Do you have any thoughts on Experience Design?

Here’s this week’s viewpoint on one aspect of this fascinating subject, by filmmaker and designer Gwenaëlle Gobé:

“Designing Spaces – A New Age for Retail”
By 2040, a projected 74% of the world’s population will live in cities. Today, 53% of our total population has already migrated to an urban environment.  This continuing trend will prompt people to redefine their cities and their spaces in order to make them more functional, more sustainable, and more appealing to the people who inhabit them.

Indeed, changes will take place on the level of infrastructure.  Concepts such as the “smart city” and “vertical farming” and reducing “carbon footprints” are ways of re-conceptualizing urban space that have entered into the everyday vernacular.  However, spaces that people interact with on a day-to-day basis play a vital role in shaping how people define their environment and their world.

It is clear that cities are already evolving to meet new demands; around the world, city planners and communities alike are coming up with innovative ways to treat public space.  We can look at ways cities are already practicing this in order to get an idea of what the future of retail space looks like.  What lessons can the city teach us about how we should treat retail space?  In short, we are looking at how the creation of a sense of community by way of increasing accessibility, connectivity, and fluidity in spaces is a vital project that has a positive effect in city spaces as well as individual spaces.

Let’s take a look at a few examples of ways spaces are being used today that break free of traditional constructs and promote these concepts.  But first, a bit of background:

In 2006, we became aware of the “Cidade Limpa” project in São Paulo, Brazil  – a new mandate which prohibits outdoor advertising.  Curious about this initiative and how it would impact the ways people interact with their spaces, we initially set out to investigate this phenomenon and how it would affect billboards, advertisers, and visual pollution in particular.  The product of 4 years of research, 160 interviews and visits to 11 countries on 5 continents, This Space Available grew into a documentary that prompted our discovery of a global movement :  a widespread desire to make the city better, to improve public spaces through beautification.

What became clear is that, in a rapidly changing urban environment, there are a new set of responsibilities.  The overwhelmingly positive reactions to Cidade Limpa (on both the part of the community, and to our surprise, the advertisers as well) highlights our thesis that there is an undeniable correlation Psyche and Place.  In particular, accessibility and the ability to enhance connectivity between people in a designed environment is essential to creating a positive experience.  Let’s take as our focus two examples of successful, dynamic (re)uses of space in cities that go a long way in teaching us about what we should strive for in the future of our retail spaces.

The Highline – Design a Pleasant Environment, Build a Community
The Highline is undisputedly one of the most popular attractions in New York City, with more than 4 million annual visitors.  The Highline is a community space situated on an elevated freight train track that was converted into a new public park.  The tracks were no longer used and were once slated for demolition.  However, rather than destroying the structure, a community-based non-profit organization stepped in and fought for its preservation and transformation.  They were successful, and subsequently the city gradually developed it into one of the most celebrated public spaces – no small feat in a city well-known for its remarkable destinations.

The Highline now consists of over a mile of walkable space filled with plants, benches, an outdoor amphitheatre, spaces for vendors, and art.  There is abundant greenery, so much that it has a type of “prairie” feel to it while still providing one of the most magnificent views of the city.

By virtue of its design, the park creates a great experience because the juxtaposition between a bucolic and urban environment speaks to peoples’ innate desires and sparks their imaginations.  The Highline does not need to advertise itself; it has become popular by virtue of its intrinsic nature as a space where people can gather and the community can come together.

The same concepts that make the Highline so valuable to the community and so successful as a destination can be applied to retail and commerce.  The space is humanized and participatory because it is a place where people can go to interact with one another and engage with the space itself (in this case, the pleasant surprise of greenery in a bustling city) in a meaningful way.

A great deal of attention is paid to the aesthetics of the space.  The careful cultivation of greenery and the placement of all sorts of elements (chairs for relaxing, art to inspire us, majestic views, pleasant sights and sounds, etc.) make the space relatable and people react to this on an emotional level.

Furthermore, the Highline is a prime example of a sustainable project.  This is very important because people react positively to spaces that show they exist for the benefit of generations to come.  Rather than having a negative impact on the environment, the Highline shows an adaptive recycling and re-use of space.  Instead of being destroyed to make way for new, unsightly and potentially alienating developments or condominiums, the old tracks were imbued with new life that gives back to the community.

CicLAvia – Enhance Connectivity, Change Perceptions
Communities consist of spaces and people; both people interacting with the space and interacting with one another in it.  Like everything else, spaces are something you can recycle and reuse.  Spaces benefit from having more than one use (“fluidity”) and from being something that encourages participation.  When people actively participate in a space and with each other, a community is created.

A great example of an event that succeeds in both creating a strong connection to to place and encouraging community building is CicLAvia. CicLAvia is a semi-annual event in Los Angeles that gathers thousands of urban dwellers together to bike around the city, from downtown to the ocean.  The concept is to completely close down the congested streets for one day every few months.  Free from the perils and pollution of traffic, people come out in droves with bicycles, roller blades, and skates and ride along the route.  Ciclavia creates public space that temporarily mitigates the lack of open space in a densely populated urban locale such as Los Angeles.  The city becomes a vibrant interactive space, as opposed to what it normally is for many people : merely a place of transition.  During CicLAvia, people are free to enjoy the city space to which they usually do not have such unfettered access.

Furthermore, the event fosters community building and interaction.  There are activities along the route where people are encouraged to walk around, engage, and make new friends.  Shop owners and restaurants at the start and finish areas of the CicLAvia route open their doors and people are invited to explore neighborhoods they might have otherwise merely passed by in their daily commute.

This is very unique and especially important in an urban environment.  The opportunity to experience spaces in a way you ordinarily would not creates a sense of intimacy and this is a main point to remember when we seek to change how people view not only their cities but any space.

