Trend 10: Food In The Cloud
It was the year of the web restaurant. This concept of home-based cooking services is emerging worldwide, being part of a trend addressing sustainability issues in a crisis economy. Last year Springwise wrote about the strongly related ‘sellsuming’ trend (“selling is the new saving”) covering several initatives, such as Book of Cooks, a US-based online marketplace that helps consumers […]
Enlightening Nature
An open air gallery is the theater of the project ‘Outside Videoprojection’, by Ibon Mainar. In his work he chooses natural settings for screening of different images, as if they suddenly pop out of thin air. With his car he travels the Basque country, looking for a good spot for his ‘light paintings’. The result […]
Best Of 2010
Happy New Year everyone! We would like to provide you with our ‘Best of 2010’, bringing five articles we wrote last year which our readers found most interesting, intriguing and appealing. Click on ‘Read more…’ to go to the entire posts. We wish you the best of luck in 2011 and hope you will keep […]
The Trend Forecaster's Handbook
Trends play an important role in today’s cities. Not only because of the ubiquitous presence of hipsters on today’s streets, but also in a broader context trends are an indicator for societal change. Brands do everything to get in touch with influentials and innovators, to hear about new ideas for their business and to get […]
Human Operating System
In order to make the perfect interface for an operating system, “one that really understands our deepest needs”, the Barcelona-based interaction design group Multitouch created a real-life OS that really feels like there is someone ‘inside’ working for you. Their installation, which is named ‘Hi, A Real Human Interface’, is presented as a metaphor for how […]
Picnic Under A Plastic Pillow
This fascinating outdoor pavilion was created by the designers of Overtreders W, an office based in Zaandam (a suburb of Amsterdam). Entitled 'Het dak dat opgaat in rook', or 'The Roof That Goes Up In Smoke', their piece of landscape art can house up to 40 picnicking people.
The Portable Rain Machine
The smartphone revolution not only opened up a totally new market for apps, it also seems to stimulate developers to come up with new experiments in gaming, art, photography, design, et cetera. Think of the recently showcased Poolga app, which turns your iPhone into a mobile art gallery featuring graphics from upcoming designers. Here I […]
Metropolis II By Chris Burden
The American artist Chris Burden has fabricated an installation which he calls Metropolis II. The project features the complexity and Burden’s fascination for the city, and also reflects critically on the city as a mechanism, as an ongoing machine far beyond human scale. In his implicit criticism, Burden links to Fritz Lang’s famous dystopian movie […]
Hollywood Space Police
In recent years city branding seems to have reached new heights in China, with prestigious events such as the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2010 Shanghai EXPO and recent 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games paving the way. City branding strategies aim at improving reputation and making a city appear more interesting and attractive. It is often based on […]
Beatbox Burgers
From his mobile burger van, Raph serves up “the best burgers in Melbourne”. The menu is simple, featuring a Raph burger with grass-fed beef, a Shroom burger (mushrooms) for vegetarians, and fries with “stereo” sauce. That’s it. And you can only find out where the van is located via Twitter, or on the website. What is […]
Living In A City Egg
Living in the center of China’s capital Beijing is too expensive for the newly graduate architect Dai Haifei. Therefore he has designed his own small movable apartment. His so-called City Egg is a two meter high house for one person (although two would probably fit) made of sack bags, bamboo spints, wood chippings and grass […]
Mapping The Downfall
Fascinating ruins are surrounding us! All over our cities and outside, symbolic decadent buildings are taken as case studies to talk about an era. The picture of Villa Savoye taken before its renovation marks the end of the modern movement long before its international recognition, due to the misunderstandings and the lack of interest towards […]
Hello, I'm A Twitter-Controlled Christmas Tree
The Beeldboom (‘Image Tree’) is a remotely controlled Christmas tree reacting on tweets sent to him. The tree, which is located in a park in Amsterdam, illuminates each time a Twitter message is sent to @Beeldboom. A webcam streams the tree 24 hours a day on the website of the Christmas tree, and enables everyone to […]
I Want To Ride My Bicycle
Not living in a northern country such as Holland, where bicycles are holy and bike lanes are everywhere, citizens of Madrid have to fight against the traffic every day to ride their sustainable transport medium. The collective Luzinterruptus gave back the city to bicycles for one night. With the project Pedaleo Seguro (‘Safe Biking’), they chose […]
Designing The Best Sounding City
Isle of Tune is a new city-building game with a musical twist. You start by designing the city with various elements (road sections, and road-side elements like houses, trees, flower pots and street lights) and put cars on the road. When the cars pass these road-side elements, it plays a certain tune or beat. The […]
