Meade, who’s best known for painting directly onto the human body, chose to splash her panels with textural brushstrokes in a gorgeous shade of cobalt blue.

Vittoria, an artist and a poet whose pieces are often inspired by femininity and the female form, created a graphic work of art in which voluptuous curves cascade across the panels.

Illustrator and designer Brown wanted her panels to bring the relaxed feeling of being on vacation into the kitchen. Her colorful design is complete with a sunset, a rowboat, and turquoise water.

The panels can be mixed and matched with Samsung Bespoke’s portfolio of panel colors and finishes so you can truly design the fridge of your dreams. Pair Meade’s blue brushstrokes with dark blue and white for a more subdued effect, or contrast it with an unexpected pop of bright contrasting color. Vittoria’s design pulls right from Samsung’s available colors, so it’s easy to get a beautifully complementary effect. You can punch up Brown’s bright scene with clementine orange, yellow sunrise, or emerald green, or make it moodier with navy, charcoal, and morning blue.

“Lowe’s is the No. 1 home appliance retailer, and our customers know they can trust us to deliver on quality and innovation. But we also know they’re looking for the total home style package, with products that don’t just offer performance, but style and personal expression, too,” says Jen Wilson, Lowe’s Senior Vice President of Enterprise Brand and Marketing. “Through this collaboration with Samsung, a trusted leader in innovation, we’re thrilled to be bringing these one-of-a-kind panels to customers who are not only looking to upgrade their appliances, but are also craving a unique way to express their personal style through art.”

“Samsung’s Bespoke appliances embrace emerging home customization trends that express personality and style using bold colors, new materials, and artful designs,” adds Gary So, Vice President or Marketing and Digital Appliances at Samsung Electronics America. “Lowe’s limited-edition Bespoke refrigerator panels inspire more ways for consumers to personalize their living spaces and show off their style like never before.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ISwK9Y2pXk&feature=youtu.be

The Lowes x Samsung Bespoke Artists Series can be seen on display at select Lowe’s stores, and the entire line can be ordered and customized online as part of Lowe’s House of Style. Each panel is sold separately and can be switched with the other Bespoke panels. These artist panels will only be available for a limited time, but you can shop the whole Samsung Bespoke series as part of Lowe’s regular selection.

The post Samsung Partners with Lowe’s to Offer Exclusive Artist-Designed Custom Refrigerators first appeared on Dornob.

A new innovation in the photovoltaic realm was recently discovered by Carvey Ehren Maigue, an electrical engineering student in the Philippines. The concept involves harvesting ultraviolet light that can’t be seen, but is stored in materials the sun has touched.

This opens up opportunities in the solar-capturing field by allowing us to collect solar power even when the clouds roll in. Officially called AuREUS, which stands for Aurora Renewable Energy and UV Sequestration, the idea is to absorb UV light into organic luminescent particles. From there, the collected particles are converted into visible light and then into energy.

Referring to the solar film he created to complete this task, Maigue explains that “it’s similar to how we breathe in oxygen and we exhale carbon dioxide. It takes in ultraviolet light, and then after some time it would shed it as visible light.”

The innovation takes shape as a type of resin film that can be used on windows, walls, and building exteriors. Maigue created the material using waste from vegetable crops that he combined with resin. He then coated it with solar film and turned it into a 3 x 2-foot prototype he installed in a window of his apartment. That panel produces enough energy to charge a few smartphones, and he’s optimistic about the scalability of the material.

And he’s not the only one who’s optimistic, considering the fact that the project recently won the first James Dyson Sustainability Award. Recognizing the potential for the material, the informational release about the project says AuREUS is basically a vertical solar farm. All previous solar farms have been built horizontally, which takes up real estate in fields or rooftops. But by cladding buildings with the material, it can turn them into sources of clean and passive solar energy.

As an added bonus on the sustainability front, the technology relies on waste from farmers that they would otherwise have to deal with disposing of themselves. This support of the local agriculture industry mitigates financial loss by the farmers and provides an upcycling opportunity for ruined or unsold crops.

This symbiotic relationship seems an especially good fit considering the fact that this technology is based on nature. More specifically, the “Aurora” part of the system’s name comes from a process that results in the spectacular Aurora Borealis. Maigue explains that “Both AuREUS devices (Borealis Solar Window and Astralis Solar Wall) use the same technology derived from the phenomena that governs the beautiful Northern and Southern lights. High-energy particles are absorbed by luminescent particles that re-emit them as visible light.”

