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This is How You Roll and Transport a 19-Foot Picasso That’s Never Been Moved Before

With all of the culture available to NYers, it might have been easy to miss the massive Picasso original that’s been hanging in what is now the Four Seasons restaurant (in the Seagram Building) on Park Avenue since 1959. That being said, there are plenty of locals and tourists alike who wait hours to have the chance to see one of the area’s many hidden art gems. “Le Tricorne”—a depiction of a bullfighting scene—is a 19’ × 20’ canvas, originally painted in 1919 and used as a stage curtain for the Ballets Russes. At the time, his wife Olga was a ballerina in the troupe. The real question here is, why is it being moved at all? It turns out that Aby J. Rosen, owner of the Seagram Building, doesn’t want the piece up in the space anymore and wants more room for “other art”—I’d be interested to know what he will find worthy of replacing a Picasso. This didn’t really present much of an issue, considering that Rosen doesn’t even own the piece. That honor goes to the New York Landmarks Conservancy. The handlers in charge of moving the piece had no idea as to how or what was keeping the art attached to the wall, making for an adventurous and relatively risky removal process. The New York Times recently put together a fantastic look at how “Le Tricorne” was analyzed and moved from the area: (more…)

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This is How You Roll and Transport a 19-Foot Picasso That’s Never Been Moved Before

Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool

Animal Planet calls Anthony Archer-Willis “the best in the world for what he does—designing and delivering the ultimate swimming experience.” That’s why they gave Archer-Willis, a British landscape architect with a specialization in swimming pool and water garden design, his own show. In ” The Poolmaster , ” he designs dream swimming pools for a handful of lucky clients. While the TV show will reveal Archer-Willis’ own creations, in the following video he shows you his appreciation for another pool designer’s work. An unnamed family in Utah commissioned this absolutely insane, mammoth $2-million-dollar swimming pool, which was designed to look all-natural. With five waterfalls, a grotto, a waterslide, hidden passageways, an integrated indoor kitchen/bathroom/showering facility, a scuba diving practice area and more, this is not the average swimming pool that most of us Americans will be hitting up this holiday weekend. Watch and be amazed: (more…)

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Insane $2 Million Naturalistic Feature-Packed Swimming Pool

Sit Happens: Noonee’s So-Called ‘Chairless Chair’ Offers Wearable Seating Solution

Some are calling it an invisible chair while others are going with bionic pants —semantics, perhaps, but considering that the chair is a canonical example of industrial design, it’s worth examining the distinction when it comes to Noonee ‘s “Chairless Chair.” “Based on robotic principles of Bio-Inspired Legged Locomotion and Actuation, ” the exoskeletal assistive device consists of a pair of mechatronic struts that run the length of the user’s leg, with attachment points across the thighs and at the heels of the user’s shoes. Hinged at the knee to allow for normal movement—viz. walking and running—while a battery-powered variable damper system can be engaged to direct body weight from the knees to the heels of one’s feet. Of course, the Chairless Chair is intended not for us deskbound office peons but for environments in which workers must stand for extended periods, if not entire 8-hour shifts. As the story goes, 29-year-old Keith Gunura was inspired by his experience working in a packaging factory in the U.K.; now, a decade later, he is the CEO and founder of Zurich-based company. CNN, which duly notes the precedent of the one-legged Swiss milking stool, sums up these workplace health concerns (as does the Noonee website ): Physical strain, repetitive movements and poor posture can lead to conditions called Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which are now one of the leading causes of lost workday injury and illness. In 2011, MSDs accounted for 33 percent of all worker injuries and illnesses in the U.S. with over 378, 000 cases, according to data from the United States Department of Labor. In Europe, over 40 million workers are affected by MSDs attributable to their job, according to a study entitled Fit For Work Europe and conducted across 23 European countries. Gunura demo’ing the Chairless Chair (more…)

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Sit Happens: Noonee’s So-Called ‘Chairless Chair’ Offers Wearable Seating Solution

Dungeons, Dragons & Design: Geek Chic’s Gorgeous Gaming Tables

David Roentgen’s transforming gaming table is the most amazing piece of furniture I’ve ever seen. It’s also from the 18th Century. But here in the 21st, a company called Geek Chic is making modern-day gaming tables. Their stuff is beautiful, and as the company’s name suggests, the products are aimed at the Dungeons-and-Dragons roleplaying game crowd. Their top-of-the-line model is called the Sultan , and no, it ain’t a table for eating on. The center surface is what the company calls the Game Vault, where the Gamemaster lays out the unspoilt fantasyland devoid of your landlord, boss, spouse and parents. The sides feature integrated flip-out trays and drawers within, as well as little pull-out shelves to hold your dice and/or a cup of magic potion. (more…)

The TSA Wants You– To Design a Solution to Our Collective Airport Security Woes (For a Chance to Win to $5K of Prize Money)