CicLAvia also shows us the importance of fluidity of space and multi-use of space.  Because the city is usually just a site for transportation in cars, when it is re-purposed as this interactive terrain for exploration and community, it fosters a sense of participation and pride.  Not to mention the fact that the temporary suspension of fuel-based vehicles also provides a much-needed respite from pollution and reminds people of the importance of sustainable, healthy spaces.

Now that we’ve had a chance to look at these two examples of how public spaces are choosing to be responsive to new responsibilities, let’s take a look at the current problems that are confronting spaces in the rapidly changing urban environment in order to see where changes need to be made.

Pay Attention to the Senses
The major problem in all spaces, that is to say, in cities, urban planning, architecture, and retail venues as well, is a failure to recognize how people truly want to interact: they long to interact with all their senses and on a meaningful level, not just with their eyes.

Juhani Pallasmaa in his book The Eyes of the Skin, talks about something called “occulocentrism” – I find this is an important concept to keep in mind when creating dynamic spaces.

Pallasmaa discusses the concept from an architectural point of view, in terms of examining and criticizing how we connect with the infrastructures that we build.  His theory is the problem with how we design cities, buildings, and spaces is that we build them to be watched as opposed to experienced.  Modern society submits to the “hegemony of vision” and, in doing so, failed to account for the other senses, those which had prominence in previous eras.

A quick glance around the cities of today will show you that people are constantly interacting with screens; moreso, perhaps, than they interact with one another.  Yet that innate desire for connectivity has not subsided in the individual.  Engaging places can offer an escape from the quick fix of the visual and the electronic by offering real, tangible experiences that people will remember.

Focusing solely on vision ignores completely how humans navigate and interact with spaces.  We see, in the example of the Highline and CicLAvia, that the success these places experience is tied to the fact that these are not merely places where people come in order to look at something or sites where a one-way transaction occurs.  Rather, they are sites of participation, interaction, involvement, and mutually occurring transactions.

Harkening back to the idea of Cidade Limpa and the issue of billboards, we can see that billboards and other such advertising produce a sense of alienation and domination.  Because they are essentially the size and shape of a giant screen, it seems billboards exist only to be watched.  They bombard us, the public, with messages, yet they do not give anything back to the space or to the people who view them.  They are flat and only experienced in one dimension – that of vision – and do not promote any kind of other sensory experience and are therefore very alienating.

How space is presented needs to differentiate itself from blatant, bombastic commercialism (such as billboards) in order to be successful in the long term. The community (and they should be looked at as such, rather than as “consumers) must be given something in return – not just a tangible product, but a feeling of connection.  The idea here is for a person to feel better about him or herself having engaged with a particular space.

What we see in both of these examples, the Highline and CicLAvia, is the re-emergence of the importance of public space.  How this translates to retail space is simple: People long for environments that give them a sense of belonging, community, and shared access to vibrant environments that reinvigorate their senses.  We have to pay attention to spaces because they have a profound impact on peoples’ emotions, desires, identities, and values.  Spaces have the potential to be sites of interactive creativity and collaborative discovery.  As cities change, we can look to these models to construct environments and usher in a new era of design that will enhance the quality of life in a sustainable way for generations to come.

Gwenaëlle Gobé is Creative Director at Emotional Branding. She is also an accomplished filmmaker who wrote and directed the documentary film This Space Available – a work which investigates the impact of advertising and design on cities. It is a revolutionary examination of how different communication strategies (billboards, advertising, and public art such as graffiti) affect people’s environments and daily lives. Most recently, a short film she made on the impact of graffiti art in NYC public space in 70s was accepted to the BEFILM Festival.

Her documentary This Space Available screened in festivals internationally including the TIFF Next Wave, Mumbai Film Festival, Moscow Film Festival and at institutions such as Columbia University, The New School, The Warsaw Museum of Art and Lodz Design Festival. She is also the recipient of the Kodak film grant and Panavision grant.

Her print work has been published in the notorious Swindle Magazine, Desert Island’s Smoke Signal, 3×3 Illustration Annual, Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects Gallery, The Institute of International Visual Arts in London, the Substation Gallery in Singapore, and on Obey The Giant Clothing. http://gwenaellegobe.com/

The Spark Design Awards and AllSpark Celebration was filmed by SF-based motion designers at Swordfish. Producers Matt Silverman, Brandon Smith and our Director, Kathryn Bodle did a great job.

Interviews include top designers and AllSpark Winners like Sam Lucente, Yves Behar, Tesla’s Franz von Holzhausen, Dan Harden from Whipsaw and more. Art Center’s Sujin Hwang explains her prosthetic for children who have lost a leg and why she created it.

Don’t miss Spark–The Video!

The Scope, Scale and Reach of Design Today
Arnold Wasserman Remarks at the AllSpark Platinum Design Awards Celebration
San Francisco, 02.15.13 >HERE

>HERE

Spark>App Kickoff Promo

Learn More >HERE

A report on travels, experiences and wonderful people we’ve come across in the search for Sparks… Join us!

The last two months have seen a bit of heavy travel for Spark. We headed out for the December design show in Hong Kong, then visiting Korea and Japan. In March came a surprise invitation to participate in a workshop at the Hyundai Design Center, near Seoul. So it was back again. These trips always include visits to local design schools, media, design centers and friends.

Here’s a photo montage of the travel aspects of the trip. .

And now, Here are some links to our SparkTravels pages at Flickr:

Asialine: >HERE

Vistas: >HERE

Snowy Arctic: >HERE

Flights: >HERE

Enjoy!

A Note From Hong Kong: Dateline January, 2012
I like this town. If you’ve been there, I know you do too. And its dumplings!

And since 2008, we’ve witnessed some of the growth Edmund describes below. It’s real and valuable. Every world-class city needs its Design Centre!