He continues: “When hit by UV light, the particles absorb and re-emit visible light along the edges due to internal reflectance. PV cells are placed along the edges to capture the visible light emitted. The captured visible light is then converted to DC electricity.”

Maigue plans to invest the $35,000 awarded from his Dyson Awards win into further research and development. 80 percent of his dyes currently come from fruits and vegetables, though he would eventually like to up that to 100 percent and eliminate chemical additives from the process altogether. This means finding a natural blue alternative, the only of the five total colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) he’s yet to source wholly from plants.

The manufacturing process is already underway, with a current production of about 30 panels per month. Maigue notes that “additional funding can allow the creation of a team and facility that can increase current capacity.”

The post This Solar Panel Technology Doesn’t Require Sunlight first appeared on Dornob.

Cottagecore

Having taken a firm hold last year, the cottagecore aesthetic is still going strong in 2021. If you’re trying to wrap your head around this design movement, its basically a romanticized version of life in a rural English cottage. Its organic, vintage, and homey.

Painted Arches

Solid or rainbow arches are being painted everywhere on TikTok these days. Often used to frame out a focal point, painted arches make for great faux headboards and backdrops to desks or shelves. They also can also stand alone as bold geometric wall art. Best of all, it’s an easy trend to copy; all you need is paint and some tape!

Wall Paneling

After a year of staring at plain walls in quarantine, many people are ready to add texture and pattern to those flat surfaces. Giant squares are common, but diamonds, frames, and asymmetricaly-angled lines are also on the public radar lately. While they might look complicated, creating cool wall paneling can actually be fairly simple.

Midcentury Modern

Perhaps the less-than-ideal conditions of 2020 are making people long for the practically-perfect sitcom life of the 1950s and 1960s. Sleek lines, a mix of bright and neutral colors, and function over form are the highlights of this trend. Look for waterfall dressers, Eames lounge chairs, and rectangular consoles with hairpin legs.

Dark Kitchens

After a few years of starkly white kitchens, there finally seems to be a movement toward moodier cooking spaces. Dark cabinets and walls add warmth and depth to 2021 kitchens.

Green Wall

To help bring the outside in, vertical walls covered in real or artificial greenery are all the rage. They can make focal TV walls, patio additions, or just fantastic organic art.

Kitchen Pantries

Thanks to all this time at home (not to mention midday snack cupboard raids), the number of searches and hashtags featuring kitchen pantry makeovers is skyrocketing. There may not be one particular style for this trend, but the overall idea is to use a bucket, basket, or drawer to house every last food item for maximum visual beauty.

Japandi

This new design style is a mashup of Scandi style and Japanese minimalism. Its characterized by a lack of clutter and a sophisticated blend of natural and synthetic textures. The overall effect is warm and calming but centered around ultimate functionality.

Pink Bathrooms

Pink is having a moment in the interior design world right now, with various blush shades popping up everywhere in TikTok bathrooms. It can be a soothing hue for a soak in the tub, while more vibrant chromas can bring life and energy into smaller spaces.

Until the pandemic fully ends, we can expect interior design trends on TikTok and elsewhere to focus on making our personal spaces cozier and more welcoming, as well as fresher and more exciting.

The post 9 Hot Interior Design Ideas Trending on TikTok Right Now first appeared on Dornob.

Venezuelan artist Claudia Bueno spent eight months hand-drawing vines, seashells, coral, and other plant and animal life onto 60 glass panels, all of which were then meticulously superimposed on top of each other. As lights shine through the glass from different angles, they illuminate the various layers of drawings, creating an illusion of movement. The entire process, from idea to installation, took three years to complete.

“The process required sharp focus and lots of patience, and it was very rewarding to see the shapes grow as we built up the layers,” Bueno told DeMilked. “This piece comes to life and gains movement with a custom designed system of lights and sound which also involved long collaborations with two artists specialized in these areas. It is magical to see it all come together now in Meow Wolf Vegas and realize that everything we planned for is working beautifully.”

Close-up shots of the panels in progress give us an idea of just how complex these layered drawings really are. Each individual flower, leaf, sea anemone, and coral branch is repeated in dozens of layers to produce an illusion of three-dimensionality. The effect is apparent even without the addition of the lighting system, but when it all comes together, it’s truly spectacular.

Bueno has a background in painting, set design, and animation, all skills that came in handy as the “Pulse” exhibit came to life. She spent six years engineering systems that make her art appear to move of its own volition using motors, tracks, light systems, and wind.

