Although the concept of urban farming isn’t necessarily new, the trifecta of crowdfunding platforms, widespread access to digital fabrication tools and the general public’s interest in eating healthier has helped propel the practice into both single-family homes and apartment rooftops at a rapid rate. In cities such as London, Chicago and New York City, urban…
If you happened to be at the London Design Festival in early 2010, chances are you stopped by Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram’s OUTRACE installation – which invited the general public to take control of eight industrial robots on loan from Audi’s production line and use them to write personal light messages that were recorded…
After moving from Japan to LA in 1999, a young Shin Okuda held a variety of different jobs over the following couple of years before finding work with a sculptor who also happened to do furniture pieces. After spending countless hours in the studio absorbing the various woodworking techniques and studying designers, Okuda set out…
Over the past few years (partially thanks to the 3D printing revolution) we’ve been seeing an explosion of customization apps and augmented reality viewers that allow consumers to customize their retail experience. The apps consistently ride the fine line between allowing a consumer to customize their retail experience while also keeping them constrained to the…
Starting next month, some flat-pack college dorm furniture may be more design and environmentally-savvy than that table you bought last year that you swore would be handed down to your grandchildren. Thankfully, the flat-pack furniture in question won’t take too much of a dent out of your wallet in the case that you want to…
Since graduating with an architecture degree a few years ago, French product designer Pierre Guibert naturally drifted into product design after working with prototyping materials extensively and being inspired to pursue smaller-scale projects during his time in university. Working primarily with cardboard – including developing a line of handmade cardboard lampshades that he also teaches…
With a focus on the design of systems and the creation of tools and processes for producing products, Swedish-Chilean designer Anton Alvarez has had his work exhibited internationally at establishments including the Design Museum and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Similar to other designers who have created their own methods of manufacturing, the…
Aiming to bring the best of yester-century into today’s modern work environments, Studio Renier Winkelaar, an independent design agency two hours outside of Amsterdam, has created a table that is both modern and built to last. The Craft 2.0 table, which uses only one material (oak) and omits any type of modern fasteners—including screws—was inspired…
If you’re familiar with the wild and crazy concepts from artist/designer Sebastian Errazuriz, then the organized chaos of his latest piece, The Explosion Cabinet, shouldn’t surprise you. The talented artist and designer has been spending his career crafting obscure functional objects ranging from ‘Man Chopping Board’ and ‘Tea for Two’ to ‘Flyswatter’ and ‘Tree Table’.…
When appreciating a furniture design, it’s easy to overlook the environmental impact of the various materials said design is made of including a frame, foam, padding, pillows, covers…and not to mention an oftentimes extremely large cardboard box loaded with foam or other packing material. Oh yeah—then there is the transport, too. Furniture is notoriously hard…
Let’s admit it: wireframe views in CAD are awesome. While they may not be functional or necessary 100% of the time, the combination of even line weights and simple, informative curves to guide your eye really do standout as a unique form of digital and art. Inspired by the unique look of the wireframe display,…
You may remember Dutch designer Jolan Van der Wiel’s Gravity Stool when it hit the internets a couple years ago. His unique take on the centuries-old seating design used the simple concept of magnets to sculpt the stool upwards rather than turning, blow molding, injection molding, or any other fabrication method seen thus far. The…
We’re always talking about the future of design, the future of technology, the future of MAKING. In a world where umbrellas can act as personal mobile weather stations, a world where virtual windscreens can easily add augmented reality to automobiles…how do we find the next ‘big thing’? MakerGalaxy is a show that explores the crossroads…
With an impressive portfolio consisting of objects ranging from furniture and lighting to watches and even ‘laptop luggage’, the team of industrial designers, researchers and engineers over at Benjamin Hubert Ltd. are regularly nominated for design awards both in their native Britain as well as internationally. Working specifically with the goal of creating a sustainable…
No, the above image wasn’t lifted from the pages of a Moleskine Sketchbook folks…those are actual three-dimensional structures. Korean designer Jinil Park’s new ‘Drawing Furniture Series’ is fairly self-explanatory, but certainly plays tricks on the eye when viewed from a two-dimensional image. Representing basic line sketches, the new collection of furniture is the result of…
