Concept Designs/Science

[Master Bates]

Concept designs for the future to actual products being used.

 

 

Pollution Fish

 

Soon, the water in Gijon, a harbor in Northern Spain will be monitored by robotic, battery-powered fish. These mechanical, articulating sea creatures were designed and tested by the Robotics Department at the University of Essex.

 

 

At a cost of $3.6 million, through a European Union grant, these fish will test the water for oxygen levels, detect oil slicks and other contaminants pumped into the water. This is the first monitoring program of it’s kind, and the retrieved data could be very important, with implications for global warming and the state of our water sources.

 

 

Researchers at Essex have been testing out their fish prototypes in a special tank at the London Aquarium since 2005. Visitors have been wowed by the incredible ability of the robots to move just like a fish does. As Rory Doyle, a researcher on the project, says, “The design of fish which nature has produced is a very energy-efficient one.

 

 

The fish’s efficiency is created by hundreds of millions of years’ of evolution. Submarines come nowhere near it.” This efficiency in movement will allow the robot to have a longer battery life and collect more data.

 

 

The new robot fishes will be about 5 feet long, larger than the prototype version, in order to withstand greater pressures and currents. Each fish will cost about $28,000 to manufacture. At a speed of 1 meter per second, the robot will troll the water collecting data. An on board guidance system will keep them from bumping into obstacles, rocks, fish or ships. They even have a form of sonar that will allow the robots to communicate with each other.

 

 

Website -

http://cswww.essex.ac.uk/staff/hhu/jliua/index.htm

 

 

Room in a Box

 

These rooms-in-a-box do not come cheap. Plan to pay about $10,000 for one of these convertible interior sets. Still, the idea of being able to store your entire kitchen, office and/or bedroom in a simple and movable set of sleek boxes is an attractive one. In short, you could store your entire apartment interior in a mid-sized closet.

 

From a style perspective, these units are relatively simple and modern and supposedly build on a long set of aesthetic traditions. From a space perspective, a surprising amount of storage and functionality are packed into a relatively small unit. Compact but comfortable, you can cook, eat, work and sleep if you collect all three!

 

 

Bedroom

[Master Bates]

Lightning Bag

 

Designer / Bookmark Maker Wonsik Chae takes this concept to an elegant level by making the drop-in tea bag light up your environment chemically. For those whose eyes are sensitive to brightness in the mornings, I recommend a different cup. For those who love lamp(s), drop it!

 

As the tea bag empties its taste into a tea cup, so does the “Lighting Bag” empty its light into any fluid-holding container. What Wonsik hopes to accomplish with this project is to tear down the idea that creating forms from which light can be projected must be a difficult task - he wants light forms to flow easily.

 

 

 

Video -

http://vimeo.com/3481507?pg=embed&sec=

 

Designers Website -

http://www.onesik.com/

 

 

$22million LED Screen

 

The Comcast center in philadelphia became the tallest building in the city. Now, whilst the building itself is a beauty, the thing that made me dribble slightly and the thing that no-one seems to have picked up on yet is the phenomenal video wall in the skyscraper’s lobby, built by barco.

 

For that money, you get the following…

1. the largest four-millimeter LED screen in the world, measuring 83.3ft x 25.4ft

2. 10 million pixels mounted in a seamless flat array - that’s 5 times the resolution of high-definition tv

3. an automated control room, home to 27′000 gigabytes of information, six dx-700 led digitizers, seven encore video processors and three matrixpro routers

 

 

 

 

[Master Bates]

Kamioka Mozumi Mine

 

This 50′000 ton cylindrical ‘ring-imaging water cerenkov detector’ can be found at the kamioka mozumi mine in japan - 1′000m underground. Clever people built the machine to detect neutrinos, proton decay and cosmic rays: this is done using the 12′000-ish photomultiplier tubes (extremely sensitive light detectors) visible on all walls of the ‘ultra-purified water-filled’ tank.

