today and tomorrow

The Royal College of Art in London is currently showing the work of their postgraduate students: Show RCA 2008. Here are some projects:

Home Sweet Home by Marie Retpen (Ceramics & Glass).

The Aftermath by Caroline Tattersall (Ceramics & Glass).

Blog Bot Platform by Andrew Broomfield (Design Interactions).

Blog Bot Platform is an open source system which I have developed for creating Different types of Blogging objects. Turning Simple experiences into online encounters. These bots ‘tweet’ to their experiences to micro blogging services. I am interested in how people react when they encounter these Blogjects invading their web 2.0 space.

White Lies by Alice Wang (Design Interactions).

This scale allows one to lie to him/herself.
The further back you stand, the lighter you become.
The user can gradually move closer and closer to reality.

Nanofutures: Sensual Interfaces by Christopher Woebken (Design Interactions).

Rather than focusing on the current development of nanotechnology, such as creating lighter and stronger materials, this project focuses on exploring its potential further, creating more manipulative prototypes such as organic electronics.

What do organic computing look like and how will our relationship with these products change? Can organic electronics with biosensors open up new possibilities for sensual and poetic designs?

Seeds contain material and information needed to grow organisms as well as algorithms for device networking. Using seeds as a simulation for smart dust, it allows one to easily visualize new interactions such as breaking, sharing, throwing away and mining data. These new interactions not only generate new behaviors but also redefine existing stereotypical electronic products.

Plugless Sink by Maja Ganszyniec (Design Products).

Plugless sink is exactly that, a sink without a plughole. To get rid of the grey water we have to tip the water out. By doing so we become more conscious of how much water we are using and mainly throwing away. This sink shows the value of water through its volume and promotes water re-usage.

Potato Chips by Cyrille Najjar (Design Products).

The Fastest Clock in the World by Freddie Yauner (Design Products).

Exhausted Cutlery by Kathryn Hinton (Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery).

Baby Moon by Anna Torfs.

‘The Nature Of Your Oppression Is The Aesthetic Of Our Anger’ by David Lieske. Some of you might know him as Carsten Jost, one of the founding members of the German record label Dial.

‘Passive Aggressive Anger Release Machine’ is an interactive sculpture by Yarisal and Kublitz. Experience the most satisfying feeling when a piece of China breaks into million pieces . All you have to do is insert a coin, and a piece of China will Slowly move forwards and fall into the bottom of the machine, breaking, and leaving you happy and relieved of anger.

Kacper Hamilton designed seven red wine glasses inspired by the seven deadly sins: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. The sin is revealed through the ritual of drinking.

Lust

Gluttony

Greed

Sloth

Wrath

Envy

Pride

found at dezeen

Tomás Alonso is a Spanish designer working in London, these 2 projects are definitely worth sharing.

5 degree table

Élévation sur table

found at pan-dan

Hollowware by Kim Buck, an inflatable bowl made from metallic plastic foil.
found at grijs

‘Same Same But Different’, a family of three glasses designed by Norway Says and available at Muuto.

This is the ‘Mural Dishwasher’ by Marie-Christine Lacasse & Marie Claude Savard, they are both graduate students from the environment design program at the Centre de Design at the University of Quebec in Montreal. This is really interesting concept, it combines the cabinets to store the tableware with a dishwasher. You would fill up a compartment with dirty dishes, then the dishwasher would move from one to another.
found at MoCo Loco

My favorites Swedes of Front Design also presented new work this week. This first project is called ‘Shade’, they are hand drawn objects which are materialized like illustrations. I guess you remember their Sketch Furniture project.

‘Randomly Crystallized’ was commissioned by Swarovski for their Crystal Palace. Front Design merged precision-cut crystals with hot liquid crystal to create these unique objects. I find this lamp more interesting than the vases they did.