CONVEXITY

"The Ravenswood Granodiorite" by Victor Ziegler

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 19:03:00 -0400

Article by Frederick Kaufman in Lapham's Quartlery's "City" edition

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:43:51 -0500

2008 / New York City

Waste Management

TAGS:: disease,; garbage,; journalism,; New York,; parasites,; science

Lufthansa Searches for Savor in the Sky - WSJ.com

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:05:06 -0400

Lufthansa Searches for Savor in the Sky - WSJ.com:

“Mr. Mayer noted that one slight consolation for people crowded into coach is that all those other passengers emit lots of moisture, which keeps cabin humidity at around 15%. In sumptuous first-class cabins, humidity can plunge to 5%, sapping the bouquet from champagne and caviar.”

The Scent of Design

Mon, 03 May 2010 10:19:13 -0400

The Scent of Design :

By Amelia Black / April 29, 2010

A designer who creates objects and spaces engages our sensations of touch, sight, and sometimes hearing. But what of our noses? Despite olfaction’s unmatched ability to evince memories and emotions—two essential objectives of design—smell is a relatively untapped medium in design practice. Combining scents with design was the challenge put to five designers, deemed “accidental perfumers,” by the organizers of HEADSPACE: On Scent as Design a symposium recently held in New York through the joint collaboration of Seed, Parsons the New School for Design, MoMA, International Flavors & Fragrances, and Coty. Selected for their diverse approaches to design, each “accidental perfumer” was paired with two professional perfumers from IFF and commissioned to explore how evanescent chemistries, when translated into smell, shape our experience of space and time. Though the participants chose to take their projects in radically different directions, they all came to the same conclusion: This is only the beginning. Many of the works you’ll see in this slideshow represent just the starting point for what promises to be a fruitful merger of olfaction and design.

Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn Is Given Superfund Status - NYTimes.com [article]

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:40:41 -0500

Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn Is Given Superfund Status - NYTimes.com [article] :

“The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday that it was designating the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn a contaminated Superfund site, paving the way for a cleanup of the decades of pollution there.”

More coverage on Curbed.com

via www.finalfrontiertoys.com The musk of marvel comics action...

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:03:39 -0500

via www.finalfrontiertoys.com

The musk of marvel comics action figure, Stinkor, as described in a post on Basenotes blog. The doll feature a scratch’n’sniff pad that releases a musky odor as the are interacted with and come packaged with a booklet aptly entitled “The Stench of Evil”. I wonder if children who played with Stinkor have stronger memories of this particular doll than his unscented colleagues?

The larger question of the article raises the potential carnal delight in musky smells after a long period of clean/fresh scents in the nineties marketplace. And begs the question, after the 20th century modernist’s banishing of smell from design and the individual… is body odor back?

iA » Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 10:51:26 -0500

iA » Kenya Hara On Japanese Aesthetics:

The full text from an interview with Kenya Hara that was published last October in the New York Times around the question of Japanese national design aesthetic and how this ‘craftsman’s spirit’ is mirrored in the traditional Bento box-lunch. (via AI)

[exhibition] Philagrafika2010 - The Print Center, Philadelphia

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 12:29:43 -0500

[exhibition] Philagrafika2010 - The Print Center, Philadelphia:

"Casting Identities in Light" by Phil Patton on NYTimes.com

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 16:25:28 -0500

"Casting Identities in Light" by Phil Patton on NYTimes.com:

Louise Fili’s protege: jessicahische.com

Thu, 07 Jan 2010 18:17:53 -0500

Louise Fili’s protege: jessicahische.com

Madeline Albright being interviewed about her collection of...

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:14:46 -0500

Madeline Albright being interviewed about her collection of pins, ie “talking pins.”

(via MAD)

[Review] Metropolis Magazine's design research film Brilliant Simplicity is a sophomoric effort on the part of some very engaged design editors who seem to be bored with the printed page.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 23:26:00 -0500

The film is a comprised of interviews with 15 designers/educators whose collaborative projects with student design teams at various (mostly architecture) schools won recognition in Metropolis Magazine’s Next Generation design awards. Conversation footage is mixed with panning shots of still images, and while many interesting things come up during the film - an overall narrative structure is lacking and makes the effective retention of useful information problematic. The experience of watching Brilliant Simplicity is a bit like watching the pages of a magazine being flipped too fast - you get a title, a subtitle and a few block quotes to go with the glossy images, but aren’t able to absorb any of the information that makes the story relevant to a reader. Curious for a project centered around the concept of design research.

While so many of us have been bemoaning the supposed death of print, it seems Susan S. Szenasy (editor in chief of Metropolis Magazine) has become frustrated by the restrictions of her graphic page layout and has begun to explore the realm of the moving image as a means to share ideas, “bring to life” design and push the boundaries of design graphics without pushing the limits of her budget. Szenasy is very excited about this development, and who can blame her, the rest of the online community has taken to the moving image in a big way. However the proliferation of the digital video format has meant that the bar has been raised, as viewers we expect beautiful cinemagraphics from the DIY production team, we demand a clear and informative narrative arc and the production quality is important. In short, our digital expectations have evolved a lot in the ten years since the Blair Witch Project.

The territory of the moving idea has huge potential as a medium for design thinkers trying to communicate the importance of their practice in a climate where foundational publications, such as ID Magazine, are crumbling. We as a profession seem to not be capable of expressing what we love about design - instead we deal in a shallow transaction of consumer trend and capitalistic aesthetics of mass. Digital is low cost, provides a digestible and common language through which ideas can be put forward in clear and meaningful ways. If we want a dialogue that goes beyond the latest trendy over priced (and advertizing supported) coffee table book, we as a community are going to need to learn to step-it-up on the quality. Didn’t we learn our lesson with the blogosphere?

Brilliant Simplicity could have been a tool to explore the value of research in design, but it stops short in the realm of teaser… too shallow for the practitioner to get much use from the information and too convoluted for the average viewer to come away with coherent understanding of what research means in design today. Yes, we understand that sustainability is good and that technology is here… but if we’re going to have anything important to say and engage our audiences in meaningful conversation, we as a community are going to have care a lot more about the details.

Donald Judd, or Cheap Furniture? (Quiz)

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 14:02:33 -0500

Donald Judd, or Cheap Furniture? (Quiz)

thissmellslike: Anicka Yi & Maggie PengShigenobu...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:40:43 -0500

thissmellslike:

Anicka Yi & Maggie Peng
Shigenobu Twilight
This is the first handcrafted scent by NY artist Anicka Yi and architect Maggie Peng. The fragrance is inspired by the Fusako Shigenobu, former leader of the Japanese Red Army, who was believed to be in exile in Lebanon for many years after orchestrating some of the group’s most political statements. Yi and Peng have chosen cedar wood as a central theme of this fragrance’s narrative, as cedar is highly regarded in Lebanon as a national emblem. The scent uses three different kinds of cedar wood as its base note, along with violet leaf and nutty heart notes, and top notes of yuzu, shiso leaf, and black pepper. The packaging for this hand-distilled fragrance is made of raw cedar wood, each bottle uniquely (and painstakingly) hand-cut by the creators in architectural geometry, encasing a 10ml glass bottle of liquid within. Shigenobu pics by Noah Sheldon!

via Ooga Booga

In a twist of fate news update: Ron Arad may actually make it...

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 10:17:00 -0500

In a twist of fate news update: Ron Arad may actually make it into my thesis… never in a million years did I see that coming. I’m not a huge fan of post-modern design, but maybe you’ll be as shocked as I am to discover his recent design for Kenzo limited edition fragrance on that is said to mimic the scent of marble on a woman’s skin is a well-designed multi-sensory experience. Ron Arad, are you going subtle on us? I’m shocked.

Unidentified Fragrance Object for Kenzo, packaging by Ron Arad, fragrance by Aurélien Guichard.

For more info check out these links: 1, 2, and the checklist for the recent Ron Arad retrospective at MoMA curated by Paola Antonelli (August 2, 2009–October 19, 2009)

Reason 10,006 to love New York City, because only here...

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:56:00 -0500

Reason 10,006 to love New York City, because only here...:

Mac Motorcycles (Fast Company)

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 22:11:32 -0500

Mac Motorcycles (Fast Company):

East Village Pigeon Lady

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 20:39:00 -0500

East Village Pigeon Lady

Creative Time publishes Summit speaker videos & pictures.

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:49:23 -0500

Creative Time publishes Summit speaker videos & pictures.:

Rebecca Ward

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 11:29:48 -0500

Rebecca Ward :