SHA-Town: A visit to Shanghai & Cumulus: Dateline September, 2010

After over 35 hours in transit (don’t ask), things looked a little Brechtian…

Tongji University improved the view & mood

AC was off, but hero kids still at it. Caliente!

Dutch had right idea, a big pile of Delft!

Details, details, as we begin the first of many many taxi rides betwixt & between venues

Oh Ye, who seek multi-modal transit solutions, visit the reality

So enough already. More on the morrow. Hope somebody out there enjoyed!

–PK

Next Big Thing(s): Dateline, April, 2010

Just back from our Spring visit to Asia. In summation– well worth this expansive 15-day visit to China. A fascinating aspect about the design scene in China is the intense competition between the big cities. They are all rapidly building infrastructure, schools and awareness about the potential of design. It’s an “unbuilt” environment getting built really fast. It makes for a giddy whirlwind of priorities, pressure and planning and it is great fun to be in the fray, fashioning a small part for Spark. If everything goes to plan (unlikely)– we’ll have a September exhibition in Shanghai, October SparkAwards in San Francisco, November’s Beijing Design Week activities and in December we send the 2010 Spark Exhibition and Celebration to Guangzhou Design Week.

Interior shot, Terminal 3, third largest bldg in the world

Spark started in Beijing (BJ), landing amidst the annual Spring sandstorms.
Streaming down from the Gobi Desert, they are not nice. I spent two of 4 days cooped up in Gehua Hotel, although truthfully, I needed the time to write proposals. We’ve been asked to help with programming for a national design event.

Where’s a taxi when you need one?

Mickey D Delivers!
Practice Time
Lots of lux in BJ

So the only touristy stuff we had time for was an exquisite meal of (what else!) Peking Duck at the famous Da Dong restaurant. Truly up to its billing (thank you Anthony Bourdain). Our Spark winner and good friend, Joaquin Huang shared this good time.  He graduated GAFA and jumped right to Nokia/Beijing.
Bright fellow! I also visited and lunched at the lovely Opposite House Hotel near Dong Yue Miao.

This property was created by renowned Japanese architect Kengo Kuma, whose exterior “stuns with an emerald green glass overlay.”
Well, it was pretty nice, and the food was great in their courtyard cafe… and over the courtyard door was an admonition writ in stone,
suggesting we all nurture our inner Spark. I’d have to agree!

On the road to old Nanyuan airport, I spotted a monster lumbering through the dusty landscape. Truly awesome, the CCTV building by OMA is felt rather than seen.

At the airport I attracted a fellow’s attention as I scribbled notes in my journal. He was soon joined by a second fellow, then a third, and so on, until we had a crowd of 25+.

No one spoke English, nor I Chinese, but it is one of my most treasured travel moments.
The hour went by quickly, then we waved goodby through the dusky sand storm and buckled up.

Next stop– Guangzhou (GZ), in the Pearl River Delta, China’s vast manufacturing center. It is also the base of SparkChina, our cooperation to promote SparkPro competition entries, Our friends at CitiExpo and in the GZ government made us very welcome indeed, with proposals of deepening our involvement and bringing more elements of Spark to the region and country. We also spent quality time with Prof. Tong and Asst Prof. Haishan Deng of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts– they are good friends and offer wonderful insight about Chinese design and designers.

University Island, home to 120,000 students & 10 colleges

This morning I’m looking out at bare brown fields of rubble from the 26th floor of our ultra-modern Shanghai Holiday Inn Express.  The hotel is somewhat near downtown, next to the train station, and all but surrounded by construction debris. Jackhammers rattle day and night (hence the 26th floor!) and residents struggle to stay cheery– through slightly strained smiles they predict all will be finished in one month, in time for the World Expo. They’ve been under this duress for over a year, and their relief is at last at hand. Interestingly– ALL construction does stop May 1, for six months, during the World Expo. Better get cracking, boys!

So, best be getting on with the day– first another proposal for BJ, another for GZ, then meetings with some great Shanghai design resources: Cathy Huang and Rudy Muller at CBI and Parson Ge at PG Design & Branding. Tomorrow we are off with Prof. Jan Von Holstein to visit Vice Dean Lou Yongqi at the brand new College of Design & Innovation at Tongji University. Jan sits on the Board and teaches at this interesting school, the creation of a stellar international academic committee. We also stopped for a chat with friends at Autodesk and a tour of their new campus in Pudong.

Then on to Hong Kong, for more rounds of research, friendship, Design and probably, sigh, proposals. This is shaping up into an exciting year for Spark’s international programs, with prizes, awards shows, exhibitions and much more. Best!

December, 2009

So– Where’ve you been, Sparks?

Good question! Sparking, of course. After the incredible climax of the Spark Judging and Awards Celebration, we dug into the complex process of awards trophy and certificate production. Essentially this is all hand-work, with something unique for all 350+ finalists and winners.

But adding to the fun was the production of the Sparks Over China Exhibition and mini conference for early December. Here’s the story:

Mid-November, we pulled together the Spark assets– hi-res images or real pieces, for air shipment to China. Plus every conceivable media from mug-shots of the winners to videos, documentation, etc.

This went into the able hands of our CitiExpo partner in China, Ready Zhang  and our great task-ms-tress, Mabel Mai, who got the job done. We flew out on the 29th– first to fulfill our happy duties to the Global Design Network in Hong Kong.

 We love this city.

Part of the giant Business of Design Week, one of our favorite design expos and HIGHLY recommended. Here’s Victor Lo, major player in the GDN and BODW and able event director Amy Chow.

Fellow delegates included good friend  Julia Chiu, of Japan’s Good Design Awards (and soon President of ICOGRADA).

We were happy to see our Asia-mentor and pal, Geoff Fitzpatrick, head of the Australian Design Institute.

And Kigge Hvid,  CEO of kindred-spirit aspirational INDEX Awards told us about new INDEX efforts to incubate good design.