 

 

 

 

 

Easier to understand information about it -

http://www.ps.uci.edu/~superk/sk-info.html

 

Giant pictures here - http://www-sk.icrr.u-tokyo.ac.jp/sk/gallery/index-e.html

[Master Bates]

Robots

 

Robotic systems continue to evolve, slowly penetrating many areas of our lives, from manufacturing, medicine and remote exploration to entertainment, security and personal assistance. Developers in Japan are currently building robots to assist the elderly, while NASA develops the next generation of space explorers, and artists are exploring new avenues of entertainment. Collected here are a handful of images of our recent robotic past, and perhaps a glimpse into the near future.

 

Twendy-One demonstrates its ability to hold delicate objects by manipulating a drinking straw between its fingers at the Department of Mechanical Engineering laboratory in Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2009. The sophisticated robot has been developed by the university's team, led by Dr. Shigeki Sugano, in hope of supporting people in aging societies. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

 

NASA's Limbed Excursion Mechanical Utility Robot (LEMUR) is being designed as an inspection/maintenance robot for equipment in space. A scaled-up version of Lemur IIa, could help build large structures in space. The Lemur IIa pictured here is shown on a scale model of a segmented telescope. (NASA/Planetary Robotics Laboratory)

 

Tokyo Fire Department's rescue robot transfers a mock victim onto itself during an anti-terrorism exercise in the response to a radiological dispersal device in Tokyo, on November 7, 2008. Tokyo Metropolitan government conducted the exercise with eleven organisations including Metropolitan Police Department.

 

A biomimetic underwater robot, named "RoboLobster", designed by Professor Joseph Ayers, is seen, Aug. 17, 2007, in Nahant, Massachusetts. RoboLobster is intended to be used to recognize changes in seawater and to locate and destroy underwater mines.

 

Two All-Terrain Hex-Legged Extra-Terrestrial Explorer (ATHLETE) rovers traverse the desert terrain adjacent to Dumont Dunes, CA. The ATHLETE rovers are being built to be capable of rolling over Apollo-like undulating terrain and "walking" over extremely rough or steep terrain for future lunar missions.

 

A Navy Talon 3B robot approaches a claymore land mine on a sand dune during a training exercise at a training range in Djibouti, Africa, on April 14, 2005. Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians from Mobile Unit 4 operate the robot from safe locations through the use of monitors and video equipment attached to the robot

 

Mental commitment robotic baby seals named "Paro" are recharged at robot exhibition Robo Japan 2008 in Yokohama, Friday, Oct. 10, 2008. The 350,000 yen (US$3,480) Paro, a cooing baby harp seal robot fitted with sensors beneath its fur and whiskers, is developed by Japan's Intelligent System Co, to soothe patients in hospitals and nursing homes

 

The MSI produced robot named "Rich" demonstrates giving a tour walking down a garden trail in the Grand Hills apartment showroom of the Far Glory property company in Linkou, Taipei County, Taiwan on October 18, 2008.

[Master Bates]

Solar Powered LED Wall

 

This huge LED screen displays mesmerizing patterns of light and video to passersby. But the really amazing thing about the enormous wall of light is that it’s completely self-sustaining. That is, the light panels themselves harness the energy of the sun during the day to power a colorful light show at night.

GreenPix - Zero Energy Media Wall uses thousands solar photovoltaic capture cells attached to a grid of glass panels, each of which conceals an array of computer-controlled LEDs.

 

 

 

 

The Cloud

 

An organic sculptural landmark that responds to human interaction and expresses context awareness using hundreds of sensors and over 15,000 individually addressable optical fibers.

 

Constructed of carbon glass, spanning over four meters, and containing more than 65 kilometers of fiber optics, the Cloud encourages visitors to touch and interact with information in new ways, manifesting emotions and behavior through sound and a dichotomy of luminescence and darkness.

