THE 2012 Electrolux Design Lab Competition
The 2012 Electrolux Design Lab brief challenges design students to focus on design for the senses. Electrolux Design Lab created five films illustrating each sense. First out, is taste. How would you reward the senses through design?
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Indoor Garden and Compost by Ferber and Dieckmann
Designers Charlotte Dieckmann and Nils Ferber have design “Parasite Farm”, a full-cycle indoor garden that raises vegetables and composts their waste into fresh soil. This indoor garden and compost system is designed to fit into your existing furniture, with a series of grow beds with grow lights and a table-mounted compost bin.
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Philips’ Urban Beehive
The urban beehive consists of two pieces that attach through a hole in a window. The outside part provides an entry into the main hive and holds a flower pot for the bees to gather pollen, while the inside contains honeycomb frames ready for the bees to deposit their wax.
A pull on the bottom of the hive is a smoke actuator that lets you calm the bees down before you pop off the cover or collect honey.
To make their hives, bees produce wax and propolis, a resinous mixture that varies with the bees’ environment and diet. Propolis has a structural function but is also believed to inhibit harmful pathogens in the hive and is sold as an alternative medicine. Once the health benefits of honey and propolis are better understood, the urban beehive could also have a role in the home apothecary. Read More…
Freight Farms: Grow Fresh Food in Any Environment
Freight Farms are modular, expandable, portable crop production units that can quickly and easily grow food ANYWHERE. They have the ability to quickly expand critical access to high volumes of fresh food and create local economies that can empower communities to reduce the global footprint of food in a sustainable and profitable manner. Read More…
AirTrain Project by Francesco Codice
Fransesco’s projects is based on air purification from the CO2 excess produced by the overcrowding of people in train. These plants will be visible to the passengers inside the cabin as well as to the people outside away from the train. The reason for making it transparent to the external side, is to allow sun rays enter inside, which is very essential for the growth of plants.
The carbon dioxide gases are absorbed by the plants through small ports. They undergo certain chemical reactions and released oxygen back to the passenger cabin through small outlets. The released air is highly purified; thus, creates a comfortable atmosphere to the passengers in the train.
Open-Centre Turbine, Tidal Turbine by OpenHydro
OpenHydro is an Irish energy technology company whose business is the design and manufacture of marine turbines for generating renewable energy from tidal streams. The company’s vision is to deploy arrays of tidal turbines under the world’s oceans, silently and invisibly generating electricity at no cost to the environment. The Open-Centre Turbine is designed to be deployed directly on the seabed. Installations will be silent and invisible from the surface. They will be located at depth and present no navigational hazard. Farms of Open-Centre Turbines will provide a significant and undetectable supply of clean, predictable, renewable energy. Communities that benefit from power supplied by Open-Centre Turbine technology will never be conscious of the turbines’ existence.
OpenHydro and French utility company EDF are in the final stage of deploying the first of four 16m tidal turbines off the coast of Paimpol-Bréhat.
The first stage of a project which in 2012 will create the world’s largest tidal array generating power onto the French grid. The turbines are supplied by Greenore-based OpenHydro and each has the capacity to generate over 2MW of energy.
Openhydro and its partner DCNS have now completed the assembly of the first turbine for the Paimpol-Bréhat project. The installation is performed using the custom designed installation barge, the ‘Openhydro Triskell’.
ATM Desk System, by Jasper Morrison for Vitra
ATM desk system by Jasper Morrison highlights the essentials, with a restrained shape and clear functions. The basis: a table with careful detailing in the rounded edges and the ducts for cables and accessories, such as lamps. Various shelves enhance work organisation. Read More…
Spiral Garden Museum by Influx Studio
Spiral Garden Museum is a sustainable structure that is an entry into the competition for the new Taipei city museum in Taiwan designed by Influx Studio, a Paris based architectural firm. The design of the building is very individualistic and attempts to incorporate a lot of the Taiwanese culture in order to make it rather iconic.
The basic structure of the building includes a spiraling walkway that is as tastefully artistic as it is in touch with nature, considering the greenery of the park surrounding the building. The corkscrew building has five floors, and the floor area increases as we ascend towards the top.
The building is centered on the basic idea of a walkway lining the facade of the museum enabling people to climb to the top by taking the spiraling path.
The cork-screw and spiral architectural plan of the museum comprises of a green continuous walkway along the circumference of the building leading to the rooftop.
