Exhibition: Material+Spiel (Hamburg, July 11-13)

This year's Material+Spiel project will display its results during the KONZENTRAT07 end of the year show.

You are welcome to join the opening of the Material+Spiel exhibition on Wednesday July 11. at 18.00 at the HAW Hamburg (Armgartstrasse 24, Hamburg). We are exhibiting toys and games designed and developed during a playful summer semester at the Design Department from July 11-13.

Looking forward seeing you there and feel free to write or call in advance for a personal tour. If you are not able to join us but are interested in project documentation - pls. send a short e-mail to: info(at)materialstories(dot)com


Fr. Gruesse and kind regards,

Prof. Marion Ullrich & Arnold van Bezooyen (project coordinators)
Produktdesign Textil

Link: http://www.konzentrat07.de

Samples Arrival & Prototyping Tips

Dear all,
for those who didn't pick up their sample materials yet, please see Prof. Ullrich's office for fibers and spacer fabrics. Further, an overview of some useful links for working out your prototypes.

- Meike, Inga // Make your own Throwies at Instructables
- Kirsten // Surrealistic Wallpaper
- Linda // Re-designed Korean Rubber Shoes

Finally, for your interest // Mode Wettbewerb: Geist Trifft Materie

Gruss! & see you next week, Arnold

Week 9: Start of Prototyping

[photo: spacer fabrics]

This week we review the start of hands-on prototyping.
See our photo site for photos and results of the following weeks...

Link:
- www.modulor.de (materials for model making)

Competition: Child's Play

Dear all,

The Social Design Network might be an inspiring place for your design thoughts of today and tomorrow. Also, they now have an competition titled "Child's Play" which you might take into consideration if you are considering toys for children?

Design an object that encourages children to cultivate their own imagination and creativity

Children's toys are very often prescriptive in their function, designed with a certain task or role-play in mind. This competition asks for an affordable object or a series of objects that a child can play with in which the function is not prescriptive but open to interpretation. The object can be of any scale. The objective of the design should be to encourage exploration and to inspire a child to derive his/her own associations and invent their own interaction or way of playing with the object.

You must specify which age group your design is aimed at and how your scheme takes into account the cognitive development level of that age group. In addition, your scheme should demonstrate environmental responsibility, whether through material selection, production techniques or potential for recycling or reuse once the object has been outgrown.

---

Links:
- Social Design Network: Child's Play competition
- Social Design Network

Tipp: Falten gestalten - Meisterwerke des Origami

[photo: Organic Abstract Paul Jackson 2005]


"Mehr als 50 Künstler aus 16 Nationen präsentieren über 120 faszinierende Faltkunstwerke aus Papier und lassen so die 2000 Jahre alte Geschichte der japanischen Origami-Kunst neu aufleben. Die Ausstellung gewährt einen Einblick in die Vielfalt des internationalen Origami und in die Einflüsse der Faltkunst auf Wissenschaft und Gestaltung. Unter den teilnehmenden Künstlern befinden sich Größen wie Robert Lang (USA), Koshiro Hatori (JPN), Michael La Fosse (USA), Miri Golan oder Paul Jackson (ISR)." - MKG Hamburg

Date: 11. Mai 2007 - 28. Aug. 2007
Link: www.mkg-hamburg.de

Thanks for 'der Tipp' Kirsten!

Week 8: Samples Delivered

[photo: samples on location]

"Dear ladies, all samples have arrived.

Please see Frau Ullrich's Headquarters for you orders.
(no need to start digging - we have tagged the samples with your name).

Enjoy the weekend, enjoy the prototyping,
and bis Dienstag! Arnold"

"Hairy Displays"

"Philips really seems to be thinking outside the television box these days. First they come up with their Ambilight technology (which I’m still not sold on BTW) and now they’re looking into creating displays made of fur. Instead of LEDs or some other technology each pixel on the display would be made of a colored piece of fabric covered in different colored hairs.

When the hairs are all lying down flat you’d only see their color. But when an electrostatic charge is applied all those hairs would then repel each other and stand on end revealing the color of the fabric below. By precisely controlling the charges being applied to each fabric pixel you can in theory produce a fully functioning display.

Of course while the technology could be used to produce a TV that’s soft to the touch Philips instead sees it being used to incorporate displays into clothing or other items made of fabric. So instead of throwing paint on a fur coat PETA might one day be able to show their public service announcements on them.

- By Andrew Liszewski"

Link: OhGizmo
Link: www.newscientist.com/blog