Then– a quick train  zip to the even-gianter
Guangzhou Design Fair, for some real Sparkn’ Chinese-style!

I love this slide!

 This delegate-stuff is not easy. One is kept busy from 830am to 11pm, in a constant whirl of meeting politicians, dignitaries, banquets, award-shows (we handed out trophies at 4 of them–gadzooks), TV interviews,   (Here’s David Grossman explaining the work of the Israel Design Works), magazine interviews, speeches and jury-duty for the Kapok award.

Press conferences are fun too. I had a nice view–
of the Mayor’s welcoming speech, followed by the delightful custom of loud explosions of confetti (the cleaners LOVE this I’ll bet)

Our Spark mini-conference went very well. After the PK pitch (with excellent translation by Ding Zhong), Professor Tong, President of Design at the Gungzhou Academy of Arts, related his tale of journeying to America, visiting many of the top design schools and judging Spark. Great stuff.

Also Asst. Prof and 2008 Spark winner Haishan Deng (on the left) spoke about the experience of Sparking, and why more Chinese designers should be entering competitions.

Then we handed out Finalist Certificates. These folks were SO happy!

Ah but BEST of all was our exhibition of Sparks. All of ‘em, from the last three years. Quite an accomplishment to get everything together–especially 09– in such a short time. We were so proud to see this great work being honored in China.

The work was in display cases or mounted on silk panels by students from GAFA, working with the Citiexpo team. Just beautiful. Great job.

Here’s a great group we’ve grown accustomed to: Jan von Holstein, and next to me Prof. Tong and Johan Adam Linneballe. Friends for life (count David Grossman in here, too).

It was a fine experience. We’ll be back soon, to march out the Spark exhibition and story to the other great cities of China and Korea.

So it went, so it goes. Blowing in the wind.

Re-zipping  back to Hong Kong, the wind at our back
we found a nice view out our window  and time for some deep thinking about our friendships and progress in this exciting land. Without getting too blogged-down, I think much is done for peace and cooperation–and progress and freedom– in weeks like this. So maybe we should all just get out there more, and meet people and make plans and just DO It. Because you can. And it helps. And you’ll get rich– inside.

The wrap-up. What a finale to this visit. (Actually, ALSO a nice start for the Asian Games) Thanks for the Sparks, China!

The End of the Beginning.

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BACK TO THE FUTURE-IN 2008
The Business of Design Week in Hong Kong (www.BODW.com.hk) took place in early December and Spark was back for the 2008 show. As always, this was an exciting time, meeting our old friends and making new ones. This year, we became a partner organization of the Hong Kong Design Association, and recently Spark was invited to join the Global Design Network, based in Hong Kong. So we had many things to do!

We especially enjoyed meeting the Spark entrants who are also in town for the event, including Haishen Deng from Guangzhou, and Brian Lau, Prof. Frankie Ng and Prof. Michael Siu from HK Polytechnic.

Top speakers at the Forum include Rem Koolhaas, Ben van Berkel and Marcel Wanders. They are also representing the event’s Partner Country, Holland, which hosted a large exhibition pavilion in Hall 2.

Designed by the architecture firm Skidmore Owings and Merrill.
Here’s our scrapbook of memories from this year!

Welcome to Hong Kong!  Food Fun!
The Opening Ceremony for BODW

Humble but Effective Spark Display

Geoff Fitzpatrick, Director of Design Institute of Australia–and friend

The HKDC Awards Show

Boy Wonders!                                                 Amy Chow, HK Design Center & Frederico Caravaggi, Domus Academy


Victor Lo, Chair of the HK Design Centre and our gracious host

Speaking at the BODW Conference, Hou Hanru, Director, San Francisco Art Institute

The audience went wild!
Claire Hsu, Asia Art Archive



Rem Koolhaus and his courageous call for cooler visions

That’s All Folks–See you next year–And Thanks, Hong Kong!

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DESIGN 360 MAGAZINE

Flying high above the Rocky Mountains. Down below, Colorado is getting it’s first dustings of snow and the high peaks look cold and beautiful in the setting sun. We’re snug and warm in this seat on a big Boeing, admiring a copy of Design 360 Magazine.

This is our first look at the publication, although several designer friends have recommended it to us. We have to confess a secret, special interest in magazines… our first job after university was starting a small press mag. We love the Print Media. Before starting the Spark Competitions we were on staff or management of both newspapers and magazines. In the process we met most of the top publication designers and editors—our working heroes.

First impressions: Design 360 just feels good. Its size is like National Geographic, but thicker. It is handy and natural—perfect for reading in a relaxing hot tub! But don’t get it wet—this magazine is a “keeper” that you’ll want to archive and read again. It also has a wonderful, diagonal cut on the right side—i.e., the second page is a little wider than the first, and so on, through all 250+ pages. So you have a slanted edge for your thumb to rest, while you flex the book and page through the features. A wonderful idea and—why didn’t we think of that! A new, perfectly functional feature in the old business of magazine publishing. That’s good design.

Vivi Zhou, Executive Editor, and Shaoqiang Wang, Executive Director

Writing about Design is of course what this magazine is really all about. It has an omnibus, international approach, apolitical and universal. But we were happy to find a clear window on Asian design and especially Chinese designers. This is appropriate and welcome, since there are many great design talents that are relatively unknown in the West, and they should be more widely promoted.

We won’t describe the content in detail, except to say that the features and reports are well-observed, interesting and beautifully illustrated on expensive, coated paper stock—often in full color. Oh yes, the art direction and overall design are quite fine. 360 utilizes very readable fonts, interesting chapter logos and continuing design motifs, and is laid out in such a manner as to minimize the inherent clumsiness of bi-lingual text. This is a difficult feat—many publications don’t manage this problem as well.