The most amazing thing about this installation is the fact that it isn’t digital. High-tech immersive installations like those created by digital art collective teamLab are undeniably incredible, but they’re made using a host of sensors, computers, and projectors. Bueno’s creation is almost entirely analog, by comparison, but achieves a similar effect, albeit on a smaller scale. It’s interesting to see how very different methods can be used to produce similarly breathtaking visuals.

“Pulse” will be a permanent installation in Meow Wolf’s second permanent exhibition space, Omega Mart. Established in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2008, Meow Wolf “creates immersive and interactive experiences that transport audiences of all ages into fantastic realms of story and exploration,” which includes installations like Bueno’s, video and music production, and much, much more.

Here’s a bit more information about Claudia Bueno, via her website:

“Through her own intricate process of immersive suggestion, Claudia creates large scale multi-sensory light installations that communicate a profound sense of wonderment and awe. Designed to guide spectators on a contemplative journey, these hypnotic worlds are populated by signatures of life from micro to macro, existing in communion and living as one interconnected cosmic web. Fluidly pulsating colors and ever-evolving sounds make the creations come all the more alive.”

“Claudia has been inviting adventure and collecting cultural experiences that enrich her life and inspire her creative process since leaving Caracas at the age of 20. Strongly committed to inner healing and spiritual growth, Claudia fills her art with a quality of mystical curiosity that mirrors her personal fascination with energy, consciousness, and nature — ultimately transforming her art into a celebration of life and creation.”

The post Pulsating Painted Glass Panels Create an Immersive Exhibit of Light and Sound first appeared on Dornob.

Not so fast. Saying shiplap is over is like saying tongue-and-groove paneling or drywall is over. The concept started way back in the time of the Vikings, when overlapping planks of wood called lapstrakes were used to make boats watertight. Lapstrakes eventually evolved into shiplap, which made its way from the boatyard to architectural usage. It features boards (typically made of pine) that overlap at rabbeted edges to create a tight fit and a smooth surface.

Exposed shiplap, on the other hand, is relatively new. Originally, shiplap was hidden behind finishings like wallpaper. The thing is that it’s often such a lovely surface on its own, it might as well be uncovered. Joanna Gaines loves it for her signature rustic-meets-modern farmhouse aesthetic, often painting it white. The rabbeted edge is crucial for true shiplap, especially when used for exterior applications, because it keeps water out. But many people create “faux shiplap” using of rows of simple wooden planks to get a similar effect on interior walls at a low cost.

Simple to install, shiplap needs very little finishing. Just nail it up and paint it, oil it, stain it, or leave it raw depending on your preferences. In that way it’s similar to other types of interior wall surfaces made of wood, which, by the way, predate drywall by almost the entire duration of human history. If anything, it’s drywall that’s potentially a passing fad. And once you have real wood on your walls, drywall starts to feel pretty boring.

If you live in an old house, you might even have shiplap already without realizing it, disguised beneath a thin layer of plaster or drywall. If you’re itching to renovate, it might be worth investigating, though what you find might simply be wood planks rather than real shiplap. Either way, you’ll end up with a similar look. The internet is rife with tutorials for restoring old shiplap or making your own DIY shiplap walls.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EELk_Y6qEPA

Now, if you’re asking whether shiplap is “overdone,” or used indiscriminately with interior design styles that don’t make sense together, that’s another conversation, and the answer is absolutely yes to both. One of shiplap’s primary distinguishing qualities is its informal yet traditional nature. There’s a little bit of rusticity that can be polished up a bit depending on how you finish it. If your style matches that description, or you’re going for an eclectic look, shiplap might look great with the rest of your decor.

If your home is more modern, industrial, classical, or an ornate Victorian, for instance, pulling it off gets trickier. Try it in small doses first, perhaps as a single accent wall, and decide how you feel from there. Painting it a dark or bright color will trade the rustic cabin look for a more versatile and sophisticated result. Otherwise, you do run the risk of your hard work eventually looking as dated as dark 1980s wood paneling. And please, leave the faux shiplap peel-and-stick wallpaper on the shelf.

The post Is Shiplap Paneling a Passing Fad, or Here to Stay? first appeared on Dornob.

Vaguely mushroom-shaped when not in use, the Overcast Light transforms once you turn it on, mimicking the look and feel of a cloud passing in front of the sun. Knauf made the shade from blended paper pulp, providing an uneven texture that controls the transmission of light from the bulb underneath.

“The LED light source is dimmed unconventionally via proximity to the shade, instead of using a dimmable driver. This is done by pulling the leather tab up or down along the side of the cylindrical base, moving the light source closer or further away from the shade,” Knauf explains.

