Enduring design

“The 503CWD has been custom built around the classic 500 series camera with its range of high performance, central shutter based lenses. The addition of a high-end 16 megapixel back with a sensor that is 50% larger than full frame 35mm DSLRs - aesthetically integrated with the rest of the camera - turns this classic camera into a digital workhorse. Classic retro features round off the package.”

The Hasselblad 500 series of cameras have existed for over 50 years nearly unchanged, this is a result of utilizing high quality optics and interchangeable parts. You can still use the Carl Zeiss lenses produced in 1960 on the modern camera body.

The advent of the digital back has given photographers the ability to use 50 years worth of high quality camera equipment with the freedom a digital camera offers.

Kevin M. Cordner

BMW Builds a Shape-Shifting Car Out of Cloth

Concept cars give automotive designers a chance to let their imaginations run wild, often with outlandish results. But even by that measure, BMW has come up with something as strange as it is innovative -- a shape-shifting car covered with fabric.
Instead of steel, aluminum or even carbon fiber, the GINA Light Visionary Model has a body of seamless fabric stretched over a movable metal frame that allows the driver to change its shape at will. The car -- which actually runs and drives -- is a styling design headed straight for the BMW Museum in Munich and so it will never see production, but building a practical car wasn't the point.
Chris Bangle, head of design for BMW, says GINA allowed his team to "challenge existing principles and conventional processes."
"It is in the nature of such visions that they do not necessarily claim to be suitable for series production," company officials said in unveiling the car Tuesday. "Rather, they are intended to steer creativity and research into new directions."
Giving Bangle and his team that latitude to design so radical a car "helps to tap into formerly inconceivable, innovative potential" to push the boundaries of appearance and materials as well as functions and the manufacturing process, BMW says.
Bangle and is team actually built GINA -- which stands for "Geometry and functions In 'N' Adaptions" -- six years ago, but BMW kept it under, er, wraps until Tuesday. It's built on the Z8 chassis and has a 4.4-liter V8 and six-speed automatic transmission. BMW says the fabric skin - polyurethane-coated Lycra - is resilient, durable and water resistant. It's stretched over an aluminum frame controlled by electric and hydraulic actuators that allow the owner to change the body shape. Want a big spoiler on the back? Wider fenders? No problem. "The drastic reinterpretation of familiar functionality and structure means that drivers have a completely new experience when they handle their car," BMW says.
GINA has just four panels - the front hood, two sides and the rear deck. The doors open in jack-knife fashion and are completely smooth when closed; access to the engine is through a slit in the hood. BMW says the shape of the body can be changed without slackening or damaging the fabric. The fabric is opaque translucent so the taillights shine through, and small motors pull the fabric back to reveal the headlights.
The interior is equally innovative. The steering wheel and gauges swing into place and the headrest rises from the seat once the driver is seated, making it easier to get in and out of the car.
BMW says GINA is built on a space frame that provides all the safety of a conventional car, but we suspect people - not to mention BMW's lawyers and government regulators - wouldn't embrace fabric bodies. Still, the company says GINA could influence the design of future Beemers.

Ian Swoboda

And you thought the bus couldn't get any more sh*ty

Oslo, Norway is putting your(well, their) poo to use. They plan on converting 80 public buses to run on biomethane, a byproduct of raw sewage, in a large step to become carbon neutral by 2050. The conversion is also said to aid in noise reduction and will save up to .40 Euros per liter of the fuel. The first buses will be arriving by September this year, with hope of all 400 buses to be converted thereafter.
Dan Cushman
Source: inhabitat.com

Greece is for Lovers: Hooker’s Delight

As spotted first at Today and Tomorrow ~ the Greece is for Lovers “Hooker’s Delight” is an interestingly misleading name (if your mind naturally leans that way) ~ for a fun martini glass design perfect for the fishermen in your life! Talking about living dangerously ~ you may hook yourself at any moment… or on the flip side, your olive can’t go far when its attached to the stem!
-BRANDEN FULTON

Chris Van Dyken

Logitech Harmony 1100 Advanced Universal Remote
By Andrew Liszewski
I’m still finding stuff from CES to write up, and one of the very first gadgets I had the chance to play with was the new Logitech Harmony 1100 universal remote. In fact, it turns out the person I was sitting next to on my flight to Vegas was the Logitech ‘demo guy’ for this product, so I had an ‘in’ even before the plane touched down. The Harmony 1100 is an upgrade to the 1000 model, and features a 3.5 inch color touch screen that’s complimented with a set of ’soft’ buttons on the sides, and dedicated volume and channel buttons to the right. Now these buttons technically duplicate functionality already found on the touch screen, but I like the fact that you can adjust the volume and change the channel without having to look away from the screen. Who knows when that crazy island from Lost might up and disappear again while you’re not paying attention?
And like with all the Logitech Harmony models, programming the 1100 to replace up to 15 different remotes is easy thanks to their guided online setup that currently supports more than 225,000 devices from over 5,000 brands. But if things get too complicated, the UI on the large touch screen can also be re-configured to show only the commands you want to see, even to the point of choosing a custom icon for each one. Now that large display does raise the issue of battery life, but the remote comes with a docking cradle, so whenever it’s not in use or lost, the battery should be recharging. (I think the Logitech rep suggested 3 or 4 days of use before it needed to be recharged.)
The Logitech Harmony 1100 is expected to be available in February for $499.99.