 

 

 

 

Video -

http://vimeo.com/1199539?pg=embed&sec=

 

Link to Website about it -

http://www.thecloud.ws/overview.html

[Master Bates]

The Oxygenator

 

Location - Szpitalna street, Warsaw.

The main element of this project is a pond of about 150m2 surface area, 1,0m deep, written into the existing lawn. On the surface some water lilies, but not too many, some plants placed at the bottom of the pond and constantly being freed from the bottom, air bubbles enriched with oxygen. This oxygen cloud comes from oxygen concentrators, which slightly raise the amount of oxygen in the supplied and later returned air.

 

Tubes at the pond’s bottom transport this oxygen-rich air, which is freed and appears on the water surface in the form of bubbles.

 

The pond a fog is maintained (using fog diffusers) which traps the enriched air. Surrounding the pond are specially-designed, futuristic benches, where one can sit and do some breathing.

[Master Bates]

DIS.PLAY

 

Impress is the deliverance of the touch screen from its technical stiffness, coldness and rigidity. It breaks the distance in the relationship of human and technology, because it is not any longer the user which is subjected to technology, but in this case the display itself has to cave in to the human. Impress is a chance of approach of user and technology, above all, from technology.

 

It is a matter of a flexible display consisting of foam and force sensors which is deformable and feels pleasantly soft. Impress works with the parameters position and time like other touch screens as well, but in addition to that, it reacts, above all, on the intensity of pressure.

 

 

Flow 5.0

 

Flow 5.0 is an interactive landscape made out of hundreds of ventilators which reacts on your sound and motion. By walking and interacting the visitor creates an illusive landscape of transparencies and artificial wind. Moving through Flow 5.0 the visitor becomes conscious of himself as a collective body, in a dynamic relation with space and technology.

 

 

Designers Website -

http://www.studioroosegaarde.nl/index.php?project_name=Flow5.0

[Master Bates]

Pocket Lightbulb

 

Hyun Jin Yoon and Eun Hak Lee are onto something with their “Pocket Light”. Although, the light emitted isn’t very powerful, I can see how it may be useful. Moments when I’m fumbling for the right key in the dark comes to mind. The “Pocket Light” may not appease everyone, but the designers are onto a great start of a concept. Let’s hope to see some further development.

 

 

 

Rain Powered Umbrella

 

Designer Sang-Kyun Park has taken the illuminated umbrella idea to the next level with Lightdrops, an umbrella made from polyvinylidene fluoride [PDVF], a conductive membrane that powers LEDs with energy from falling rain.

 

Appearing for all the world like a prop from the set of Bladerunner, the Lightdrops umbrella is constructed from a new type of fabric that harvests kinetic energy. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology revealed just such a microfiber nanogenerator fabric earlier this year this year that when made into a garment like a shirt, “could harness power from its wearer simply walking around or even from a slight breeze…”

 

 

 

Space Colony

 

 

A couple of space colony summer studies were conducted at NASA Ames in the 1970s. Colonies housing about 10,000 people were designed. A number of artistic renderings of the concepts were made.

 

 

More pictures here -

http://www.nas.nasa.gov/About/Education/SpaceSettlement/70sArt/art.html

[Master Bates]

Local River

 

Are you a locavore? If you are not acquainted with the term, it is used to describe people who wish to only consume produce from a small circumference around their own locality. In fact, it goes a little deeper than that – and the trend is catching on. The French designer Mathieu Lehanneur has come up with something for the loaded locavore that he calls Local River.

 

And it is just about as local as you can get!

 

 

The ultimate locavore not only wants to build collaborative and self-reliant food economies in their own area – they also wish to integrate this further. Sustainability is really the key word, with food production, processing as well as distribution and consumption integrated together. The hope is that, if this can happen, the particular place which adopts this system will be enhanced socially, environmentally and economically.

 

 

Lehanneur takes this concept to its – some might say ridiculous – extreme by offering people a way to farm fish from the comfort of their domicile. Not only that, by purchasing one of his designs you also get the chance to grow your own vegetables to have with that fishy dinner.