The airport security line is the kind of universally despised ordeal that extraterrestrials, should they exist, would dread; even a seasoned traveler will bristle at the thought of the rigmarole of boarding pass / I.D., uncooperative scanners, doffing footwear, unwieldy bins, more scanners. Not to belabor the point, but it’s a mildly demeaning nuisance at best. What are you going to do about it? Well, it turns out that the TSA wants to know—they recently announced an Ideation Challenge soliciting proposals for expediting the process, specifically for TSA Pre✓ passengers but ostensibly for us plebs as well. “America’s Next Generation Checkpoint Queue Design Model” may not roll off the tongue, but, hey, that’s what we’re up against (…and, as we saw a couple of weeks ago, this is what the TSA is up against ). TSA is looking for the Next Generation Checkpoint Queue Design Model to apply a scientific and simulation modeling approach to meet the dynamic security screening environment. The new queue design should include, but not limited to the following queue lanes: · TSA Pre✓ · Standard · Premier Passengers (1st class, business class, frequent fliers, etc.) · Employee and Flight Crews · PWD (wheelchair access) The Challenge is to provide a simulation modeling concept that can form the basis to plan, develop requirements, and design a queue appropriately. The concept will be used to develop a model to be applied in decision analysis and to take in considerations of site specific requirements, peak and non-peak hours, flight schedules and TSA staffing schedules. Solvers are expected to provide the concept and provide evidence that it works as described in the requirements. As in the MTA’s 2012 ” App Quest ” competition, the Transportation Security Authority is offering a total of $15, 000 as, um, Innocentive . (I know it’s a portmanteau of ‘innovation’ and ‘incentive, ‘ but I can’t help but read it as ‘innocent’—see also Rapiscan ; cf. Dr. Tobias Funke’s business cards .) (more…)

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The TSA Wants You– To Design a Solution to Our Collective Airport Security Woes (For a Chance to Win to $5K of Prize Money)

Big-Ass Screen: LG’s Envy-Inducing 34" Monster Monitor

Images via Robbie Khan / PetaPixel While I’d previously caught wind of LG’s new 34″ monitor , the company’s hero shots showed little more than a rectangle covered in Photoshopped fake screens and devoid of local scale. But I just came across photographer Robbie Khan’s write-up on his , and seeing it with actual work on it drives home how gi-normous this thing is. Like many of us creatives Khan spends long stretches in front of a monitor, and the 34UM95’s 21:9 aspect ration and 3440×1440 resolution would go to good use in his work editing panoramic photos. LG’s product copy points out that they’ve included a “Screen Splitter” feature (both Windows and Mac compatible) that automatically tiles out four screens with a single click… (more…)

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Big-Ass Screen: LG’s Envy-Inducing 34" Monster Monitor

Core77 Design Awards Spotlight: Personal EKSO, an Exoskeleton Designed to Replace the Wheelchair

Although the perennial buzz around 3D printing has yet to materialize into a proper industrial revolution, the increasingly powerful technology has gained some traction in the medical world, where customizability and on-site availability trump the constraints of cost and scale. It may come as no surprise, then, that one of the 2014 Core77 Design Awards honorees that caught our eye was developed by a previous winner, whose work we’d covered as far back as 2010, before the the inaugural awards program. This time around, Scott Summit took Professional Runner Up in the Social Impact category with the EKSO personal exoskeleton , a mecha-like medical device at the intersection of robotics, rehabilitation and digital fabrication. As a replacement for a wheelchair, the device has the potential to revolutionize mobility for paraplegic individuals. Summit shares credit with Gustavo Fricke, 3D Systems and Ekso Bionics, all of whom worked together to print parts that connect a person to their robot as naturally and respectively as possible. “This is an unusual design effort on every front, ” designer Scott Summit says. “We had challenges with the technical details, since these are massive files, and almost entirely organic, but very precise. It’s also very tricky to scan a paralyzed person, and expect the data to be exactly as desired. We found that even the slightest detail could lead to dangerous bruising.” All of that considered, the prototypes have been met with a great response. The test pilot loves it so much, she wants to use it all of the time. But like many of these things go, the team has to wait until the design is FDA certified to be worn daily. (more…)

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Core77 Design Awards Spotlight: Personal EKSO, an Exoskeleton Designed to Replace the Wheelchair

More Anamorphosis: Bernard Pras’ Amazing 3D Trompe L’Oeils

I hate to write this, but “You’ll never believe what happens next!” Speaking of anamorphosis , check out French artist Bernard Pras’ nutty room-sized sculpture below. Pras practices the cylinder-free variant of anamorphosis, and the results have to be seen to be believed: (more…)

How to Improve the Audio Quality of Vinyl Records with Wood Glue

One of the first things you learn in the ID shop at design school: Wood glue is for joining wood, welding is great for joining metal, acetone is the thing for fusing plastics together. But when you need to attach one of these materials to another, you’ve got to switch over to hard fasteners or something more clever, since wood glue won’t stick to plastics, et cetera. While that’s occasionally a hassle for building multimaterial objects, record lovers have figured out that wood glue not sticking to plastic provides a huge benefit: You can use wood glue to clean LPs. Because Titebond won’t stick to vinyl, but will stick to all the microscopic specks of dust hanging out in the grooves, a layer of wood glue will become like a Biore strip for records. Observe, and be sure to listen to the before and after—the amount of snaps, crackles and pops the glue removes from the audio is astonishing: (more…)

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How to Improve the Audio Quality of Vinyl Records with Wood Glue

California Oil Spill Turns Out to Be a Freakishly Massive Amount of Fish

Earlier this week in La Jolla, California, what appeared to be a massive oil spill in the water began creeping towards the beach. However, closer inspection revealed that the inky cloud was not a batch of Exxon-Mobil’s finest at all, but an enormous school of fish. Specifically, anchovies. (more…)

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California Oil Spill Turns Out to Be a Freakishly Massive Amount of Fish

Ken May

Tag: var-create