A toddler stands up proudly in their high chair, they lose their balance and they take a tumble. The result can cause some traumatic injuries. In response, every high chair sold in the U.S. is required to come with a safety harness.
But how does just adding on a harness ensure that a busy parent will remember (or be willing) to use it every time? Or, for that matter, how does including a harness in a box even ensure that a parent will even install it in the first place?
The BabyBjörn High Chair, a Red Dot winner dreamed up by Ergonomidesign, cleverly solves these problems. Rather than harnessing in a child to be fed from a high chair’s tray table, the tray table simply becomes the harness. The surface locks the child down like they’re going on a roller-coaster ride.
“We wanted to make a chair where you, the parent or caretaker, automatically make sure the child is securely fastened,” project lead Håkan Bergkvist tells Co.Design. “On our chair all you have to do is flip up the adjustable table and the child is secured.”
In other words, if you want to feed your child--the whole purpose of putting them in that high chair in the first place--you’ll need to flip up the harnessing mechanism. By tying safety to the BabyBjörn High Chair’s primary function, smart design necessitates that the chair will always be used safely. There’s simply no alternative.
Yet ironically, the BabyBjörn High Chair’s safety mechanism is so invisible that it doesn’t meet U.S. regulations. “Because of standard requirements in the U.S., the chair is also equipped with a traditional harness there,” Bergkvist tells us.
It’s a shame. Bergkvist’s team was “left free to start from scratch” with the design, to dream up a better solution to chairs with complicated straps. (Which they did.) That design will be unadulterated across Europe, where no such harness standards exist. But in the U.S., parents receive an overbuilt solution, wasting both their time (the very existence of a strap implies that it should be used), their money (someone has to pay for this extra component), and material resources (if BabyBjörn sells 20,000 of these chairs, that’s a lot of fabric that we never needed to produce).
The purpose of iterative design is to approach known ideas in a better way. By their very nature, the most watershed designs probably won’t have been considered before--they’re new ideas because they’re new ideas. So how can anyone be expected to dream up the products of the future when they’re boxed in by the semantic limitations of the past? Or, maybe more importantly, why should they?
by: Reuters: Green Business News, 2012-04-04 13:17:45 UTC
VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria will invest 160 million euros ($213.4 million) in climate protection projects in Europe to cover the gap it faces to meet commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, Environment Minister Nikolaus Berlakovich said on Wednesday.
developed by philippe starck, the limited production electric car features an aluminum chassis with organic details, rebelling against what the designer finds 'noisy, dirty, anti-social, [and] masochistic' in current automotives.
the miniature environmental sculptural installation speaks to what the artist sees as a distressing lack of interest by the public in the futile state of the world's health.
with newly added front fork suspension, the electric 'veliac three' overcomes typical design drawbacks of tricycles, featuring a tilting balancing system that lets users achieve a tighter turning radius while keeping cargo secure.
by: Environmental Leader, 2012-04-03 14:31:52 UTC The proportion of IT professionals that say green initiatives are a key reason behind their data center consolidation efforts has risen from 34 percent in 2010 to 43 percent in 2011, according to research by technology firm CDW. In the 2012 Energy Efficient IT Report, some 54 percent of respondents said they have or are [...]
When a large or expensive home is presented on this site, it’s common to get an adverse response from readers requesting that we feature smaller and more affordable homes. Today, I’m going to take that opportunity to share something called the 50/10 House developed by Cellar Ridge Custom Homes and m.o.daby design in Oregon.
A 50/10 House aims for the sweet spot of performance and cost — it’s 50% more efficient than local code, and the construction requires a reasonable 10% upfront investment.
This graphic explains what goes into a 50/10 House to make it more efficient than code. There’s above-code insulation, heat recovery ventilation, energy-efficient lighting, air sealing in the gaps and cracks, a thermally broken wall system, Energy Star appliances, thoughtful overhangs, carefully placed windows, a high-efficiency water heater, and a mini-split heat pump system.
The homes range in size from about 1,200 – 1,600 square feet and will be oriented to optimize the sun. Roof lines are designed for solar panels, should an owner decide to spend a little more to reach net-zero energy or greater efficiencies.
Cellar Ridge and m.o.daby are currently offering 50/10 Houses from a starting price of $190,000, without land anywhere in the Portland metro area, or from $225,000 with the lot in McMinnville, Oregon.
Though more affordable than custom or architect-designed residential, a 50/10 House is not cookie cutter. Cellar Ridge and m.o.daby, who combined their efforts on the Morning Sun project, offer several architectural styles with alternative floor plans. Furthermore, owners have the ability to customize cladding materials and colors.
Here’s an interesting product that got its start with a successful funding from Kickstarter. SmartDeco is affordable, engineered, blank furniture made with 100% recyclable Enviroboard — a light-weight corrugated fiberboard, like cardboard, but with a middle layer of oscillating arcs for strength. The flat-pack furniture is made in California and folds in places without the need of tools. Available pieces include a stand, dresser, and desk, and all of these items are available for about $65 or less each (white costs a little more).
by: Design 4 Sustainability, 2012-04-18 08:29:00 UTC
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