The future of electric cars is here, and the Japanese SIM-LEI EV four seater from SIM-DRIVE has now joined the ranks. Electric cars have been making the news a lot lately, and with each new release boasting more and more speed and efficiency, the competition is heating up! But the SIM_LEI car has an edge above the rest – it’s achieved a smashing driving range of 207 miles on just one charge!
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Post tags: electric car, Electric Lithium-Ion, green transportation, JC-08 cycle, SIM-Drive, SIM-LEI
Freedom of Creation (FOC) recently announced a new 3-D printing technique that transforms sawdust into objects that look and feel (almost) like wood. It’s a bit less bizarre than printing human veins, or the artist who turns human ashes into objects, and since the materials to can be collected from dusty workshops, these objects have a pretty good sustainability factor. And they look snazzy too!
Read the rest of Freedom of Creation 3-D Prints Wood-Like Designs From Sawdusthttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/ohttp://www.inhabitat.com/wp-admin/options-general.php?page=better_feedptions-general.php?page=better_feed
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Post tags: "sustainable development", 3d printing technology, Brian Garett, dutch, FREEDOM OF CREATION, mahogany, MDF, sawdust, soft wood, teak, Wood
It’s a step stool! It’s an ironing board! No, it’s a chair! Actually the humorously named Bachelor Chair is all three. Conceived in the 18th century, the wooden, nearly all-purpose piece of furniture was designed to help single men who couldn’t land a wife to maintain a proper home. Some believe the chair was one of Thomas Jefferson’s many inventions, dubbing it the “Jefferson Chair,” but it’s better known as the Bachelor Chair. Whatever ya call it, anyone who’s lived in a NY apartment will agree that this multi-use piece is a space saving godsend.
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Post tags: "green furniture", Bachelor's chair, Design, eco design, green design, jefferson chair, multi purpose furniture, new york city, Transforming Furniture
The New Consumers are here. They're youthful, wired, educated and mostly female--and they’re just as concerned with practical values like price, quality and convenience as they are with do-gooder values like local, organic and fair trade. These shoppers make up 30% of the U.S. population (that’s 70 million adults), and have the power to make or break brands through their powerful social networks, peer-to-peer influence and unmatched level of brand participation. As someone who makes a living by creating and advising sustainable brands, you might expect me to be disenchanted by this news, wistful for the days when ecopreneurs could aim for ever-lasting brand success by cultivating stereotypically "dark green" shoppers. But I am emboldened. The Great Recession brings a profound reset moment. Thanks to its lingering economic and psychological effects, all shoppers are now making trade-offs. But more than any other segment, New Consumers hold the keys to scaling sustainability because they aspire to live well but openly recognize practical trade-offs every day, across spending categories. They want brands to stop marketing green and simply be green without compromising. This is good news: it means pioneering sustainable brands like Seventh Generation, Clif Bar and Eileen Fisher [all clients, full disclosure] now have an incredible opportunity to reach a larger marketplace and help create a real green economy. We believe 21st century brands will be sustainable brands that authentically engage the New Consumer. It’s a hopeful, exciting moment, but there are no shortcuts. Here are five tips for engaging the New Consumer whose shopping basket deserves your brand: 1. Deliver Total Value
Making a product that’s good for our planet is nice, but it’s not enough. And though price is on nearly every shopper’s mind, racing to the bottom of the price heap isn’t the best strategy, either. New Consumers crave total value: products that deliver practical benefits like price and quality but that also negate their buyer’s remorse by providing societal and environmental good as well as "tribal benefits" that help them feel connected to a larger community with shared values. Brands that hit on all three categories--and effectively communicate as much--will be rewarded with the fierce and indispensible loyalty of New Consumers. Klean Kanteen is a perfect example of total value: the reusable water bottles provide health and money-saving advantages while also reducing environmental impact. And the slick-looking bottles are seen as a badge of honor representing membership in the club of eco-minded shoppers.2. Paint a Bigger Picture
More and more, New Consumers are asking, "What’s in it for we?" They’re thinking--and reading, and blogging, and Tweeting--about how their purchases impact their families as well as local, national and global communities. Brands will win here by closely examining their entire supply chain, and communicating the findings in an authentic way. Patagonia sets a high bar with its "Footprint Chronicles," which shares good, bad and ugly stories about how its products are sourced, made and distributed. Gap’s FEED USA campaign failed to deliver on good intentions: A patriotic promise to donate proceeds from limited-edition bags to our nation’s school lunch programs was overshadowed by a revelation that some of the bags were made in China.