 

For those who like to have that decorative “TV aquarium” in their lounge then this particular idea is fabulously “decus et tutamen”. To borrow from the Latin (and the British pound coin) it is both decorative and useful. You get your fish – and your vegetables – for the cost of the unit. The price - don’t ask!

 

 

 

So, how does it work? It is based on the principles of aquaponics, which is when plants and animals are cultivated side by side in a form of forced symbiosis. As such it is an integration of aquaculture (a system in which fish may be grown) and hydroponics (which allows plants to be grown in water).

 

 

As the fish in the closed tank system release their effluence, there is the danger that they will die. So, plants are grown nearby so they that can soak up the nutrients in the water (which are toxic to the fish). This is where the recirculation comes in – the water is now returned to the water as it is now clean. In this way the system neither exchanges or discharges water and the relationship between the plants and the animals maintain the environment.

 

 

These systems are not new and have been used in the East where waste from fish has, by tradition, been used to keep rice paddies productive. So, this is not a new idea, but to take it in to the living areas of your average suburbanite? Will that ever catch on? You can certainly 'grow' any number of fish species in the tanks - including eel, trout and carp. With stocks dwindling, who knows what the insides of our houses will look like in the future.

 

 

Certainly, if you want your food fresh and is one hundred percent traceable to source, then a Local River may be just for you. The price may be a little Brad and Angelina for comfort, but at least you will guarantee that the food that you serve is completely fresh.

 

 

Designer's Website - http://www.mathieulehanneur.com/

[Pancake]

Great thread MB.

[Master Bates]

Next-Gen Concrete

 

 

Civil engineers at MIT are currently exploring ways to create concrete with reduced creep that will be able to last for 16,000 years. Concrete is one of the most frequently used and widely produced man-made building materials on earth, with over 20 billion tons produced per year globally. The use of new ultra high density concrete will have enormous environmental implications, given its ability to deliver lighter, stronger structures capable of lasting many civilizations, while drastically decreasing the carbon emissions sent into the atmosphere by its inferior predecessor.

 

One of the researchers behind the new discovery, Franz-Josef Ulm offers, “More durable concrete means that less building material and less frequent renovations will be required.” Ulm, alongside Matthieu Vandamme, has identified the cause of creep (the time-dependent deformation of structural concrete). This discovery may lead to the development of longer lasting concrete, by increasing its density and slowing its creep by a rate of 2.6.

 

 

“The thinner the structure, the more sensitive it is to creep, so up until now, we have been unable to build large-scale lightweight, durable concrete structures,” said Ulm. “With this new understanding of concrete, we could produce filigree: light, elegant, strong structures that will require far less material.”

 

With regard to environmental impact, the annual worldwide production of concrete creates between 5 and 10% of all atmospheric CO2. Ulm explains, “If concrete were to be produced with the same amount of initial material to be seven times normal strength, we could reduce the environmental impact by 1/7. Maybe we can use nanoengineering to create such a green high-performance concrete.”

 

Ultra high density concrete could deliver exponential results both in terms of strength and durability, and is undoubtedly poised to redefine architects’ relationship with man’s most reliable building material while literally changing the face of the earth.

 

 

 

Recycled Fiber Furniture

 

Designed by Mario Bellini for Meritalia, an Italian furniture maker, the Via Lattea furniture line looks like a collection of homemade marshmallows. Light as air, these chairs and couches are made from steel mesh combined with recycled fiber sacks formerly used to transport grain, stones, and sugar. Bellini and Meritalia showed their new line this year at the Milan Furniture Fair and we’re fascinated by the glowing chairs and air-filled sacs.

 

 

 

Via Lattea is a striking change from traditional padded furniture and also a significant upgrade from your college room blow-up chair. Low wattage lights are placed inside the pieces to emit a glowing light. While they may look like they belong in a nightclub instead of a living room, these pieces of recycled furniture require considerably less materials and resources to produce than your typical chair or couch. One note of caution: Though the steel mesh helps the furniture retain its shape, you’ll still want to ban all sharp objects within close proximity to them.

