roller bearings that can withstand heavy radial loads for robust use. Yet they achieve the power to weight ratio important for the performance sports car capability of the Lightning.
Other features include total weather proofing, total energy transfer and several levels of redundancy, so any single failure will not prevent the vehicle from operating safely.
The car claims to out accelerate a Porsche and has a top speed of somewhere in the region of 130mph. Who said that going green meant the end of fun motoring?
Good design always seems so simple. The Jardín Botánico de Medellín in Colombia by Plan B is a great example – it takes a pretty basic program (a canopy in a botanical garden) and a pretty straightforward idea (hey, why not emulate the surrounding trees) and makes something pretty elegant. Made of reclaimed pine, the tree-like structures shade the garden courtyard, collect rainwater, and glow like lanterns at night. See video below.
Following on from our Stacked Living piece, and a big thanks to Kim at Nomadhome for sending us the information on this, is this solution to modern living. The Nomadhome responds to the transient and nomadic nature of our modern lives by providing a beautiful living space that is both mobile and temporary.
The idea behind the Nomadhome was to develop an efficient modular concept with a maximum of flexibility and to bring this unique product to standard production without losing its stylish form & high-class complexity. The beauty of the Nomadhome is that the unit can be transported, assembled and then disassembled and transported to a new location without any degredation in form, making it a truly versatile design.
Construction time is only 3 days. massively reducing the cost of building a permanent home, and can be dismantled in just 1 day. The unit is completely changeable and expandable to meet the needs of the indivdual it is housing. This is perhaps one of the strongest points of this design - it’s flexibility. The design of the home fits around the indivdual’s lifestyle as opposed to changing your lifestyle to fit the unit.
The units uses are as varied as the potential of the layout, as the creators of Nomadhome explain:
The NOMADHOME is a chameleon. Even its facade is changeable and available in many various designs, colors and surfaces. The easy change of NOMADHOMES outside makes it perfect for companies who need to change their branding from time to time.
Nomadhome’s high-class quality interior materials guarantee a very comfortable living or working-atmosphere with pleasant acoustics.
A brilliantly exectuted solution, unique in it’s design and flexibility, and perfect for those of us constantly on the move yet wanting our own space. I’m saving up for one.
This year’s Tile of Spain Award in Architecture went to José Durán Fernández for his inventive use of ceramic tiles to literally and figuratively brighten a forsaken but busy street in Burriana. Each year this competition seeks entries that display how the traditional ceramic tile can be used in modern ways, whether is urban, exterior or interior design. This was the first year that an urban design has won the first prize. Similar to the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz, this year’s winner shows how linked segments of yellow, blue, green, orange, purple, and red tiles can create a modern pathway between the Plaza Mayor and the Carmelite Church. More information about some of the other winners can be found at http://www.spaintiles.info/awards/
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