While so many unique and sculptural home furnishings and fixtures tend to be prototypes, Overcast Light is actually available for purchase at 1stdibs for $2,200.

While Knauf has an entire portfolio full of cool furniture and decorative objects, lamps happen to be where his talents truly shine. Another notable piece is the “Alumette Floor Light,” a tall and slender LED lamp created around a structural aluminum form. Instead of using a conventional lamp shade to diffuse the light, Knauf partially encloses the bulb in a metal frame that acts as a wide angle reflector to cast softer light around the room.

The “Lloyd” lamp works in a similar fashion. A panel of LED lights hovers above your desktop, supported by two delicate steel wires sunken into a pedestal base. The panel casts a broad, even beam of light and can be swiveled to illuminate new angles or reflected off the wall for a softer effect.

The bases of floor lamps have to be quite heavy to remain stable, which is fine if you’re shopping from a local store, but gets little trickier when shipping. To address the problem, Knauf designed the “Water Based Lamp,” a collapsible floor lamp that preserves the archetype of the “solid mass” base but weighs much less.

Knauf took inspiration from the outdoor industry to create a base made of welded Duratec fabric, which is commonly used in the construction of inflatable kayaks. You just fill the base with water to keep the lamp upright. The shade is flexible nylon mesh supported by tent pole-style aluminum tubing.

A bio for Knauf on the official IDS Vancouver site reads: “Calen Knauf is a Canadian designer living and working in Vancouver, Canada. Calen studied Industrial Design at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. Shortly after graduating, Calen won best student lighting for his thesis project ‘Standard Lamp’ at Design Plus 2014 in Cologne, Germany. His first produced design was licensed to Esaila in 2012.”

“He has worked closely with life long-friend Conrad Brown from 2013 to 2019 on a range of projects including product design for mass production, furniture, custom editions, interior design, and graphic design. Their work together has won several awards, including The Rising Star Award at Stockholm Furniture Fair 2017 and [the shortlist] for the Dezeen Awards for Lighting Design in 2018.”

You can keep up with Knauf’s work on Instagram.

All photos courtesy of Conrad Brown

The post Overcast Lamp Mimics a Cloud Passing Over the Sun first appeared on Dornob.

The results of each project made with the firm’s “Plugin House” parts are refreshingly creative, adapted for the individual needs and requirements of each particular occupant. The layout, shape, size, and color vary by project, with elements inspired by avant-garde European architects of the 1960s and 80s and the Japanese Metabolism architecture movement.

Introduced a few years ago, the Plugin concept is often used to revitalize dilapidated buildings, with the elements “plugging in” to the existing structures to provide living spaces with all the bells and whistles you’d expect from a modern home without requiring the demolition of the historic structures beside them. They’ve already been used to augment several of Beijing’s historic Hutong houses, making them habitable again.

In 2018, PAO collaborated with the Shenzhen Institute of Building Research to create “Lakeside Plugin Tower,” a particularly visually pleasing structure offering two spacious levels of living areas while barely touching the land upon which it sits. That makes it an environmentally sensitive option for the landscape, allowing it to leave behind very few signs of its presence when it’s ultimately dismantled and moved.

The research facility wanted to experiment with modern sustainable architecture that could occupy unused spaces around the country without necessarily developing them, leaving their usage flexible for future recreation, agriculture, wildlife habitats, and more. That way, more housing can be created to accommodate burgeoning populations and decrease some of the congestion in cities.

As you can see, the results are pretty impressive — and not boring in the least. The diagonal supports that lift the buildings up off the ground give them an open, dynamic feeling, and make it possible to stack the volumes offset from each other for interesting configurations. On top of that, the individual crate-like boxes that make up rooms within each home can be angled to take advantage of prime views, and their roofs can even be used as terraces.

The architects add: “The Plugin House demonstrates the possibilities of smaller, more sustainable living for contemporary urban landscapes. Cities across the US and Canada are adopting new policies that encourage homeowners to build small houses in their backyards as a way of providing much needed low-cost housing. Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) can generate supplemental rental income for homeowners, helping to counter NIMBYism and resistance to the densification of neighborhoods.”

“ADUs provide an alternative to the suburban expansion of cities. Through infill, new residents take advantage of existing infrastructure, public services, and community networks. While these policies are gaining momentum, the cost of building ADUs remains beyond the reach of most people. The Plugin House can potentially cut costs in half, making ADUs an affordable housing option.”

The post Lakeside Plugin Tower: An Expandable Modular Prototype by PAO first appeared on Dornob.

