Concept drawing by 2008 BFI Challenge winner, Dr. John Todd

October 8, 2008. Buckminster Fuller used the term ‘trimtab’ to identify a catalyst injected into a failing system at just the right time and place in order to expedite the transition to, well, let’s just say, a better future. The Buckminster Fuller Institute has put out a call for entries in its annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge ...

The CNC-milled Zoe heel by Christian Werner

October 3, 2008. Famous for, among other things, an abiding shoe fetish, Zaha Hadid, may want to invest in the Zoe heel. The creation of German industrial designer Christian Werner, Zoe is a pair of hollow-soled women’s platform wedges befitting the finest couture collection and, at £2600, similarly priced. Painstakingly CNC-milled, the shoes are currently available only through Werner’s office while he looks for a partner in the shoe’s serial production and distribution. I.D. spoke with the designer about his footwear and how it relates to making industrial design ...

Morigami Jin, Reclining II (2004) Photo: Susan Einstein

October 6, 2008. You’ll never believe what they’re doing with bamboo these days, and it might take seeing it to believe it. On display at the Japan Society Gallery through January 11 is New Bamboo: Contemporary Japanese Masters ...

A view into the Matters of Sensation show at Artists Space

September 25, 2008. Good-looking and smart too, architecture exhibition Matters of Sensation will be on show at New York’s Artists Space gallery through November 22. An eclectic gathering of biomorphic experiments and installations – the model of an entire Corian-clad house, an iridescent shell lit and ventilated from within, nubbly rubber rugs, elaborately folded “bricks” that were 3D-printed from a mixture of aluminum and nylon, a cursive acrylic armature – are more than just eye candy; they are displayed strategically, almost by genus and species. Co-curator Marcelo Spina (with Georgina Huljich) explains ...

Hanno by David Weeks in the first American Design Club exhibit

October 1, 2008. Titled Outside of Sorts, the inaugural exhibition of the newly-minted American Design Club (AmDC) went up in the Character shop at 19 Prince Street in Manhattan last week. Curated by AmDC members, the show includes a number of unknown names who were found by putting out an open call through word-of-mouth, online design sites and other channels. The profusion of work – a smaller selection will be on display through the month – includes everything from a terrarium and a fruit bowl to a faceted coffee table, table sculptures that resemble houses of cards and jewelry, as well as studio work and more conceptual pieces (involving, in one instance, croquet mallets). New York designers, charter members, co-founders and co-curators (along with the charter members listed below) Kiel Mead and Theo Richardson of Rich, Brilliant, Willing explain the provenance and goals of the new organization ...

The cover of Wonderwall No. 2

September 30, 2008. Last night at the Colette shop in Paris, Frame Publishers celebrated the sequel to its Wonderwall: Masamichi Katayama Projects monograph, simply named Wonderwall: Masamichi Katayama Projects No. 2. Designed by groovisions (GRV2450), the book provides an overview of 40 of Japanese interiors firm Wonderwall’s 2003-2008 projects...

Commercial Tower O-14, Dubai, 2009, RUR Architecture

September 30, 2008. Concrete-lovers are in for a treat: The Second Columbia Conference on Building Materials and Technology will take place from October 1-3 at the university’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation. This year’s topic is Solid Sates: Changing Time for Concrete...

Invitation to the opening of the time-share gallery, W/------------

September 25, 2008. Opening in a storefront in Manhattan's Chinatown on September 27 and running for a maximum of two weeks is art/design hybrid "It's Time to Play W/ ––––––––," which christens a teensy gallery that will actually be time-shared among three designers: Yale graphic design graduate Jiminie Ha, Whitney Museum design director Rebecca Giminez, and Brooklyn-based graphic designer Macgregor Harp, who together curated the first exhibition ...

JooYoun Paek's Not Bicycle Cover (2008)

September 24, 2008. In his recent book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, Jonathan Zittrain uses the term “tethered appliances,” referring to hardware that is bound to single uses or proprietary networks. “Untethered,” an exhibition running at Eyebeam from September 25 to October 25 was inspired by readymades, technological obsolescence, and the pleasure of rewiring objects to take on new lives. Curator Sarah Cook asked fifteen artists to lobotomize (so to speak) and reprogram a number of everyday objects to create high-tech readymades ...

Rob Price's Design Without Reach: Tools for Dying concept

September 23, 2008. From Rob Price, creative director of Thwart Design, creator of the (slice of a) Grandfather Clock and the Duchampian homage R. Mutt Sticker (like a bumper sticker but you put it on urinals), comes Design Without Reach: Tools for Dying, a cheeky take on Design Within Reach’s Tools for Living campaign. Pondering DWR’s accomplishment in raising design awareness in the U.S., Price decided to extend the long arm of modern design even further – until it went back underground, in fact, exactly six feet under ...