design
-
Talking vertical farms: An interview with Dickson Despommier
Your classic vertical farm rendering. Rendering: Blake KurasekIf you haven’t seen the slickly rendered architectural models of farms growing in skyscapers, you probably live under a rock. When I first I saw one — this was a few years back, they’ve been making their way around the internet for years — I got a little […]
-
Designers launch high-fashion bicycle labels
Do you wish you could bike more, but you can't bear the thought of going your whole commute without flashing high-end labels? Okay, probably not, but if you were we'd have a solution for you. Kate Spade, Missoni, and Ralph Lauren have all launched designer bikes this year. According to the rules of a New […]
-
Can we turn mining pits into underground cities?
Architect Matthew Fromboluti designed this inverted skyscraper to make use of abandoned open-pit mining operations in Bisbee, Ariz. The 900-foot underground building (maybe we should call it a mantle-scraper?) wouldn't just be for residences -- it would comprise an entire self-sufficient subterranean city, including crops fed by skylights.
-
The most beautiful anti-GMO T-shirts you'll ever see
Threadless, which has long been the thinking person's purveyor of silly T-shirts, just ran a design contest with an anti-GMO theme. Artists submitted designs that conveyed a "no GMO" message, and 25 percent of profit from sales of the winning design will go to the Institute for Responsible Technology, which fights GMOs in the United States.
-
Can you build a house for less than a Macbook?
MIT challenges architects to design a house that costs $1,000. Here’s how one student came tantalizingly close.
-
Is this the perfect urban bike?
This bike, designed by custom bike maker Tony Pereira, took top prize in an Oregon Manifest competition to design the perfect urban utility cycle. Pereira's bike is intended as a transitional vehicle for people trying to make the switch from cars. It includes a stereo, a front-mounted locking "trunk," and an electric assist motor. (Plus, it has a cupholder, of sorts! That should appeal to the SUV crowd.)
-
Terrifying recycled playground will eat your children
Let's say you want to build a playground for refugee children from Myanmar. And let's say you also want to recycle some rubber tires. You could tie the tires to ropes and make swings out of them, like kids have done pretty much since the tire was invented, or maybe you could put them on the ground to make an obstacle course. Or, hey, you could fashion them into a sort of Gigeresque nightmare squid! That one sounds good, let's do that.
-
Check out this high-tech prosthetic for amputee cyclists
The Cadence leg prosthetic looks like something Chell from Portal might wear, but it's actually specially designed for riding a bike. Design student Seth Astle just won the James Dyson award for Cadence, which helps give below-the-knee amputees the fluid leg movement necessary to pedal a bike efficiently.
-
Metal-wheeled bike! Sure, why not?
It's Friday, so here's a pointlessly pretty bike. It has metal wheels, because apparently you can make working bike wheels out of nothing but sprung steel, so why wouldn't you? Also I suppose it keeps you from getting flat tires. It's not the next big thing in bikes. It is not going to get […]