From Maruja Fuentes.

I don't know about the elbow rest portion, but the sitting spot has excellent potential for bus stops, DMV's and the like. That is to say, potential for very hip versions of those places.

Chew with your lights on...

Gummi Bear lights:

Around 7" by 4" wide and come in various colors. They have a 20-hour lithium battery, so no cord is needed. Place them anywhere in your German candy factory.

via Property Furniture.

Develop : Make : Object

Objectified is a feature-length independent documentary about industrial design. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the people who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability. It’s about our relationship to mass-produced objects and, by extension, the people who design them.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

If only it were this easy...

It's a whole new world, hopefully...

Obama: the post-environmental president

What does the election mean for climate change and energy policy?
by Adam Stein – November 5, 2008

There’s been a bit of chatter in recent weeks about whether an Obama victory would truly be as transformative as many progressives hope and expect. Some have quietly suggested that nothing in Obama’s record, temperament, or platform should make us expect dramatic gestures. They say that those who think otherwise are letting the man’s remarkable personal story cloud their judgment of his governing philosophy, or discounting the extent to which every president is constrained by Congress.

There’s something to this, and ultimately any president’s legacy is determined as much by events as by his or her personal qualities. That said, I think that Obama’s presidency has a good chance of being a transformative one, particularly in the area of climate and energy. Circumstances have delivered up a set of interlinked crises — economic, environmental, and security-related — at just the moment that we’ve elected a person who seems to fully grasp the scope of the problem and the proper shape of the solution.

Obama has often been referred to as the first post-racial politician. When we someday evaluate his tenure, we may come to see him instead as the first post-environmental president, the leader who was able to connect the dots on energy, the economy, and security in way that elevates these issues above narrow interest group concerns and places them at the center of the political agenda.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Happy November 4th...

Google gives your ideas an allowance...

Project 10 to the 100th is a call from Google for ideas to change the world by helping as many people as possible. On February 27, Google will choose the best 200 ideas, donating $10 million to help with their implementation. Deadline for submissions is October 20th.



Categories:
Community: How can we help connect people, build communities and protect unique cultures?
Opportunity: How can we help people better provide for themselves and their families?
Energy: How can we help move the world toward safe, clean, inexpensive energy?
Environment: How can we help promote a cleaner and more sustainable global ecosystem?
Health: How can we help individuals lead longer, healthier lives?
Education: How can we help more people get more access to better education?
Shelter: How can we help ensure that everyone has a safe place to live?
Everything else: Sometimes the best ideas don't fit into any category at all.

Criteria:
Reach: How many people would this idea affect?
Depth: How deeply are people impacted? How urgent is the need?
Attainability: Can this idea be implemented within a year or two?
Efficiency: How simple and cost-effective is your idea?
Longevity: How long will the idea's impact last?

You spin me right round...

Look closely, tell me what you see...

Liverpool Biennial's Flickr Page

Launched on August 20th, 2008, Diller Scofidio + Renfro's Joyful Trees was a hit at the Liverpool Biennial MADE UP.

Celebrating 10 years of commissioning ambitious and challenging new work by leading international artists, the fifth edition of Liverpool Biennial’s International exhibition is MADE UP, an exploration of the power of the artistic imagination.



What's more to this than just a simple installation are the eerie sounds that escape the city in the background as the trees spin, complimenting the mechanical movement of the organic landscape. You can't help but think of the cars and buses as factory noises, pushing steam and popping hydrolic lifts, spinning the tress in circles.

Liverpool Biennial's Flickr Page

As a practical concept, think of the installation in terms of blocking heat gain. Perforated steel and other materials could be replaced with waltzing trees and spinning shrubs. It's a stretch, I know, but what really isn't in this day and age?