In the same vay as sparespace, the work of Phillippe Malouin, Grace table and Hanger chairs:

The crate project by Jack Brandsma. An office in a box that can be moved in the instant:

Mobile unit for RestRuimte [sparespace]

“SpareSpace transforms empty shop- and office buildings into mobile offices. SpareSpace offers beginning entrepreneurs in creative industries affordable and representative offices in an inspiring environment. As soon as the empty space is put up to let or for sale, the entrepreneurs will move to a new building.

Using specially designed crate furniture by designer Jack Brandsma, SpareSpace gives substance to the term Mobile Office. Work spaces can be folded and transported in no time, as can the bar, the meeting table and the foldable wall (in progress).

SpareSpace expects the temporary reshaping/redecoration of the buildings to give a new impulse to creative industry. Additionally, SpareSpace expects a positive outcome for real estate owners since unused space is given a representative goal.”

No need to pollute the environment with disposable plastic or cardboard tableware; no need either to carry fragile and heavy tableware… eat it!

Picture via Dezeen: “Japanese designer Nobuhiko Arikawa of Rice-Design has created edible tableware for Orto Cafe in Japan.”

Reminds me of the bread with a handle.

Fashion and mobility have at least one thing in common: their ephemeral nature. Nowadays, “Mobility” seems to be a trendy branding strategy to fashion designers:

Hermès commissions Didier Fiuza Faustino (Bureau des Mésarchitectures) For the H Box, “Une sorte de “caméra obscura” mobile et fonctionnelle” seen (my pix below) exhibited at the Pompidou Center (November 29, 2007 - January 7, 2008). Art traveling exhibit.

Chanel asks Zaha Hadid to design the Mobile Art: Chanel Contemporary Art Container. Featuring the artists Sophie Calle And Yoko Ono, among others.

Screenshots from Chanel’s website

Talking about moving… I want that:

Casulo: Mobile Living Furniture.

Image from Nokia. The Morph Phone Mode: “A nanotechnology concept Morph demonstrates the functionality that nanotechnology might be capable of delivering: flexible materials, transparent electronics, self-cleaning surfaces, ability to observe local environment and harvest energy”.

Découvrir morph (et autres produits) et lire: Morph est symptomatique de la fusion de la technologie avec le corps humain. Court entretien de Michel Puech, Professeur à la Sorbonne par Julien François pour L’Atelier BNP Paribas.

Extrait:

“L’Atelier : Voyez-vous ce type de produits - dotés de matière flexible, intégrant des nanotechnologies - remplacer à moyen terme les appareils mobiles actuels, plus fonctionnels et moins ergonomiques ?

MP : Impossible d’anticiper l’appropriation par les utilisateurs, qui passe par du symbolique, du ludique, de l’émotionnel, et pas seulement du fonctionnel, de l’ergonomique. Si ces objets souples, transparents, multifonctionnels et très adaptables, y compris physiquement, ces objets avec lesquels on a envie de jouer, supplantent les technologies mobiles actuelles, ce sera sans doute parce que le gain de fonctionnalité est aussi un enrichissement existentiel, une nouvelle expérience physique, psychologique, relationnelle. C’est comme cela que nous sommes passés des téléphones fixes et cabines téléphoniques aux mobiles, des ordinateurs de bureau aux ultra-portables, aux baladeurs MP3…”

Screenshot from businessweek

“To create Adour’s virtual sommelier, the first high-profile example of an interactive tabletop menu, Rockwell hired a much smaller outfit, Potion Design, a New York firm started by two graduates of the Massachusetts Institute for Technology Media Lab. Their system uses high-end projectors, computers, a Web-based database, and a vision-sensing system, all tied together with proprietary software. The technology has been installed before in office spaces and museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Asia Society. But, Potion partner Jared Schiffman says, “this is the first time we’ve used this in a restaurant or service setting.” Total cost of the project: about $250,000.”

In relation to previous post: ‘robot’ bar

Royal College of Art students were set the challenge of designing a mobile phone to “outperform, outsmart, and outmanoeuvre everything on the market.” Read the BBC article.

Via Yanko Design… An inflatable mouse for ultra portability! Mais où va le monde? :)

Pictures from website

“The Jelly Click takes mouse portability to the extreme. All the electronic circuity lives on a small flexible board. The body itself is just soft plastic. Whenever you need a mouse, blow up the Jelly Click, attach the USB cable and you’re good to go. As a bonus, it’s a total floaty for you swimming challenged people.

Designers: Bongkun Shin, Heungkyo Seo, Jiwoong Hwang & Wooteik Lim”

The art center summit 2008, in Pasadena CA.

“The second Summit has an ambitious program. The Art Center Summit: Systems, Cities & Sustainable Mobility will look at the big picture: the broad systems thinking and systems integration needed to create a better future for society. How can design encourage large groups to rethink how they move from Point A to Point B? How does one design attractive, efficient and financially viable solutions for new communities? How can new systems be designed for existing environments? How should the design process integrate with cross-disciplinary systems and teams”