3. Be Their Champion
The DIY mindset has become a way of life for many New Consumers. They feel empowered by the knowledge that they can make their own foodstuffs or mend their own clothes; freed from a life of too much stuff. But this isn’t necessarily bad news for brands. It’s an opportunity to encourage consumers’ creativity and resourcefulness, and to create the sense of community they so desire. There’s a reason that Etsy’s profit increased by more than tenfold in three short years. 4. Make More Out of LessThe psychological shift from all-out consumerism to a simpler, more self-sufficient life also presents an opportunity to tap into the exploding "access economy." People across the nation are asking, "Do I really need this?" and instead looking to share, rent or co-own goods. Some call it "collaborative consumption." And it’s not just about saving money; it’s also about meeting fellow members of a like-minded tribe. Centralized memberships like Zipcar and Netflix emphasize access over ownership, while startups like Swapstyle and Couchsurfing also underscore community. 5. Invite Them InOnce upon a time, branding was a top-down proposition allowing companies to tell stories of their choosing to their "audience." But under today’s new marketing paradigm, participation is the new consumption. New Consumers see themselves as brands’ co-creators, champions and stakeholders. Fewer than 4% of consumers rely on advertising to verify product claims, and they’re weighing in on your practices whether you’ve asked them to or not. This means consumers--and social good--need to be woven into each part of your business cycle, through interactive platforms that allow for ongoing engagement, idea storming, conversations and feedback loops. In other words, don’t just say it; show it. Invite consumers to suggest solutions and improvements. Take a lesson from My Starbucks Idea, Dell’s Idea Storm or Toyota’s Ideas For Good campaign, which garnered hundreds of worthy ideas while reinforcing these brands’ reputations for innovation. Not only will co-creativity make you better prepared to face inevitable obstacles. By allowing consumers to participate in the process, you’ll be creating brand evangelicals who will help you break into the mainstream--and, just maybe, change the world.
Mitch Baranowski is a writer, producer, brandologist and aspiring honky-tonker. He is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Officer of BBMG, a brand innovation firm that specializes in the intersection of branding, sustainability and social purpose.
I met Jake Cook after sharing content at the innovative HatchFest.org, a creativity/film festival gathering held in Bozman, Montana. Innovation can happen anywhere and developing communities on their talents is something I have a strong passion for. Jake is a talent within a talented community that I am willing to support.
Biomimicry. At Nike I worked on a science and design exhibit brought in by Janine Benyus and her team. Over the years this discipline has influenced Nike's product development and led to many environment-saving practices including Nike Considered. Please enjoy Jake's guest post below, his latest foray into design with layered meaning.
Innovative Nature: Baking Biomimicry Inby Jake Cook (Cofounder of Digital Wax Works)
The term biomimicry and biomimetics come from the Greek words bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate. (See examples of companies already using Biomimicry.)
Up until recently, getting biomimetic ideas put into design practice in industry has been tough due to a lack of curriculum development at the educational level. Put another way, to have biomimicry-trained designers would require educational programs to start at the primary school level, continue through to university, and beyond to professional development programs. With this in mind, educators from around the world came together at Autodesk headquarters in San Francisco last year to discuss and share how to blend biomimicry into K-12 and college-level curriculums, as well as forging relationships with industry.
Janine Benyus is often cited as the founder of the biomimicry movement through the publishing of her landmark book, Biomimcry: Innovation Inspired by Nature. Ms. Benyus has made a remarkable career by pointing out what's been under all our noses. However, these ideas have been slow to be adopted into engineering and design curriculums in accredited universities.
Yet all this is changing. As Janine states; "The time is coming when engineering and design students will finally be able to take a class in biology-based design principles. Amazingly enough, for the people who make our world, usually they take no biology."
Mashing Up Education and Industry Partners Making products that allow you to immerse yourself in, and enjoy nature is what Bozeman, Montana based Pacific Outdoor Equipment loves to do. In 2010 they partnered with students across the nation to meet the challenge of bringing nature more fully into the story via biomimicry design.
The design challenge: A quilt that could be used for sleeping on the ground when camping. A relatively simple product in theory, but fraught with big challenges when working with real-world considerations such as materials, purpose constraints, manufacturing costs, construction methods, retail price points, and carbon footprint.
