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Artsy Electric Pole

I forgive you for mistaking this as an art instillation, but I guess that was the whole point behind designing the amazing Yggdrasil Electric Pole. Svenska Kraftnät (the folks who run the Swedish national electrical grid) approved of this design and the poles will be placed as a portal on either side of an entry high way to Stockholm, Sweden. So if you’re making a road trip to Sweden in the year 2010-11, expect to these dynamic poles greet you at the fringe of the cityscape. BTW Yggdrasil refers to the holy world tree in Norse Mythology.

Designer: No Picnic

Richard Serra Sculpture Redux

You know the giant metal sculptures of the world-renound sculptor artist Richard Serra? Well get on that! Read and roll! Then come back and see this direct homage (NOT DIRECTLY AFFILIATED) to Serra through room dividing walls. Hangers and all kinds of stuff too! Don’t put these on carpeting or clay. That would just plain spell disaster. Also be wary of hanging any long artwork or photographs.

Designer: 2-B-2 Architecture

Park It, Mister

Paving paradise for a place to sit. That’s what’s going on here. A project from Springtime that saves a seat for your own booty in a play on the culture-cemented idea of a parking space. Part of a design competition that aimed to give a parking space back to the public. “Person Parking” seems to be made for a low-traffic area in a strip mall district, don’t you think?

Designer: Springtime

Rendezvous At The Meeting Point

Clandestine meeting points are a thing of the past. As we get progressive our mindsets have changed and the secret romantic rendezvous points are being replaced with public installations like this Meeting Point! Quite a spectacular sight actually! You can arrange to meet your beloved on a particular hour of the dial and then maybe walk around to the 12 o’clock spot where a solar powered touchscreen kiosk awaits you.

Designer: Serdar Sişman

How to Stage a Perma-Stage

So I know a lot of you are bohemians. You travel from place to place, packing up all of your belongings on a weekly basis and living in a brand new place, each time. Or. What’s that? You’ve lived in the same place for several years? Well how do you stay inspired? You change your perma-surroundings to make your surroundings less perma? Why, that sounds just lovely! They should make more city landmarks like that. Like, oh, say… stages for public performances! Yes, indeed!

Designers: Jan Ledwon & Alicja Chola

No Need to Water this Grass Eye

Let me tell you a little bit about exterior design. It’s complicated. You don’t just mess around with the property you own that everyone can see. That said, people better not mess with you because of how your property looks. One time, my neighbor was ordered add a coat of paint to his garage (by the state), so he painted it bright-yet-pastel purple. Would you like to say what’s up to the world? It’s “Astro Type” for you.

Designer: George Simkin

Shop Laboratory, Good For Business?

During their scholarship year at the Designlabor Bremerhaven in 2008 an interdisciplinary design team devised temporary usage concepts as part of a strategy to counter the number of unoccupied shop premises in Bremerhaven. These innovative concepts were tested in a vacant shop under experimental conditions. This was in turn transformed into a gallery, a media café and finally an outlet offering its own design products called the Shop Laboratory.

Designer: Designlabor Bremerhaven

With One Hand He Lifted, His House Designed

Clouds from the sky he used, and colors from the atmosphere. He would with two hands attach them to eachother, and with maybe the help of a string or two, to the ceiling hold them. The kids would find them fort-like, and the mother of juice-stains find them easy to clean, as this is a detachable grid of replaceable fabric pieces; tiles, if you will.

Designers: Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec in collaboration with Kvadrat Textiles

Self-Sustaining Urban Area Abode Chapeau

Hydroponic Greenhouse. Turns air we breath out into air we can breath in. Uses solar-powered turbines to pump this air. Converts (biodegradable) human waste into food for plants. Plants are edible by humans. Greenhouse creates condensation which is collected for aquarium-dwelling animals, also edible by humans and hamsters.

Beautiful green building helmets.

Designer: Natalie Jeremijenko and Crew

Experience Summer Glow During Winter

Hollywood movies showcase the perfect winter day effectively, however the truth is quite contrary. Look at the snow on the driveway! How gloomy and dark the skies are! After you’re done with the shoveling and nursing your frostbitten fingers, it takes a while to really appreciate the snowman or the snowflakes. If you were to have the Luminaarparaad installation on your lane, wouldn’t it make the drab, cold winters more cheerful?

Designers: Pent Talvet & Kristian Paljasma

Space Frames and Rapid Forms

Lilah Fowler’s new show at Brown Gallery in London continues a line of exploration that has preoccupied artists in the second half of the 20th century: the presence of geometry in our lives. With visual influences ranging from Tony Smith’s sculptures to Sol LeWitt’s drawings to Fred Sandback’s string installations, Fowler would seem to be putting herself into a minimalist corner.

Designer: Lilah Fowler

Confess It to the Poles

Everyone has secrets, and the poles want to know! Designer Florian Brillet creates the newest amalgamation of the main points of secrecy: the public, and the secret itself. In Brillet’s “Secret” project the secrets are told to the public poles, and the public poles tell the secrets back to the public.

Once the secret is separate from the teller, it becomes public property.

Designer: Florian Brillet

Rundle Lantern

The Rundle Lantern is a parking garage in Adelaide, Australia, composed of a big corner-wrapping screen. Each of the 748 “pixels ” has two LED lights behind it, and it can do all the stuff that awesome big screens can do. It was designed by brand consulting firm Fusion , but this is no jumbotron: it was intentionally designed to be a lantern to this part of town, and even though it moves it doesn’t display hard images or text. It’s more like a huge Jeremy Blake light-painting , and we love it for that. Check out the videos.

Designer: Fuse Project