Xorel Artform is Carnegie’s series of acoustical tiling, combining their high-performance interior textile Xorel with effective sound absorption and echo reduction. Available in a variety of thicknesses for different applications, they also come in an awesome variety of shapes, colors, and patterns, giving you the freedom to design your own custom installation.

The result? Way cooler than a blank wall or ceiling could ever be, even beyond the fact that the panels are so good at muffling distracting noises. While they’re most often found in offices and commercial spaces, it’s not hard to imagine these acoustic installations coming in handy at home, too, particularly if you live in an apartment building.

Panel shapes include circles, hexagons, diamonds, and more, and you can take your pick of over 350 different surface material configurations. Carnegie recently expanded Xorel Artform to include new shapes “flip” and “ripple,” too. The former features double-sided fabric choices, perfect for ceiling baffles that double as colorful sculptures, while the latter is an undulating form that’s sort of like a rectangle with a wavy edge on one side.

Xorel, Carnegie’s high-performance textile, is lauded by the company as “the most thoroughly tested textile material in the world,” with more than 65 independent tests vetting its performance and characteristics like durability, acoustic absorption, and bacterial resistance. It’s also sustainable, earning C2C (Cradle to Cradle) Gold certification.

The company website reads: “Fast and easy to install with little disruption or major cleanup, Xorel Artform is the optimal solution to address post-occupancy acoustical issues. Vertically suspended ceiling baffles not only open up design possibilities but also allow for sound absorption on both sides for increased sound clarity. Xorel Artform baffles are manufactured with ready-to-fasten hardware for ceiling suspension. Installation materials, including cables and pendants, for vertically suspended baffles are included in each box set.”

“Available in 16 shapes, a variety of sizes, three dimensional options, and over 350 Xorel colors, patterns, and textures, a multitude of wall designs can be created bringing artfulness and performance to any interior. Box sets include panels that are the same shape, size, substrate, fabric, and color. Installation materials and printed installation guides are also included.”

Need some inspiration? If you’re hoping to experiment with your own creative instincts, browse the #xorelartform hashtag on Instagram to see what other folks are doing with these panels. If you’d rather leave the arrangement to a design professional, Xorel Artform offers instant kits in all sorts of fun patterns for small, medium, and large spaces, so all you have to do is click “buy” and then stick them on when they arrive using a template. You can also browse their gallery by shape for additional ideas.

The post Xorel Artform Acoustics Panels by Carnegie Fabrics first appeared on Dornob.

For some time, scientists have known that adding a pseudocapacitor or triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) to an existing solar cell would allow it to register the movement of raindrops as they hit its surface. It’s these same movements that are now being made into energy. Unfortunately, this technology has almost always come with limitations, mainly because the materials involved (especially the insulation) tend to block actual sunlight from reaching the solar cells. This means that its effectiveness was limited to creating energy exclusively from rain, eliminating the panels’ sunlight-capturing abilities altogether. In other words, most solar panels can either collect energy from the rain or from the sun, but never from both.

With this knowledge in mind, researchers Zhen Wen, Xuhui Sun, and Baoquan Sun set out to develop a functioning hybrid device that could absorb energy whether the sun was out or rain was falling.

To achieve this goal, the researchers implemented the use of two different polymers: PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) and PEDOT:PSS (poly (3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene):poly(styrenesulfonate)). After a little trial and error, they eventually found that the PDMS increased the performance of the TENG whenever water hit and bounced off the cells. The PEDOT:PSS was then placed between the TENG and the cells, where it worked as a conductor to transfer energy between the two. The key factor in this design is the polymers’ transparency, which allows them to draw energy from the rain without blocking the cells off from sunlight.

With any luck, these hybrid solar panels will be hitting the market soon. However, they are still decidedly in the developmental stage, with the researchers working hard to improve their overall efficiency. When they are ready, they’ll be opening up the solar option to a ton of people who have never been able to run their homes using traditional panels because of the climate in their areas.

Although the up-front cost of solar panels is a bit of an investment, the long-term payoff is lower (if any) power expenses. Expanding this option into a hugely untapped market will finally give the entire world the opportunity to take advantage of these savings and cut ties with the electric company once and for all.

The post Chinese Researchers Develop Solar Panels that Harness Energy from Rain first appeared on Dornob.