Designs and collaboration poured forth via Skype, email and Wordpress over a six-week period. The Biomimicry Institute's staff lent a guiding hand to the students, professors, and professionals as they followed the BiologyDesign Spiral.
"The Biology Design Spiral is a methodology bringing nature's wisdom not just to the physical design, but also to the manufacturing process, the packaging, the shipping, distribution, and take-back decisions. We use a spiral to emphasize the reiterative nature of the process--that is, after solving one challenge, then evaluating how well it meets life's principles, another challenge often arises, and the design process begins anew."
The outcome? Design briefs with ideas ranging from how bats stay warm to recycling garbage as an insulation layer. Many of these were inspired by the recently launched AskNature.org website that serves as a wiki-style site for researching applications of biomimicry to design problems.
Below are the product renderings courtesy of Pika Designs showing a potential sleep system inspired by how bat and butterfly wings insulate. The user can simply fold over another "wing" if they would like more insulation based on whatever the ambient temperature might be.
A Profound Impact On All Involved. Students at the conference professed to have deep insights into where they wanted to go with their careers, namely avoiding "designing for the landfill." Professors were ecstatic that students had a real-world challenge and were exposed to the grey areas within product design.
Whether the product will appear on store shelves remains to be seen via Pacific Outdoor Equipment, but all schools involved, as well as the 2011 facilitator of the project, Pika Designs, have pledged to do another student design challenge in 2011.
A Business Case for Biomimicry Business professor Dr. Jakki Mohr of the University of Montana, who also presented at the Education Summit, included a section on biomimicry in her co-authored book Marketing High Technology, which is used in MBA courses around the world.
"Biomimicry offers a unique methodology for new insights into innovation. As authors of a book on marketing for technology and innovation, the biomimicry process captured us and we wanted to pioneer this important methodology in our book. Looking to nature for solutions to design and engineering problems offers a new source of competitive advantage and sustainable innovation, both of which are key to success in business today."
Refreshing the Design Palette Applying these lessons, the startup Calera, which is backed by the noted VC Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures, has a process that produces building products with a negative carbon footprint by using inspiration from biological process in the ocean coral reefs. The company has generated considerable buzz to date.
Watch a fascinating video from the founder Calera, Brent Constantz, speaking recently at Stanford on how he's founded four companies whose core technology is based around principles found in nature.
Biomimicry Inspired Design for the Masses On a consumer product level, Nervous System is a small company using bio-inspired designs to create various lines of jewelry and housewares. Founders Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg have backgrounds in biology, architecture, mathematics, and computer science. Their designs draw inspiration from items such as leaves, hard corals, sand dunes, and algae.
In speaking with co-founder Jesse Louis-Rosenberg about what Nervous System is all about, he states; "Our work is not simply about mimicking biological forms but trying to understand the processes by which those forms come about. We then abstract those processes into a distinctly non-biological context to create designed objects."
This process starts with Nervous System researching and reading scientific papers to truly understand how nature's process works, before generating an object. Next, they code up a virtual system to digitally grow a similar pattern on a 3-D surface. Finally, these designs are pushed to a 3-D printer and come out in a variety of materials such as stainless steel.
The results are elegant yet organic and Nervous System's products were recently picked up by the MoMA store in NYC.
What, in his education background, prepared Jesse and partner Jessica to work across such diverse areas? "Educators don't quite yet have the expertise across all these areas. So, you have to do it on your own," Jesse explains.
Biomimicry Going Forward This begs the question--how much longer will students have to go it on their own?
Ms. Benyus' reply: "Biomimetic design labs are going to start appearing in schools. The future is that biologists will have a seat at the design table. But it starts with education and then trickles out to the workplace. Looking back, we had human factors, and now that's commonplace in a design conversation. I'm optimistic biomimicry will enjoy the same consideration in the coming years."
Indeed, industry and the planet need biomimicry integrated into the design process and it's going to take employees trained in how to apply these ideas to today's design problems. This could prove to be both profitable and innovative for companies and universities alike.
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As biomimicry continues to gain mainstream acceptance, with institutions and collaborations blossoming, Benyus remarks, "Somehow there must have been an earthquake in San Francisco because all the silos have fallen down."