Is there anything to improve here? Not much. Perhaps better Chinese to English translation. One generally knows what is intended by the author. Nevertheless, some of the diction is garbled and it could be better. Translation is a difficult task—we’re glad Spark doesn’t do this—yet.

The reader can easily see that this magazine is what we call a labor of love. Talented writers and designers have spent a great deal of time and energy to create this—a most distinguished publication.

So, our “bottom line”—we wish we had found this magazine right from its launch. But we won’t miss any of the first 11, because this high flight takes us to China—and we’re going to grab all the back-issue Design 360’s we can find.

(Hard to find in the States, Design 360 is a window on a very important world of design… If you’re interested, hit their website or email Spark’s and we’ll help find you a copy or subscription.)

Best!
–PK

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LETTERS FROM THE RING OF FIRE

Post-Fukushima Disaster– Harrowing and heroic stories are reaching us from our Spark friends in Asia. We’ve posted several below. The first two are from Leimei Julia Chiu. Julia is the Executive Director of Japan’s Good Design Awards, and President of the ICOGRADA organization.

Julia—
I hope you and your loved ones are well.  Please—when it is convenient—send Spark an update on the Japanese design community and the latest efforts regarding the calamities.
—Peter

4/15/11
Hello Peter and the Spark Community—

At times like this, one can not help feel very different perspectives about how we can reposition design so that the profession can really be of service to the weak, the poor and those in need.

It will be a long-term commitment and we will need to learn how to combine and share our expertise.

We really need to bring people from different disciplines to start thinking about how we could work together- to help communities rebuild their lives at transitional shelters and afterward.

We will need everyone to help with this huge task.

At JIDPO, we have shifted all our projects towards how design can help with community-rebuilding in the northeastern areas.

Please see: “How can designers support relief efforts in Japan?”

http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401.html

http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401_2.html

I am contacting major design awards from around the world to collect good case studies/products/services/systems that could be of use to the reconstruction efforts.

INDEX (Copenhagen), Design Forum Finland (Helsinki) will be working with us for this project as part of the collaboration and AIGA (U.S.A.) has been helping with this effort. Both are promoting design/architecture in all disciplines.

Israel Community of Designers has created a facebook page which permits designers to express solidarity:
http://www.facebook.com/designers4japan

Another idea is as follows:
I will be working with Niigata Prefecture which has also experienced an earthquake several years back. The government has a project to integrate craft industries, manufacturers and designers to develop new products each year.
Here’s the website:
http://www.nico.or.jp/hyaku/english/

This year, I will be the design manager to direct this initiative and I am thinking of setting the theme as follows: How can we design products and systems for a better living environment, where people have been displaced, and are trying to reorient themselves to build a new life from scratch?

We need ideas. The companies in Niigata will realize these ideas into real products/systems after one year.

with warmest regards
—Julia

3/17/2011
Subject: deepest gratitude from julia/ tokyo, japan

Dear everyone–
Thank you so much for all the encouragement and offer to help the design communities in Japan.

I am deeply, deeply touched and will try to answer all your messages individually.

I will stay put in Tokyo for now and try to work out some plans for how design associations in Japan can help with the long term reconstruction efforts in the areas heavily hit by the earthquake/Tsunami.

We will probably need support from the international design community. I will keep you updated as we progress with the planning.

We are having rolling blackouts in Tokyo area to cope with the energy shortage so it might take me some time to respond.

with warmest thoughts and a big, big hug from Tokyo
–julia

And we have this reflective note from teacher, reporter, Reverend and friend Jaime, currently across the Sea of Japan in Northern China

3/16/11
Jaime R. Vergara
Special to the Saipan Tribune

Channel NewsAsia out of Singapore, along with CCTV 9 of Beijing, is following the unfolding crisis in Japan after the 9. Richter scale tremor, the strongest quake ever to shake the nation, and the subsequent tsunami that sent 10-meter-high waves 10 kilometers inland in Honshu, leaving the tarmac of the Sendai International Airport underwater, a local hospital still standing as the only refuge for some 300 persons in an area of collapsed structures, and 10,000 people from one village still remaining unaccounted for. The predictable aftershocks add damage and discomfort, but it is the threat of the nuclear meltdown of six reactors that is sending chills down everyone’s spine.

Not unlike humankind’s previous relationship to “flat earth,” which we now know to be spherical, and calling the experience of sundown as “sunset” when the earth actually turns, we never really consider land mass as floating tectonic plates on magma, but to appreciate how strong the earthquake in Japan was, the whole archipelago moved by a couple of meters and the axis of the planet itself shifted by a few centimeters!

Zen Japan is showing a remarkable face of solid calmness. News reports portray a nation intentionally going through the motions of a rehearsed drill in the midst of the surprising destruction that trails the wake of this disaster. The vaunted train system, one of the most sophisticated rails in the world that connects Kagoshima in south Kyushu to Wakkanai of north Hokkaido, shut down momentarily, along with its metro systems, at least in the urban centers of Honshu. Undaunted, people bought bicycles and pedaled home, while some just trudged and walked in the cold.

In 2002, we took a week-long retreat in late January before the cherry blossoms, taking the train from Narita to Sapporo in Hokkaido on the eastern corridor through Sendai, and returning on the western route through Akita and Niigata to West Tokyo. The cultivated and manicured countryside was a scene to behold, the tidiness of the trains and orderliness of its people a welcome respite from the hustle of crowd and mass humanity.

Although signs of juvenile vandalism-mainly graffiti-were evident in metro structures, the orderly Japan of our previous acquaintance, of nature both physical and societal disciplined into the level of art on terrain and population, was still very much and unmistakably alive! Majestic Mt. Fuji reigned as Hokusai’s rowers navigate the towering waves off Kanagawa in my sea of tranquility!