With it’s earthy tones and fibrous appearance, it almost looks appetizing enough to eat. Inspired by alternative manufacturing processes that could help re-shape the Greek economy, University of Edinburgh grad Spyros Kizis has developed a way of using Artichoke Thistle fiber mixed with a new waste-oil biological epoxy resin to create a plastic-like material that…
Operating in the fields of design, fashion, and architecture, Azusa Murakami and Alexander Groves of Studio Swine have made a unique name for themselves through their exploration of design through material innovation and creating new sustainable systems with a strong focus on aesthetics. Having received multiple international awards including those from Wallpaper Magazine and the…
After being stuck in an engineering job that left her feeling like ‘a coma victim’, design engineer and artist Nicole Hodson decided it was time for a change and decided to switch things up a bit by studying furniture crafting techniques. Flash forward a few years later and her company Ciseal has become a go-to…
This week our very special guest is a guy with his own woodworking YouTube channel by the name of Frank Makes, Mr. Frank Howarth! Frank’s background in architecture helped him design and build a super kick-butt woodshop that he uses to create stop-motion films of the development process of various woodworking projects. We’ll talk with…
File this under your ‘reasons to get a CNC machine in the near future’ if you don’t already have access to one. OpenDesk is the new open source furniture design resource from the team behind FabHub that aims to explore new models for open and collaborative design of digitally fabricated free modern furniture designs that…
There are only a few things I wish to have at some point in my life. I can get by without the chocolate fountain or the Jello pool, but a fully-stocked wood shop in the woods of the Pacific Northwest is one thing I don’t think I’ll ever drop from my list. Frank Howarth is…
Perhaps nobody loves cardboard as much as Yale Mechanical Engineering graduate Zach Rotholz. After years of working with cardboard at various other jobs and internships, he launched Chairigami; a company that sells recyclable, cheap and sturdy cardboard furniture that is perfect for temporary setups (or if you have a back of steel, a permanent setup).
Founded as the Star Furniture Company in 1905 in Zeeland, Michigan, the name changed to Herman Miller after the president of Star Furniture (Dirk Jan De Pree) offered stock to his father-in-law who purchased 51% of the company. His father-in-law’s name? You guessed it: Herman Miller. Eventually the name would become synonymous with some of…
Come join us around the campfire and bring your extra-large marshmallows because this week’s episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is live! We love our SolidSmack readers! Do you have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it on SolidSmack? Don’t hide it in your neck skin! Send it on in…
Hailing from the always-colorful and texture-rich Brazil, young architect and designer Humberto da Mata’s inspiration is rooted in the exploration of everyday materials and building layers with excessive texture, leaving the user with a visually and texturally rich experience…but could his ‘textural’ vision extend into recreating ‘vision’ experiences for those with impairments?
Inspired by the Dutch Modernist painter Piet Mondrain, East London Designer Hugo Passos gives an updated spin on the “old artisanal way” by avoiding machinery in his Modernist product designs.
While it may at first appear to be a colorized version of Joris Laarman’s bone furniture, the Multithread collection of 3D printed furniture is anything but. Design duo Kram/Weisshaar developed a software application that automatically modifies joints to support asymmetric force loads–followed by painting the units to show where the force is being distributed in…
Raise of hands. How many have a chair made of recycled New York City water tower sitting in their living area? No? How about outdoor armchairs made of Indonesian scrapwood? (the best kind of scrapwood, I might add.) No again? Well, you may very soon want one of both. There’s an earthly aura about fine…
I often use my scimitar to slice through furniture. Typically, it’s to access something like a pen or cookie and sometimes to free feral cats that have made my desk their home. In much the same way, minus the scimitar and cats, Alessandro Busana created the Cutline project to explore the natural aesthetics of wood…
Guest post by Bradley Derry from bradleyderry.com Design is details. Design is the tiny elements in a product that work their way into final production from hours of sketching, prototyping, and CAD. Details are what the designers agonize over and what the manufactures spend so much time trying to get just right. This post is…
Occasionally, I’ll see some Antonio Gaudi architecture, and just start draping balls of strings and chains from everything, cover it with plaster and throw some shards of glass at it. If you know (and appreciate) Gaudi, you might feel the same. The work he’s done is inspiring, as is the work he’s inspired in others.…
It’s not everyday you get to sit for hours on end, as your body slowly atrophies… ok, well, maybe it is everyday, but this new chair from Herman Miller may turn your hardening arteries into pliable conduits of efficient blood flow to get that oxygen back up to your brain case. The Embody chair, with…