This newly-on-the-market house is being listed by Ava Domanovski and Charles Pence of Pacific Union International for the hefty price of $7.99 million — but anyone with a keen eye for design will see that this house is truly a gem. Created by technological designer and artist Mario Romano, this incredible 7,130-square-foot property spans three floors and perfectly marries architecture, art, and technology, with innovative lighting strategies being worked all throughout the physical structure. Romano, who himself is no stranger to pushing the boundaries when it comes to interior design, has really broken the mold with some of the elements in this house, not least with some amazing 3D-printed feature walls whose sinewy surfaces have been backlit to create a uniquely comforting environment.

Officially called “M.R. Walls,” these panels represent “a break-out design language and innovat[ive] manufacturing process using the latest in parametric computing and CNC machining technology.” The walls rest in the home’s entertainment center, which itself consists of two state-of-the-art rooms on the lower levels. The same walls can also be found on the exterior of the house, where they act as a decorative and energy-efficient rain screen for the facade, which also invokes some more traditional Californian vibes by working the decks of skateboards into its 11-foot-high main entrance.

The house itself benefits from six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, with common areas like living rooms and patios blurring the lines between inside and out to celebrate the glorious Californian weather. Glass is heavily present throughout to help amplify this effect, and a vast skylight illuminates the grand staircase that winds up the middle of the layout. This skylight allows natural light into the dining and kitchen areas, the latter of which boasts a central island chock-full of state-of-the-art cooking utensils and appliances.

“San Vicente” is the last in a quartet of experimental feature homes by Romano, but all of them can treated as pieces of art in their own right. They are often used as locations for video and photo shoots, so you can definitely expect to see them popping up in commercials and music videos sometime in the near future. Romano plans to focus more on his feature walls going forward, and with any luck, they’ll continue to make their mark on California’s luxurious homes for a long time to come.

The post Santa Monica Home with 3D-Printed Light Walls Goes on the Market first appeared on Dornob.

While the cubical office space setup efficiently utilizes space, productivity and efficiency suffer when audio and visual distractions proliferate. Hoping to remedy the situation, Kirei, a foremost designer and supplier of pioneering acoustic materials, recently added a new piece to their burgeoning line of partition solutions.

Introducing the EchoScreen

Many modular panel manufacturers tout their products’ portability, but when it actually comes time to reconfigure a large workspace, the panels prove themselves bulky and difficult to arrange. By contrast, Kirei’s new EchoScreen can be mounted to most wall surfaces or suspended from any ceiling. You can install screens individually or group them together to create new arrangements and help diminish sonic and visual overstimulation for a healthier, more dynamic office environment. The EchoScreen’s “Rolling Track” hardware permits the panels to freely run on a movable ceiling track — a process that’s controlled by an accompanying set of cables and rods. EchoScreens are easily mounted to existing T-grid ceilings with T-grid clips, already making them well-suited for most conventional office environments. Furthermore, the panels can be set up in uninterrupted runs or side-by-side to wrap around or overlie each other.

Options

In addition to the more traditional designs, EchoScreen panels can be customized and printed out in any one of 20 muted and vivacious colors. Use a single one as an artistic focal point or use several to create enclosed spaces of any size. Each panel measures 94 inches tall by 46 inches wide and 12 millimeters thick, and all of them are constructed from a mixture of recycled aluminum and PET by Woven Image, the main manufacturer of all Kirei’s North American EchoPanel products.

About Kirei

“Kirei” is the Japanese character that signifies “beautiful,” though it’s also commonly associated with purity, truth, and cleanliness. The company believes their products illustrate their commitment to these qualities with respect to our ecosystem. They describe themselves as “the source for ecologically responsible, high-performance interior elements.”

Dedicated to manufacturing products that are sensibly sourced, Kirei offers tiles made from recovered coconut shells and sustainably harvested Kirei Board and Bamboo panels. Their EchoPanel acoustic material, which aided in the rescue of over 80 million plastic bottles from landfills, is completely recyclable when it loses its usefulness.

Since the company launched in 2003, architects, interior designers, and other professionals across North America have looked to Kirei for eco-friendly, original, visually intriguing, and practical design resources. Kirei’s products have been used for major projects around the world, including restaurants, offices, hotels, schools, hospitals, and government buildings.

The post Kirei’s New EchoScreen Lets Companies Get Creative with Open Floor Office Environments first appeared on Dornob.

Since its inception in 1995, Core77 has served as a hub for creatives and designers of all ages and experience levels to get together and discuss their work as part of a global network. Core77 publishes articles, job listings, and portfolios online, hosts events and competitions, keeps an extensive design firm database, and organizes parties, lectures, and exhibits for design enthusiasts around the world to marvel in.

