These handcrafted silver rings are topped with living Icelandic moss
The price and design of the Dyson Air Multiplier may blow you away
If architects can construct entire apartment buildings from used shipping containers and Thai monks can build a temple from discarded beer bottles then why can’t an artist create furniture from old shopping carts?
That perhaps is what self-described cross-media visual designer Ramón Coronado asked when he spent 12 weeks at his Los Angeles home creating his Mercado Negro collection.
Durable, environmentally friendly and cool looking. Those are the first three adjectives that come to mind when we think of Architec Housewares, one of Spot Cool Stuff’s favorite designers of cookware.
What Architec’s hot pads, cutting boards and mixing bowls are best known for, though, are their non-slip properties. For cooks who have suffered our share of burns, cuts and spills this is no small thing.
A look at our three favorite Architec items:
There’s a scene in The Simpsons in which a cartoon rendering of architect Frank Gehry casually tosses a piece of paper onto the ground, gives it a look and then says to himself “Frank, you genius! You did it again!”
That joke is probably funnier seeing it than reading our recounting. And it’s certainly funnier if you are familiar with certain Gehry-designed buildings—like the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A., the Experience Music Project in Seattle and, especially, Bilbao Spain’s Guggenheim Museum—which really do bear some resemblance to crinkled paper (if you squint a little).
˙uʍop ǝpısdn plɹoʍ ǝɥʇ uɹnʇ ʇɐɥʇ—puɐloԀ puɐ ɐıɹʇsn∀ ‘˙∀˙S˙∩ ǝɥʇ ‘ʎuɐɯɹǝפ ‘ɐpɐuɐƆ ‘uıɐdS uı—sǝɹnʇɔnɹʇs uǝʌǝs ǝsǝɥʇ ɟo puoɟ ʎllɐıɔǝdsǝ sı ɟɟnʇS looƆ ʇodS ʎɥʍ sı ɥɔıɥM ˙ʎʇılɐǝɹ uo ǝʌıʇɔǝdsɹǝd ɹnoʎ ǝƃuɐɥɔ uɐɔ ʎǝɥʇ :ǝɹnʇɔǝʇıɥɔɹɐ puɐ lǝʌɐɹʇ ɥʇoq ɟo ʇɔǝdsɐ looɔ ǝuO
With the rings from the Growing Jewelry collection you’ll need a green thumb to keep green on your finger. That’s because Growing Jewelry rings, handcrafted by Iceland-based designer Hafsteinn Juliusson, are topped with real living Icelandic moss!
Think Chia-pet-meets-couture-jewelry.
The design of these "shade sails" are exactly the sort of melding of form and function that grabs Spot Cool Stuff.
You heard it here first: Spot Cool Stuff plans to expand the scope of our design channel over the next year. But before getting to that here’s a look back at some of our favorite articles from 2009:
Look up “fan” in the dictionary and here what you’ll see:
fan |fan|
noun
1. an apparatus with rotating blades that creates a current of air for cooling or ventilation.
So what do you call an object designed to create a current of air for cooling or ventilation that doesn’t use rotating blades?
Dyson, an English manufacturer of innovative products, has dubbed their bladeless fan to be an “air multiplier.”
Question: What’s the single best designed piece of running equipment?
Answer: It’s a pair of gear you already own—your bare feet.
Most running shoes, it turns out, do more harm than good. The problem is that these shoes are designed to “protect” your feet in a way that they weren’t meant to be. When encased in an excessively built-up running shoe the muscles, tendons and ligaments of your lower extremities will atrophy. That’s because your shoes are doing the work that your legs and feet should be doing.
The other problem with running shoes is that they encourage you to run with the wrong form. Your body is designed to run on the ball and forefront of your feet. Try going for a run barefoot and you’ll experience this yourself—your heels will barely touch the ground. In contrast, most running shoes will cause you to land on your heels in a way that won’t only slow you down but will inevitably lead to knee and back pain.
Shoes, of course, do serve a purpose. They keep your feet cleaner and drier than bare feet, not to mention being useful when there’s a sharp rock or nail under foot.
So what’s an athlete to do? Get a pair of running shoes with a design that mimics the advantages of your bare feet. Here are our two favorite:
