Tim Brown on Creativity and Play

This talk was given at Serious Play 2008 held at Art Center in Pasadena, CA. Tim Brown is the CEO of IDEO, which is an "innovation and design" firm which is highly respected for its creative thought. It is well worth watching, and only about 28 minutes. Enjoy, and feel free to post comments and reactions.

Recessionary Design: A Boom Time for Creative Energy

According to the International Herald Tribune, economic downturns can be great opportunities for design. Read the full article here. Excerpts are included below.

"If you rewind through design history, many of the most exhilarating periods have been during economic downturns. Take the 1930s, when the modern movement flourished despite the depression. Or the late 1940s, when Italy emerged as one of the world's most dynamic design centers during its postwar reconstruction."

"The recent changes within design itself make those skills even more useful. The 20th-century model of design was devoted to the creation of things - both objects and images - but designers are now also applying their expertise to systems. This means that designers will be called upon to advise recession-struck companies on how to cut costs without impeding efficiency. They will also be asked to exploit the entrepreneurial opportunities offered by the recession by developing austerity-friendly products and services."

"Resilient though some areas of design will be, others have already been hit by recession. One is 'design-art.' Half of the lots at Sotheby's design auction in London last month were unsold, and dealers are nervous about the prospects for next month's Design Miami fair. But what's the most exciting role for design? Developing new business concepts and cracking social problems, or making expensive, uncomfortable furniture?"

Koolhaas vs. The Cleaning Lady

"Koolhaas Houselife" is a film about Rem Koolhaas' Maison à Bordeaux, and looks into what it is really like to live in this architectural masterpiece. The film examines the house through the eyes of Guadalupe Acedo, the resident "cleaning lady."

Below is a review from We Make Money Not Art:

The peculiarity of the movie is that it presents this icon of contemporary architecture through the eyes of Guadalupe Acedo, the cleaning lady, and the other people who look after the building. The charming and devoted cleaning lady struggles with the heavy curtains, the narrow staircase, the either oddly shaped or gigantic glass panels, etc. Clearly this house has not been designed for the people who have the bad idea to live outside of architecture magazines. Once in a while you can hear Guadalupe whisper gems such as: ‘If I had money, I would not build a house like this.’

One of the highlights of the video is this snippet of interview which shows a Koolhaas surprised by Guadalupe’s take and treatment of his building: ‘You see here two systems colliding: the system of the platonic conception of cleaning with the platonic conception of architecture.’

More information and the movie trailer can be found here.

The Innovators: How Successful Companies Drive Business Innovation

You can access this report from here. Below are some key findings addressed by the report:

• Customer-facing business processes are the main targets for innovation.
• Generating good innovation ideas is hard; getting them to adoption is even harder.
• Survey respondents say that a culture of innovation is critical, yet they disagree over what exactly it means.
• Technology investments are being directed towards tools that will increase information sharing and boost productivity.
• Inability to prove return on investment (ROI) continues to prevent wider deployment of innovation tools.
• Companies are looking to increase their level of collaboration with research bodies and universities, while scaling back their consulting expenditure.

Eight Ways to Save Design Conferences

According to Core77, "Design conferences have become exercises in regenerated, wasteful spectacle." Alissa Walker, Core77's resident design conference junkie, presents some ideas of how to improve design conferences. You can read the article here.

As Architecture and New Media Get To Know Each Other

Super duper video on the design of the GreenPix Zero Energy media wall in Beijing.

Is Sustainability Boring?

From the May issue of Abitare, an interesting article written by Michael Braungart, who is one-half of the cradle-to-cradle pioneers McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry. The following is an excerpt from the article:

But I can tell you, sustainability is boring. It is just the minimum. Like when you were asked: “How is your relationship with your girlfriend?” What do you say? Sustainable? I’d say: “I am so sorry for you.”

Check out the full article here.

It's the Economy Stupid

Robert Blinn has written "a macroeconomic primer for design(ers) and sustainability" for Core77. Click here to read the article.

An Invisible Memorial

Below is a synopsis of the project from www.markuskinson.de:

"Touched echo" is a minimal medial intervention in public space. The visitors of the Brühl's Terrace (Dresden, Germany) are taken back in time to the night of the terrible air raid on 13th February 1945. In their role as a performer they put themselves into the place of the people who shut their ears away from the noise of the explosions. While leaning on the balustrade the sound of airplanes and explosions is transmitted from the swinging balustrade through their arm directly into into the inner ear (bone conduction).

Disposable Dishes

When it comes to entertaining and special occasions, eco-minded consumers can be torn by two apparently conflicting desires: the need to be green and the easy clean-up made possible by disposable dishes. Thanks to a new innovation from VerTerra, however, that conflict can finally be put to rest.

Architecture that makes energy

The Dynamic Tower is a skyscraper that is also a wind generator.

Changing the Game with Innovations

Thoughts on innovation with Procter & Gamble's CEO, A. G. Lafley - which includes the following question and answer.

"Q. And yet only half of your product innovations succeed. Why isn’t the rate higher?

A. I don’t really want it to be. Human nature is such that, if we push our people to drive the batting average up, they’ll try to hit more safely, take a shorter swing, go for the singles instead of home runs.

But we try to set milestones that innovations must meet at every step along the development process. As soon as they miss one, we allocate the resources to another product moving through the funnel. That’s another difference from the old days, when P.& G. let bad ideas go too far."

Click on the title to read the interview from the NYTimes.

Two Architectures - Video

The architecture theorist Marcos Novak and Bruce Sterling discuss about Novak’s concepts such as “trans-vergence”, “trans-architecture”, “trans-modernity”, “liquid architecture”, “navigable music”, “habitable cinema”, “archimusic”. Architectonic explorations into expanded, mixed and alternative virtual reality.

Design and the Elastic Mind

"Design and the Elastic Mind,” a current exhibition at the New York MoMA running through May 12, brings together a wide range of design, art, architectural, computational and scientific experiments that challenge us to stretch our minds and see how design participates in science and science can be engaged in design.

A New Approach to Marketing Cheap Furniture

To promote yet another "big blue box filled with anything and everything a cost-conscience person needs to adopt a 'designerly' lifestyle" (this time in China), retail giant Ikea has renovated the train that would take you to such a magical place. Now that's thinking. 

Google HQ in Zurich

Talk about shifting the paradigm in office interiors.

Take a look at a gallery of pics here.

9009 Carothers - Crescent Resources

Little's DC and Charlotte offices are teaming up to assist Crescent in developing conceptual master plan and architectural solutions for Crescent's 9009 Carothers site in Nashville, TN. Crescent's intent is to create marketing materials in pursuit of development showcasing their committment to sustainability integrated with a high quality, and customer focused design approach. Eddie, Bo, and Rugel collaborated on assisting Crescent with their efforts. Our concept focuses on creating a series of green public spaces that thread through the site and help to organize and connect the existing buildings with the new. Visitors and employees park their vehicles and traverse these landscaped outdoor rooms on their way to work. Carefully designed and allocated covered walkway canopies will provide shelter during inclement weather so as to contribute to to design of the parks and plazas. The architectural facades will be articulated to maximize solar orientation and visual connectivity to the green public spaces. For the 10 story office building option we would also consider a green roof as part of the sustainable design approach.

Electroluminescent wall for British Airways

Videos coming soon!

Library of Green Building Materials

Rhode Island-based Ecolect, which was founded by two Rhode Island School of Design graduates, hopes to save designers time and money by answering three important questions: where to find sustainable materials, what makes them sustainable, and who else is using them and how. 

Super Sized Fries and Peace of MInd, Body & Soul

New McDonald's franchise shifts the aesthetic theme from gluttony to enlightenment.