It is with deep appreciation that I recall that solitary week almost a decade ago, but as I watch today the deluge of painful unraveling that characterizes the Land of the Rising Sun, only the sound of silence is appropriate to express our profound sorrow of the innocent suffering unleashed.

A people’s tragedy, however, has awakened humanity’s empathy. Though its economy is one where its GNP far exceeds its GDP, showing barely any economic growth though ascending into international eminence, it has shown an economic arrangement where the concern for humanness matters. Japan projected a country with a human face.

Its virtues of simple elegance in cuisine and decor, lifestyle and landscape, custom and technology, its thrust toward moderation on all things in its post-WWII demeanor, has endeared it in many parts of the world; though it was saddled with the cruel memories of militarism, it also lived through the mushroom cloud brunt of Little Boy and Fat Man over the skies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The nation took this nuclear kamikaze and domesticated it for peaceful use. Now, the ice and the fire, the heat and the water, Mother Nature’s yin-yang elemental force comes calling on Nippon’s door again.

Presbyter and poet Ellie Stock wrote the following not too long ago:

What do I call what calls from the deeps,
that pulses through stars and quickens heart’s beat,
that surges through waves and cleanses with fire,
emerges from dust and breathes soul’s desire?
What do I name what mocks human pride,
that bends the tree of life, sustaining being’s tide?

It is with Zen calmness that we join Japan and the rest of the world in daring to give a name to that which emerges from the deeps, whether from the bowels of the earth, or from the deep abyss of the battered human soul.

The world joins that call of the deep as its K9s head for Tokyo to locate survivors. There is solidarity afoot in a world already grieved by the Gaddafis and the Tehrar Squares. But the ebb and flow of global reconciliation fills the air, and I, in my archaic season of Lent, smell the scent of transformation, in faith, hope and love. With T.S. Elliot and Zen calmness, I sing:

Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well…
———————————————————–

China in the B class
Sally Dominguez

Five years ago I cowered in terror as my driver speared down the wrong side of a Chinese motorway and slalomed through oncoming traffic. I swore then that I would never – NEVER – drive in China again. But here I am, this time armed with my own Chinese drivers license, lured by the opportunity to pit Mercedes safety and technology against the twelve million Chinese drivers who average less than 5 years experience behind a wheel. The deal breaker: my chariot is the Mercedes B-Class F-cell hydrogen electric car, and I am keen to know whether this technology could be the answer for the intensely polluted cities of the world.

I first drove the B-Class F-Cell around the basement of the 2011 Detroit Auto Show. What struck me then was the normality of the vehicle, compared to the beetle shapes of Leaf, Clarity et al and the look-at-me interior energy displays of the Prius.  Although the F-Cell is a hydrogen-fueled car replete with a host of patented innovations, only a snappy paint job differentiates the exterior from a standard B Class. Lack of engine noise aside, the only way you would know this car was different would be to bury your nose in the exhaust pipe and suck up the warm, pure water vapour. Similarly, there is not much to differentiate the drivability of the car from its petrol-fueled sibling. That is a very deliberate move by Mercedes Benz to placate the public and ensure that the transition from petrol to electric technologies is as painless as possible for the traditional Benz customer. The exterior and interior design of the F-cell may not have particular Spark Design appeal, but what’s hidden inside the guts of this car is some impressive and innovative technology. Have we ever awarded a design for a fuel tank? (Editor’s note: You’re the judge!)

The F-cell houses its drive train in the sandwich floor of B-Class so, unlike some electric vehicles, there is no compromise in interior volume. Dynamics are marginally improved by a lower centre of gravity, as four kilograms of liquid hydrogen fuel is stored under the rear seats, in three heavy pods of carbon fibre-wrapped rubber that are literally bulletproof. Having shrugged off misguided jokes about hydrogen bombs before I left I was secretly relieved to hear that the rigorous Benz testing involved successfully dropping the tanks off buildings and shooting them. Forward is the fuel cell stack where hydrogen reacts with air to produce electrical power, and behind the fuel tanks is a lithium-ion battery drawing power from the fuel cell, supplemented by regenerative braking. An electric motor housed under the bonnet runs off the fuel cell stack and the battery, supplying the F-cell with a range of more than 400 kilometres – double the range of the all-electric 2-seater Tesla Roadster or the 5-seater Nissan Leaf.

Turn the key – no Start buttons here – and that strange silence we are learning to get used to with electric vehicles means the F-cell is ready to roll. The whole hydrogen/electric ensemble adds around 700kg to the overall weight of the car but there is no lag in the 290Nm torque generated and you don’t feel the extra load.

Ducking and weaving through kamikaze Beijing traffic, the F-cell is in its element and the neat consumption bar graph, which measures the amount of hydrogen in kg/100km consumed in the last 15 minutes, makes it easy to establish the hydrogen-friendly way to drive and sets up a consumption competition between me and my German co-driver Marcus. I quickly establish that easing off the throttle is better than braking per se and that the energy use is a simple equation: the faster you drive the more hydrogen you consume – there is no “sweet spot” to play with. With air-conditioning on full-blast to filter that heinous Beijing air the car proves as nimble as its B 180 CDI equivalent.

On the open road we are flying along at 120km with a hydrogen consumption rate of 1.13kg/100km, except when we need to swerve into the emergency lane to avoid meandering lorries and the occasional 3-wheeler driving against the stream. Comfort again is classic B Class – on a 3-day road trip I would prefer more support as a driver and more plush as a passenger. There’s nothing to offend except the lack of auxiliary audio input. As we howl along to some local radio and curse the Benzgineer who skimped, I wonder about the efficiency of the cruise control and curiously find it less efficient – the bars climb to 1.15, then 1.18 before I am acutely aware that my range is dropping fast. With no plans to visit for any length of time at a Chinese rest stop, I ditch cruise control as Marcus (who has driven more than 65 days so far in the F-Cell and knows it inside out) explains how the range readout recalibrates to a worse case scenario. He ran 360km in Arizona with the low fuel light on and the car didn’t stop.

