D.I.Wild!

Now your desk can take a walk on the wild side with this cutesy, novel twist on a few familiar items that are not only DIY, but flat-pack-ready and eco-friendly! Cut from recycled cardboard sheets, the ECO DIY Collection includes a lamp, clock, speakers, pen holder and bookmark. Each takes the form of a wild animal favorite and can be assembled simply by folding. No glue or cutting required. Hit the jump to check em’ out!
Designer: Eduardo Alessi

Speechless!

Blue Experience Part 2

Tolga Tuncer’s first version for the Facebook Phone was radical enough, simply based on its design. He takes his passion with the social networking site a step forward with this new iteration. It features a compact aluminum casing and a slider phone. A highly centralized user interface with a real physical aluminum wheel embedded with a Like-Button makes the phone ideal for FB fans.
The wheel makes it easy to scroll within the Facebook timeline, News list ,Friend list and Photos without touching the screen. The wheel is also central point of Instagram’s filter selection and adjusting filter settings.
Designer: Tolga Tuncer

Transforming Decor Reveals Secrets via Spills, Wear & Tear

Kristine Bjaadal creates objects with hidden stories to tell – everyday objects with secret tales shown only under strange circumstances, such as tabletop spills or time-worn seating.

A small change making a big impact on the future is known as the butterfly effect. In this case, the accidental tipping of a glass reveals a flock of butterflies lying invisible but in wait right on your tablecloth, titled Underfull.

Or consider the inevitability of fabric wearing thin on your favorite upholstered chair – what if that almost-invariably negative process were turned into something positive, via, say, a pattern that emerges as the surface material layer gets slowly stripped away, named Underskog.

Along similar lines, but requiring less time (but perhaps some until you or your guest notices it), are these so-called Undertone dishes with out-of-sight rings of color below their raised edges. It is only when picked up – or better yet: spotted in reflection on the top of a table – that these tones become clearly visible.

Microsonic Landscapes: What Music Looks Like in 3D

What would your favorite album look like in three dimensions? Mexico City-based research and experimentation studio Realität proposes “a new spatial and unique journey” by transforming the sounds of five albums into physical matter. ‘Microsonic Landscapes’ translate sound waves into 3D-printed visualizations that resemble circular cityscapes, mountain ranges or volcanic craters.

Realität chose ‘Arvo Part’ by Für Alina, ‘Third’ by Portishead, ‘Another World’ by Antony & The Johnsons, ‘Pink Moon’ by Nick Drake and ‘Jewels’ by Einstürzende Neubaten, quite a broad range of musical varieties ranging from gentle classical tunes on the piano to pounding German industrial music.


This array of albums has produced dramatic variations in physical representations. While ‘Arvo Part’ is gently inverted like a colosseum, Portishead’s ‘Third’ is spiky, like a series of towers. ‘Another World’ looks like a spiraling staircase. Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ starts out slanting upward and then falls down steadily in a series of concentric circles. ‘Jewels’ is the most dramatic of all, with its pinnacle calling to mind a dark tower from a fantasy novel.



According to Creative Applications, ‘Microsonic Landscapes’ was created using the open-source three-dimensional data visualization programming language Processing, and printed with MakerBot, a machine that can be programmed to print out anything you want in plastic.

Striking Gravel-Covered Japanese House is a Study in Contrasts

Monolithic and dramatic, the two-story Ginan House by Keitaro Muto Architects is a wedge-shaped residence with a dark gravel-covered exterior that contrasts beautifully with a stark white interior. Located on the far end of a long and narrow plot, the house features a small swimming pool that extends into a glass-walled niche to create shimmering light effects inside.


The rough surface of the outside walls continue indoors, producing sharp transitions in color and texture from one wall to the next. Vast expanses of white elongate slanted interior walls, and voids throughout the home let streams of daylight in.


Another interesting feature of the inside is a metal bridge that extends across one of these voids to enable access to a walk-in closet and bathroom.

The client requested that the architect leave most of the home site as a garden space. In covering the home with the same gravel that makes up the surface of the garden outside, the architects made the residence seem as if it’s an extension of the garden – one massive sculptural object to contemplate from a quiet place.

Stop-motion music video relies on OpenOffice and Excel, finds formula for success (video)

It's already considered a grind to produce stop-motion video -- imagine creating a clip using the spreadsheet app that many dread seeing at work every morning. Joe Penna, better known to the internet as Mystery Guitar Man, isn't afraid. He and his team recorded a performance against a greenscreen, gave the video a mosaic look in After Effects and proceeded to recreate 730 of the frames in OpenOffice (and occasionally Excel)... by hand. We don't want to know how long it took Penna and crew to wrap up their work, but the result is probably the liveliest you'll ever get out of an app meant for invoices and corporate expenses. The fully produced video is above; click past the story break if you want to smash illusions and see how the pixelated rumba came to be.
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