 

 

Bellini is an architect and furniture and industrial designer based in Milan. He previously created a line called Stardust in 2007 that is the predecessor for the Via Lattea line; the difference between the two collections is that Via Lattea is less sparkly than Stardust and made from recycled materials.

 

[Master Bates]

Ultrasonic Bath

 

At the 1970 World Expo in Osaka, consumer electronics maker Sanyo demonstrated their vision for the future by showcasing a series of appliances they thought would populate the home of tomorrow. Included was the Ultrasonic Bath, a pod-like human washing machine that cleans, massages and dries the user in a fully automated 15-minute process.

 

 

 

 

Levitating Bulb

 

 

Light bulb is a levitating yet powered lightbulb. It will float stably in midair and remain on for years without any physical contact, charging, or batteries. Ironically, with the levitation and wireless power circuitry both on, this entire package still consumes less than half the power of an incandescent bulb.

 

This is not a trick or a photoshop manipulation. The bulb and the casing contain hidden circuitry that uses electromagnetic feedback to levitate the bulb roughly 2.5″ from the nearest object, and uses coupled resonant wireless power transfer to beam power from the housing into the bulb itself.

 

[Master Bates]

Magnet Curtains

 

Would you prefer a curtain which you can shape to any form? If your answer is yes here is something for you: 'Magnetic Curtain'. It has magnets incorporated in its structure & you can shape it to any form & it stays in the shape you push & pull it to.

 

 

 

Designers Site -

http://www.kraeutli.com/index.php/2008/01/31/magnetic-curtain

 

 

 

Moss Carpet

 

 

Among all the great green designs discovered at the 2009 Milan Furniture Fair, this beautiful biodegradable moss planter at the Tokyo Fiber Sensware exhibition definitely stood out. Japan-based flower artist Makoto Azuma collaborated with Unitika Ltd. to create an indoor glade, populating the planter with an assortment of mosses. The result is an exquisite organic carpet that runs through the exhibition, passing round the furniture and the poles and stunning visitors with its delightful presence.

 

 

Terramac® is an eco-friendly 3D knitted and spun fabric which serves as a receptacle for the planter’s roots, protects the seeds, and holds the moss together. Made from plant-derived polylactic acid fiber, “this material is decomposed (biodegraded) by microorganisms in compost or in soil after 10 years. Eventually only carbon dioxide and water remain”. As the planter biodegrades, CO2 is captured by the plants through the process of photosynthesis. The name Terramac® means “sons of the mother earth”.

 

 

 

 

The real beauty of this technology lies in the pairing of a plant-derived plastic with a plant (here the moss) to create an improved sustainable environment. Generally found growing on the sloping sides of embankments, moss can now be integrated within the heart of our homes and cities. We love when industry meets design to offer practical solutions that embellish our lives in a more sustainable way!

 

[Master Bates]

Fighting Desertification

 

 

Desertification, the degradation of land in arid areas, is a growing problem due to deforestation, fires, and climate change. Magnus Larsson, a student at London’s Architectural Association has a drastic solution–a 6,000 km long wall of artificially solidified sandstone spanning the Sahara Desert from east to west. Dunes along Larsson’s sandstone wall will act as a combination of refugee housing and a block against the desert.

 

 

The project, which won first prize last fall in the Holcim Foundation’s Awards for Sustainable Construction, proposes using bacillus pasteurii–a microorganism found in wetlands and marshes–to solidify loose sand into sandstone. Larsson imagines that one day he could “force the grains of sand to align in certain patterns, certain shapes, having the wind blow out our voids, creating a structure that would change and change again over the course of a decade, a century, a millennium.”