The best indication of range is the total weight left in the tanks cross-referenced with the bar readout. Interestingly the range also depends on the temperature at fueling, with warmer climates causing the hydrogen to expand during filling, losing the car around 140 grams of hydrogen. Filling, which takes place at the dreaded rest stop, comprises a local semi laden with hydrogen cylinders and the Mercedes trailer van combo containing pump and compressor. An entourage of engineers, technicians and a Benz camera crew oversee the pump connections and check the seals – hydrogen is such a small light molecule that it will float away through the tiniest gap.

Our refuel takes twenty minutes because we are using 80-degree liquid hydrogen pressurized at 700 bars. If the gas could be cooled to -16 degrees Celsius, as it would be at a permanent refueling station, refueling would take 3 minutes and the cylinders would be entirely filled. Marcus tells me that the team refueled twice at permanent hydrogen stations in California and demonstrated the admirable 3-minute refill. That’s more than 3 hours faster than the Tesla recharge and more than 6 ½ hours faster than the Nissan Leaf.
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The success of the F-cell technology hinges on an adequate infrastructure and decent production numbers. Right now the cost of hand-producing the composite fuel cylinders is huge but Mercedes is ready to roll if governments come to the party. Consumer success also hinges on an uncompromised, user-friendly vehicle and the F-cell nails that criteria. Whether its hurling to a stop when the highway suddenly drops down a 20cm ledge or accelerating out of a potential truck sandwich with seconds to spare, driving in China demonstrated a rugged and straightforward car that that excels at city driving and thankfully spits nothing but water wherever it goes. With a range worthy of an Australian suburban car I was disappointed that the Australian government did not show more interest in the F-Cell when it made its Aussie debut. Lets hope Chinese authorities have more foresight and see the European hydrogen highway as the perfect model to utilise their significant wind power projects and produce clean fuel for the polluted cities of Shanxi Province.

Best!
–Sally

PLASTIKI PET Project

The Plastiki PET-hulled boat might be old news now but the innovations that made the journey are more relevant than ever as PET continues to be exploited for its upcycling potential.

It took almost five months for the catamaran with the PET-bottle hulls to make its way from San Francisco to Sydney – that’s almost two months slower than planned. Most boats are built for speed and stability but Plastiki, like its namesake the Kon Tiki, was a proof of concept vessel described by David de Rothschild as a “symbol of solutions” and designed to grab headlines while testing various PET-based materials and alternative energy concepts.

The striking 12,500 bottle-strong design honed by Australian naval architect Andy Dovell is likened by de Rothschild to a pomegranate, the dry ice-filled bottle “seeds” providing 62% of the ballast grouped together to form the hulls but also separate enough that one or two failures would not mean disintegration.

Although hydro dynamically inefficient the unskinned bottles visually conveyed the PET-content of the vessel to audiences around the world. Less visually captivating but far more transformational is the material invented in Europe and trialed on the Plastiki voyage, a PET-based material named srPET. Self-reinforcing plastics gain advanced strength and stiffness from their highly oriented polymer fibres with typically five times the stiffness and strength values of unreinforced plastic.  srPET is used as a structural skin on all the non-bottle surfaces of the boat including the Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic cabin. srPET is expected to compare in strength and usefulness to fiberglass, but with none of the health issues associated with glass fibres, and all the recycling benefits of being a homogenous plastic material. This thin skin of srPET along with the srPET board material used in the hull structure currently require virgin polyethylene terephthalate but the srPET textile used for the sail utilizes recycled PET and is bonded with a specially developed organic glue made from sugar cane and cashew nuts and currently being commercialized by Adventure Ecology.

A postmortem on the voyage of the Plastiki revealed a crew reluctant to set sail on a bottle raft again any time soon but enthusiastic at the success of the srPET iterations trialed over the months at sea. Composites Evolution, the UK company behind the Aptiform PET-based products, suggest that the light weight, low cost and recyclability of srPET is particularly applicable to large, low volume parts, making it an ideal material for sustainable transportation applications. (Sally’s Plastiki story was first published in Curve Magazine.)

We calculated that the HOG represents 400x 16oz water bottles for emergency use – which means over the next 10 years Edna Maguire does NOT have to replace and dispose of the 8,000 single use plastic bottles they would otherwise be using.This is a really exciting use of HOG and one that we will be promoting throughout the Bay Area now that California has been told to expect a Mother of all Storms in addition to the Mother of all Quakes.  Turns out the other comparable emergency water sources are either pallets of single-use water bottles that need replacing every 6 months or – wait for it – barrels that ROLL!

GREEN AUTO PAPER PLAY

By Sally Dominguez

Cardboard as a construction basic is serious paper play for adults. From Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Chair to the Finnish designed acoustic cardboard listening space Mafoombey, cardboard is an oft-ignored heavyweight contender for green building.

What about a finer-gauge of paper, though?  Brazilian Claudio Dias brings a technical eye for minute detail to the art of paper models to create serious paper play for kids and adults. Worried that China-made toys are invested with lead? With a bit of imagination, and some help from Claudio, you can follow his FREE fold ‘em and keep ‘em models to create intricate origami toys such as the Delorean in Back to the Future and the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. No nasty side effects included.

Stuck on the freeway in pouring rain?  With a little forethought and some glue you could be whipping up the Interceptor on your dashboard.  Feeling finicky?  Try the crazy detail on the Ghostbusters Ecto 1.

Best of all – these cool designs are free!!  With detailed instructions you just print, cut, and fold like a loon.

I felt the need to connect – as they say in the USA – with this master autorigamist:

Claudio, the detail on your models is incredible.  Do you have a basic outline you tweak for each paper car design, or is every new model painstakingly conceived from scratch?