Today
Floating cities in the current state of affairs embody the Utopian ideal of modernistic cities floating on water and emanating their technological marvel. Moreover, as the congestion levels add to the already saturated densities of major cities, such ambitious conceptions can come forth and present to us that extra yet special kind of spatial element needed to house the increasing urban population. In effect, they could act as defined spaces with high ratio of rentable floor space per unit area and also as the symbols of urban power. But on the other hand, there are massive costs that could be incurred in the amount of steel, concrete and glass needed to construct a floating city; not to speak of the infrastructure and labor needed for such a huge proposal.
Tomorrow
Looking into the future, there are chances of some adverse changes affecting our very ecological system. This can be a direct result of global warming, like rising sea levels affecting our land eco-system and engulfing our major coastal cities. In candid effect of such an instigation, there have been progressive yet unique proposals to design and build human habitats in the seas itself. And if (there is a big “if” here) there are credible indications of any tumultuous calamity that can severely affect our very fabric of life, such proposals may become a reality in spite of the resources consumed; as the essence of our very survival comes into question.
The Inspiration
First, with recent state of population explosion in urban areas, floating city concepts are thought of as sustainable alternatives to ineffectual land use patterns. Secondly, with the future in mind, inspiration has been instrumental in putting forth such revolutionary concepts. As mentioned above, the increased sea levels emanating from global warming might one day severely alter our urban settlement patterns, especially affecting our coastal cities. So, such concepts would technologically make use of living conditions in the high seas itself, in the form of mammoth floating islands.
Eco-credentials
Self sufficient sustainability is the main pillar upon which such floating city propositions tend to be based. The city-islands are to be designed in such a manner so that the whole spatial element can make use of green technologies like wave, wind and solar energy to produce electricity. In addition, it can use farming, aquaculture and hydroponic techniques to grow its own food. Effectual zoning patterns of human habitats are also important, as the spatial nature shouldn’t only imbue energy efficiency but also convenient living conditions.
The Hurdles
1. Sea Storms:
Naturally this can be the severest hurdle in the face of this design.
2. Transportation:
A whole new transit system would be required, keeping in mind the total economic situation prevailing then. Furthermore, water transportation is not that feasible when compared to land transportation.
3. High Humidity:
The humidity levels would be much higher when being close to water. Moreover, there is no definite solution for cramped spaces in case of population increase.
4. High Cost:
The same problem plaguing the conventional cities; the cost involved could be huge even if we do possess the technology.
Is it feasible?
Well, it could take years to complete and demand a very high expenditure. The architects need to suggest solutions to psychological problems like living in confined spaces without any chance for spatial expansion and even structural problems like weathering of sea storms. Nevertheless, we cannot deny the novelty of such conceptions which aim to make total usage of green, emission free technology, and at the same time provide us with shelter from the repugnant effects of congestion, pollution and even global warming.
The usual grocery bags we get are either made of paper or plastic and hence not durable enough to bear the heavy loads; creating lot of wastage. But the notion is about to get revolutionized by the new innovative Flat-Folding-Steel-Grocery-Bag inspired by the traditional Japanese art of paper folding, popularly known as origami.
Zhong You and Weina Wu have published this new solution to grocery bags in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, March 2011.
Although origami is a popular form of art, it is getting scientifically revived to be applied within the engineering world for everyday product design. You and Wu, two popular “Origami engineers,” have based their design on this ancient paper-folding art and substituted paper with thin sheets of steel, for a shopping bag. They folded the panes of steel to double into a bag. This bag was further flattened to a single horizontal structure by folding only at the crease where the wrinkles lay.
Although the design structurally supports steel, other rigid materials like brass, cardboard, etc. could work just as well. This is definitely going to help the shipping companies, as cardboard boxes can be stored easily now, without having to open the bottom side.
Source: Makezine
People suffering from diabetes have to prick themselves so many times, just to keep themselves updated about their body glucose levels. This is not only painful but also leads to added frustrations. But PGS (Photonic Glucose Sensor) - a next-generation diabetes management device is here to change the way you think about body glucose monitoring systems.
Designed by Alain Poirier, all one has to do is simply secure the armband around their upper arm and attach the sensor as well. The non-invasive glucose sensor will intelligently keep a check on the body glucose levels by using near-infrared light technology and other physiological indications at an interval of 5 minutes. On a single charge it will read the glucose count for up to 30 hours.
So, all the blood sight attached with glucose examining takes a back seat with the very modern alarm monitoring system.
Via: behance
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