The company’s Design Awards were founded in 2011 with the aim of promoting innovation while simultaneously rewarding excellence. Participants can enter their projects into any of 14 categories, all of which are further broken up into “student” and “professional” classes. An international panel of design leaders selects the honorees and winners based on their use of integrity, insight, and intent in their respective fields.

The awards themselves were crafted by a design team in the form of functional molds. This way, the trophies can be used to make additional casts so that each member of the winning teams receives an individual honor for their efforts. The trophy is meant to embody the spirit of collaboration and team-based design.

How it Works

This year, Core77 recruited 54 panelists from 15 countries to determine the award winners. These jurors were then divided into teams of three or four to vote amongst the 14 categories. The categories are as follows: Built Environment, Commercial Equipment, Consumer Product, Design Concept, Design Education Initiative, Design for Social Impact, Furniture and Lighting, Interaction, Open Design, Packaging, Service Design, Strategy and Research, Transportation, and Visual Communication. In each category, awards are given at the Student, Notable, Runner-Up, and Winner levels, though all the honorées are featured on the Core77 website.

Our Favorite 2017 Winners

Visual Communication Award: Google Wayfinding

Google’s Kirkland campus was set to undergo a dramatic expansion in 2016, and the new designs for their directory signs took home the Core77 Visual Communication Award for their reflection of the company’s belief that content should stimulate all five of the human senses. These textural and vibrant 4-D signs also utilize natural lighting to alter their appearance as the days and seasons go by.

Transportation Award: VOLTA

Pure Cycles has designed a revolutionary lightweight bicycle that can be used to traverse the bustle of inner cities. The bike can travel up to 40 miles on a single charge, reach a top speed of 20 mph, and boasts a clean, minimalist aesthetic that hides its electronic nature. Thanks to its integrated lights that switch on automatically when it’s dark out, intelligent brake signaling, and computerized display that indicates speed and charge level, the VOLTA is now the smartest e-bike on the market.

Built Environment Award: The Guesthouse Project

Last year, the Guesthouse Project was conducted in Melbourne, Australia to investigate the ways that design could influence social cohesion at the local level. Full-scale pop-up structures were designed and constructed for refugees to live and celebrate their native communities through music, food, and social gatherings in. The experiment proved to be a smash-hit and went on to win third place in the Austrailian Design Journal’s list of top seven projects of 2016.

Consumer Product Award: Suzy Snooze

Bleepbleeps is changing the way that traditional baby monitors watch over our little ones. The quirky “Suzy Snooze” device uses advanced digital technology to help both babies and parents get a better night’s sleep. Suzy plays comforting music to your baby when she hears them crying, doubles as a warm LED nightlight, and teaches toddlers to stay in bed with her innovative “sleep training” function. The best part is, all of Suzy’s features can be controlled through an easy-to-use app. Bleepbleeps is even developing technology that will eventually allow parents to monitor their child’s sleeping patterns!

The post Coverage: Core77 Design Awards first appeared on Dornob.

Its shape gives it away, but cement panels conceal the hidden inner beauty of this outwardly-simple (and imminently portable) mobile home.

Studio Ábaton in Madrid designed this structure around the limitations of a standard road transport vehicle, forcing it to conform to limited dimensions and a solid exterior shell.

Once the outside cement panels start to slide and flip open, however, a remarkable modern dwelling with light wooden interior surfaces and large expanses of glass is slowly revealed.

Minimalist and bright detailing is reinforced with single-seam lines dividing interior panels and built-to-match storage and fixtures that blend in with the whole composition.

The main interior space is a combination living room and kitchen that can open wide with sliding doors. This zone is bracketed by a bedroom one one side and bathroom on the other.

The entire structure can be built in a matter of weeks and assembled in a single day. More on the technical specifications: “The outside is covered with grey cement wood board. Ventilated façade with ten-centimetre thermal insulation around the building. Solid timber structure manufactured through numerical control; inside timber panels made of Spanish Fir Tree dyed white. ÁPH80 has been designed and manufactured fully in Spain.”

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Every kind of conceivable opening is built into this multifaceted rectangular table that swings, slides, pivots and bends open on all sides.

Naoki Hirakoso put work, though, not only into the openings but in how they would look and work when closed – subtly abstract lines traced around the sides of this otherwise plain and linear box. Made of plywood and measuring about 35 inches square, the Kai Table is ideal for use as a coffee table in a space where storage is badly needed.

Simple light-colored, gloss-finished plywood contrasts with the dark recesses that emerge when the panels and drawers flip open, creating contrast without variations in color.

The Kai Table is available for purchase at Generate Design for 935,000 Japanese yen (about $9,000 USD). Here’s their description of the piece.