When I want to design a new model, I search the internet to find any reference material that could be used. Ortho views, schematics, pictures, and even 3D mesh. If you have something ‘technical’ like views or 3D, it makes easier to design the model. If not, you must be creative to say the least.

1966 Batmobile, Mad Max Interceptor, Delorean were the only ones I found technical information. All the others cars were from scratch.

What paper should your designs be printed on for the ideal result?  Is there a particular weight and texture you design for?

The weight depends on the level of details. As a general rule, I recommend 90-120gsm paper for small parts (folks that means all your used office paper can be turned into star vehicles so save it and print Claudio’s patterns on the back) and 15-180gsm for bigger ones.

The final look of the car determines the texture. I use glossy paper for shiny cars. The Tumbler, for example requires matte paper.

What is your favourite paper model to date?

Well, it’s not a car… It’s a robot that transforms into a car : Bumblebee. Speaking of cars, the 1966 Batmobile. It’s my first model and it reminds me my childhood.

Has there been a car that you have tried but not been able to model in paper?

No. I’ve finished all models I’ve started. Perhaps, I keep distance from the impossible ones… A friend of mine once asked me to join him in a project – The Nemo’s car from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  It’s a simple car, however those silver ornate details made me say NO to him. I know how to design them, but they’ll be very hard to assemble.

Which is saying a lot because the models we can download are pretty complex.  For instance, there are 72 steps for the 1966 Batmobile.

And for the selfless, and health-conscious tot-toting readers, Claudio’s site www.paperinside.com also has models of PowderPuff Girls and Bruce the Shark which you can whip up for the young ‘uns, safe in the knowledge that they are relatively chew friendly.

MORE SERIOUS PAPER PLAY

by Sally Dominguez

Paper bags and cardboard boxes, butchers’ paper and newsprint hats.  Paper plates, papier mache and the versatile matchbox, boxes for packing and moving and play– visionaries like Gehry and Shigeru Ban use it for structure but, whether the blame rests with neat stacking Lego and Lincoln Logs or span-worthy Meccano, most of us don’t consider cardboard as a construction basic.

With around 85% recycled content typically found in corrugated card, the material offers sustainable credentials that many other product and building materials cannot match.  Frank Gehry’s seminal 1969 Wiggle chair, featuring 60 layers of corrugated card “Edge Board” screwed into compression, is a plain sexy investigation of how to achieve strength and sculpture through the opposite layering of corrugations.  Shigeru Ban’s equally groundbreaking use of cardboard structure in halls, office buildings and houses epitomizes economy in use and lifecycle, marries the strength of the helically wound paper tube with simple, repeatable, affordable connection details.  As the architect says, “I don’t like waste”.

Wiggle Chair

Shigeru Ban’s temporary studio, Pompidou Center

Online a smattering of origami-based modules demonstrates all manner of flat packing structure, like Bloxes, flat packed card blocks that interlock for DIY internal walls and structures.  Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Staubli and his free, downloadable Foldschool designs. Eschewing the asymmetrical fold for the uniform concertina, the patented Liquid Cardboard creations of US-based Cardboard Designs are poetic and “freely transforming” vessels.

Bloxes

More pedestrian in form but super useful, compressed paper panel materials like Paperstone and EcoTop provide a paper-based replacement for pulp boards like MDF, utilizing the density and strength of papers en mass.

The ultimate in DIY cardboard emersion and superior acoustics has to be Mafoombey, a corrugated space both poetic and functional, designed for listening to music as part of the Finnish Habitare Fair 2005 by students Martti Kalliala and Esa Ruskeepää.  In awarding Mafoombey first prize Jasper Morrison commended the design for simply “turning the humble material of cardboard into something so wonderful”.

Mafoombey

AS SIMPLE AS A,B,C… OR NOT

June 12, 2009 by Sally Dominguez

Paid up unexpectedly for an article published yonks ago I decided to shout myself a design treat.  For years I have yearned for an Ray Eames walnut stool.

Originally designed for the lobby of NYC’s Time-Life Building where they were coupled with leather armchairs, A, B and C in solid walnut have always captured my imagination.  In an exhibition long ago I even tabled my own version in threaded, spun stainless steel sections as an all-weather, industrialized and slightly rustic interpretation.  When Athol, my crusty but loveable old metal spinner died from inhaling decades of metal dust, Australia lost an irreplaceable craftsperson and I lost the only person who could spin stainless back on itself in a close take on Ray Eames’ curvaceous walnut B.  Before then, and more so since, I have wanted an Eames stool.  I always thought I loved B.

I love that this stool works either way up.  I love that its gentle concave is a forgiving cup for any-sized bottom.  I love the abstract references to chess, dumbbells, cogs, knuckles and axles.  So with all that love in my soul I paced into the Mill Valley Design Within Reach to finally take my baby home.

I have never been a fan of the “apple-core-ness” of C so it was a tossup between A and B and when it came down to that – I was stuck.  I tried visually separating the two into a neutral setting.  I tried context, rearranging most of the DWR floor in growing desperation. With about 10 minutes before closing and no plans to exit sans stool I was in a decision-making quandary.   Was it B, my favorite til that point, with its central squashed ball and positive outward curve?  Or the tribal squat of A…….  The ghost of Ray echoed in my head  “You know what looks good can change, but what works works”.   Well, they ALL work Ray…..

Suddenly, what luck!  Random product designer to the rescue.  Male.  Apparently working on a new and tiny portable sound mixer.  Rode a rockstar vintage bike.  And made the observation that B is feminine, A is masculine, and he didn’t care much for C.  My concentration thus broken I looked again at the punchy angles of A… and the deal was done.

What do you think?

Sally Dominguez, Rainwater Hog LLC

Architect and product designer Sally aims her sharp Australian wit at the design scenes on both sides of the Pacific. Check Shapesters and ASIANLINE for Sally

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