This would provide the visitors a 360′ view of the beautiful landscape apart from experiencing the beauty of the museum from within. The spiral ramp that connects the museum from the base to the top, is set at an inclination of 4% and is a circular route that has incorporated the green elements of the adjoining natural environment.The Sky Art Terrace is where the spiral ramp stops and leads to a vertically-spread cultural exhibition open- air area. However, internally, the building is organized into segments that offer various exhibition spaces and pliable lamellas that allow the areas to be used in many different layouts. Read More…
Eco-Friendly Loft in São Paulo, Brazil by Fernanda Marques
Fernanda Marques, Brazil based architect studio has designed this sustainable winter loft for ‘Casa Cor 2010 exhibit’. The house is build with modern open-space entirely covered with recycled wood inside and out. Efficient LED lighting system reduces energy consumption. Inspired by sustainability issues, this house is expended to horizon and nature.
The architects designed a modern open plan space which houses a living area, gourmet kitchen that is equipped with upscale stainless steel appliances, bar and a video hall. The living area seems huge and this is possible due to the floor to ceiling windows and the skyscraper picture on one of the walls. Furthermore the bar has a sculpture like a mountain form behind it, which is also used for storage and captures light beautifully.
‘EcoGlobe’ for Dubai’s Technopark by James Law
James Law known for his work in ‘cybertecture‘, which is a combination of advanced technologies, architecture, and multimedia experiences for users is coming with a new project, the Technosphere. The building will create a self-breathing environment and will generate solar electricity to supplement the energy needs of the building and also integrate a distributed array of sky gardens for offices and a hotel. This concept takes the planet’s ecosystem and interprets it as a Cybertecture building that mimics the forces of nature to produce a building that is wonder for people to visit, live and work in, and be a symbol of the power of Technology.
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LEGO Greenhouse by Sebastian Bergne
LEGO has commissioned Sebastian Bergne to create a public installation using their iconic bricks as part of the London Design Festival 2011.’LEGO greenhouse’ is an actual functioning greenhouse, whose walls, floors and earth are entirely built from the iconic building bricks, contrasting the live plants and vegetables growing within.
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Bacsquare, kitchen Garden by Bacsac
Bacsquare is an ecological garden to grow berries or flowers in small garden on balconies or terraces. The bag consists of a light material and offers plants and soil ideal conditions. as developed in the year 2009 by the French company Bacsac.
The idea behind Bacsac is to make it easier to have an own smaller garden on the rooftop in big cities. Read More…
Housing Complex by 2:pm Architectures Collectives
By exploring new materials in environmentally friendly housing design 2:pm Architectures Collectives successfully replaces wood with steel for their Eco project. The feature that makes these housing units stand apart is the fact that the units do not contain any wood at all. the project is the choice of expressing a habitat in the density of implantation and two totaling 11 units.
AME-LOT Wooden Pallet Building by Malka Architecture
AME-LOT is a project created by Malka Architecture who wanted the whole process to be nature friendly.
He aimed at minimizing excess materials and utilizing them more efficiently to reduce carbon footprint. The project is destined for rue Amelot in Paris.
The skin consists of an existing module: the wooden pallet. Held using horizontal hinges, the pallets contract towards the top, allowing privacy or large openings. The modularity of the various palettes creates varied geometries, which are based on use and constantly regenerated. The reappropriation of materials recycles the existing without additional processing, which would cost energy in terms of production and create byproduct pollution. Read More…
iKini, Solar Powered Bikini
A New York-based designer has invented a solar-powered bikini so wearers can charge their iPod or camera as they lie in the sun.Andrew Schneider, 30, sewed together 40 paper-thin photo-voltaic panels together with soft conductive thread to produce his iKini which comes complete with USB ports sewn into the fabric. Read More…
Babylon Chandelier by Alexis Tricoire
French designer Alexis Tricoire, has designed this chandelier as an ode to nature. This chandelier Babylon symbolizes the perfect meeting between biodiversity and design. It is a transparent bubble that uses the plant as lampshade, a suspended garden.
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WOW Water Sterilizer
Sang Keun Sim and Kyowon L&C Design Team have designed the WOW Plasma Plus wireless water sterilizer that uses electrolysis to eliminate harmful bacteria – all without chemical detergents.
It’s just a project for the moment, we will have to wait to find it on the market.
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World’s Largest Solar Clock by Smith of Derby
UK’s leading Smith of Derby who has a history of repairing and restoring ancient clocks for more than 150 years now, have designed the world’s largest solar clock for The Baghdad University in Iraq as a part of their restoration plan which as an iconic symbol will rest on the newly redeveloped University.The luxury item has been designed as a focal point for Mosques, and for both public spaces and private homes. Read More…