“Kai Table is an attractive table with hidden drawers and doors of various sizes. At first glance, it looks like a lump of wood, but it has a total of 12 drawers of various sizes and hidden doors that hide the storage space. Kai Table was named after the Japanese word ‘bokai (: Kai: Fudokoro)’. By using most of the volume as storage space, you can smartly store small items that are easily cluttered in the living room. At the same time, it expresses the ‘wideness of the bosom’ that widely accepts various values.”

“Not to mention its storage capacity and smart usability, it is an exciting design that will arouse curiosity for everyone. Designed by Naoki Hirakoso. Born in Tokyo in 1974. Graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Department of Design. Established hirakoso DESIGN in 2004. Stayed in Milan from 2004 to 2006. Participating in and working on various companies and projects in Japan and overseas. Rebirth Project Designer / Producer.”

About the designer:

“I work on furniture, products, stores and living spaces, and graphic design by finding out what I really need and thinking about subtraction, not designing to add.”

The post Wooden Table Full of Secret Storage first appeared on Dornob.

On the tiny island of Coll with just two hundred residents off the coast of Scotland sits a modest masterwork of modern renovation – a brand new home slotted delicately inside the (reinforced) crumbling stone ruins of an ancient local manor.

Planned around its predecessor, the new construction helps shelter the old, takes advantage of existing wall heights, window perforations and more to create a beautiful balance.

Stainless steel frames were delicately introduced to help hold existing walls together, prop up the sagging chimney and support a new door-overhanging lintel made of local stone. While digging to pour a new foundation, bronze age pottery was found and carefully exhumed.

The open-plan interior has layers of fresh-finished wood, flat reflective glass and sleek black-coated steel right alongside aged stonework walls, setting them apart visually while tying everything together … and placing the rough vintage edges, cracks and crevices in easy-to-touch locations throughout.

For all the polish of the finished product, construction was anything but easy. Between the fragile frame of the building and the fierce ocean winds, simply stabilizing the existing building remnants took WT Architecture months of careful planning and execution.

Outside the new structure, a high performance aluminised builder paper maximizes the insulation value of the building fabric while much sealing was required to bridge gaps between glass windows and stone frames. Overall, the intersections of modern forms and existing elements is beautifully balanced both from a large-scale and down-to-details perspective.

“ The original house at Grishipol (rough bay) on the Hebridean Isle of Coll was built in the mid 1700’s by Maclean of Coll for his Tac man, or Factor.  It was the first lime-built square-cornered house on the island and took on the informal name ‘The White House’ distinguishing it from the basic ‘black houses’ which were the norm on the island.  In 1773 Boswell and Johnston were entertained there whilst stormbound during their famous tour of Scotland.  But for all its grandeur the White House had been built on sand and was deserted in the mid 1800’s as it started to crack.”

“When Alex and Seonaid Maclean-Bristol inherited the building some 150 years later some of the cracks in the roofless ruin were more than a foot wide but the basic structure remained miraculously intact. Alex was brought up on Coll and returned to farm on the island with wife Seonaid after  spending some years away in the army.”

“They were keen to create a house for their new family on the site but the nature of the ruin presented a problem.  Should they restore it or build a new house nearby?  It was at this point that we suggested that neither of these approaches should be taken and that the essential ruined nature of the structure was what gave it much of its magic.  So the idea of partial occupation of the ruin was explored with the intention that other new accommodation would be visually separate but physically connected to the ruin. “

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Transparency is only the beginning – this incredible video from Corning walks you through a day in the life of your not-too-distant future self, using glass in ways that would have sounded like pure science-fiction fantasy a few years back.?Be sure to watch the video for the full effect, but here are some snapshots to supplement the experience.

It starts with waking up in the morning, to adjustable photovoltaic windows, an edgeless flat-screen television and a touch-screen set of interactive bathroom mirror monitors.

Next up: the kitchen, where you can cook while you watch the news on the very same surface, and your kids can zoom, scale, slide and sketch accents onto pictures digitally tacked up on the refrigerator door.

Then off to work in your car – with a glass touch-screen control system – and perhaps a quick chat on your handheld glass phone. At the office, interactive desks and large-panel wall displays integrate what used to be your computer, projector and telecommunications systems.

And after a long day, cut loose and go shopping with giant-sized display panels featuring advertisements and wayfinding assistance. At home, watch the world come to life from your 3D TV or read a book on a portable flat-panel reader.

The post See Through (the) Future: 10 Cutting-Edge Glass Concepts first appeared on Dornob.