The Key Thing Sure Beats A Boring Key Hook

The Key Thing Sure Beats A Boring Key Hook
By Luke Anderson
I’m sure that everyone has wasted a good portion of their lives trying to find their keys. They only seem to disappear when you’re running late. I recall that when I finally hung up a key hook by my door, I seemed to have a better time keeping track of them, though it took a while to get used to hanging them up every day. I think it would help if you had something a little more interesting than some plain hooks for your keys. Something like this Key Thing for instance. Rather than just tossing your keys on a small table or hanging them on a boring hook, you actually stick one of them into a small rubber grip on this half-sphere. Sure, it’s not the most exciting thing in the world, but it is a bit different. It’s just a concept for now, but it seems simple enough that it might just get made into a full-fledged product someday.

Biomega shaft drive bike

This biomega bike (copen hagen model) boasts shaft drive and 8-speed in rear hub. Biomega also makes other shaft drives and inovative bikes. Tom Stilson

Trucdesign

For anyone who likes furniture design and sites to other design sites check this out has some intesting designs from art to just weired.
Emerson Archer

Kuvert Travel Bags--

Kuvert Travel Bags--
$130.00-$300.00, Buy it here.
How cool are these? And they fold flat for storage, which is just perfect.
The world in a bag. Sporty, casual and simple, the new KUVERT travel bags are the perfect companion for shopping, sports, weekends, parenting and travel. The unique look is the result of a ground-breaking use of custom-coated polyester fabric: each bag is cut out of a single piece, folded and welded along the edges. This allows the bags to fold flat for storage, yet the engineered expansion is inrivalled in spaciousness. The zippers run in both directions all the way to the base for easy packing and unpacking, and the carrying strap is removable. Kuvert bags are sturdy, water-proof and lightweight - sure to stand by you during your most exciting adventures.

I thought these were a well thought, clever design-Caitlin Kennedy

Aquarium Phone Booth

Artists Benoit Deseille and Benedetto Bufalino transformed this phone booth in Lyon, France into an aquarium.

What a bizarre but wonderful sight this must be. Especially if you really, really need to make a call. Which let's hope no one tries to do.

Aquarium_phone_booth05 The art piece was created as a part of the Lyon Light Festival.

-Branden Fulton

Ecofont

Looking beyond paper, Dutch creative agency Spranq has developed a new font called the Ecofont that's designed to extend the life of ink cartridges and toner. Setting out to explore how much of a letter could be removed while maintaining readability, the group found that the best results were achieved using a font in which tiny circles were intentionally left blank in the middle of each line, much like Swiss cheese. The result is based on the Vera Sans, an open source letter, and uses up to 20 percent less ink than traditional fonts, Spranq says. Available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux, it's also free to download and use. The Ecofont works best in OpenOffice, AppleWorks and MS Office 2007 at the 9- or 10-point size, says Spranq, which invites designers from around the world to participate in its further development. Arabic and Hebrew versions are reportedly in the works as well, according to the AP.

Website: www.ecofont.eu
Uploader: Ted Shin

Forget Tesla... Shelby Aero EV

Being that green design is becoming larger and stronger, what better way to say "green" than 1000 horsepower and 800 ft/lb torque. I'm sure many of us have heard of Tesla's electric super car, well this is it's competitor. According to Engadget the Areo EV is capable of "... 0 to 60 in just 2.5 seconds at a 208mph top speed. Compare that to the Tesla Roadster's 0-60 in 3.9 seconds (or 3.7 for the 2009 sport model)". To top it off its batteries have a 150-220 miles range which is accomplished with just a 10 minute charge on a 220v source, where as Tesla's car takes about 3.5 hours. It is expected to arrive in production in the fourth quarter of 2009.
Source: Engadget.com
Dan Cushman

Fambuena Lighting

Fambuena Lighting
This company is based out of Spain, established in 2005. The website is very vague with detail about the company but you can find designer profiles and their 2009 spring line. The company is described as creating romantic emotional designs to join spaces.
I was drawn to the company because fo the innovative use of material and shape. The lighting they have is unlike anything I have seen. Check it out, its very inspiring.

Rachel Kennedy

found on 2modern.com
www.fambuena.com

childrens hospital

This childrens hospital shown in the recent Domus healthcare issue (in library) creates a non-thereatening environment for children including the cone shaped play area in the background. Posted by Tom Stilson