 

 

It’s a big departure from current anti-desertification methods, including water conservation, soil management, forestry, sustainable energy, improved land use, wildlife protection, poverty alleviation. Larsson believes that the interior of the dunes along his sandstone wall could be used to achieve multiple goals at once–helping soil remain fertile, providing water and shade, and taking care of plants and animals.

 

 

 

If it is ever constructed, Larsson’s sandstone wall could support the Green Wall Sahara initiative, which aims to plant a shelterbelt of trees across the African continent.

 

 

 

China's Large LED Screen

 

China has built a large LED screen in a shopping district in Beijing surrounded by malls. It displays various images and animations like a desktop. The viewing LED screen is 7,500 square meters built at a cost of $32 million dollars.

 

 

A 250m by 30m LED screen has been installed in the ceiling in one of the shopping districts in Beijing. It seems to be a form of advertising screen but it displays images of nature, films, videos games and animation. Mostly the screen displays animation of fishes swimming in a large fish tank. It appears realistic with this giant LED screen, which cost them about $32 million dollars to build it. The video shows the LED screen in action, in the night it appears dazzling.

 

 

The LED screen hangs about 80 feet in the air and is five screens combined together to form one giant screen. That's an impressive 7,500 square meters of viewable area, and comes with an impressive $32 million price tag to match. It hangs 80 feet in the air, and is actually five screens combined.

[Master Bates]

São Paulo Eco-Park

 

 

Anna Dietzsch, Managing Director of Davis Brody Bond Aedas‘ São Paulo office and Levisky Arquitetos Associados designed this beautiful eco-park on what was once a contaminated brownfield in São Paulo, Brazil. The 130,000-square-foot site was previously the home to a garbage incinerator, so even after the area’s clean-up the team strove to minimize soil excavation by building a deck that, on average, floats three feet above the ground. Victor Civita Plaza also includes solar panels, the extensive use of reclaimed wood, and a retro-fitted museum that explains the sustainable features that were designed into the site.

 

 

Land has a way of preserving history through discarded rubble — the forgotten artifacts that archeologists use as evidence of past events. However, in the case of the Victor Civita Plaza in São Paulo, Brazil, the land’s history is slightly more obvious. The deck’s elevation literally exposes the history of the landscape as a reclaimed site. It is constructed of Brazilian hardwood that was sourced from distributors that follow stringent rules on extraction and reforestation. The deck is supported by a steel structure which allows it to float above the contaminated soil below.

 

 

Instead of using other materials for the rest of urban plaza, the design team chose to create visual uniformity by using the same wood used for the deck to define smaller spaces within the plaza. The effect is a fluid three-dimensionality that creates rooms that appear as if they grew right out of the deck.

 

 

The programming of the site takes advantage of the its history to encourage visitors to think about the past and present ecology of the site. Through exhibit panels, visitors are able to get a grasp on various efforts taken to make the space cleaner, healthier — and ultimately, more sustainable. These include: using recycled wood to build the deck, solar panels to produce energy for the site, and a passive water filtering system to clean the water. Also, the building that once sheltered the garbage incinerator was retro-fitted to provide space for a sustainability museum.

 

 

 

Recreational and community facilities make the space an invaluable amenity for neighboring communities in this dense urban area. A covered amphitheater offers a place for music events while a community center offers a place for eco-centric workshops. And by incorporating these recreational spaces into thoughtful design and educational planning, the team of architects and planners behind this urban plaza have made this site capable of actively improving the social and environmental health of the surrounding neighborhoods.

 

 

[hamster]

Concept designs for the future to actual products being used.

 

 

Pollution Fish

 

Soon, the water in Gijon, a harbor in Northern Spain will be monitored by robotic, battery-powered fish. These mechanical, articulating sea creatures were designed and tested by the Robotics Department at the University of Essex.

 

 

 

Does it come with chips, ie Fission Chips?

[tpbury]

Concept designs for the future to actual products being used.

 

 

Pollution Fish

 

Soon, the water in Gijon, a harbor in Northern Spain will be monitored by robotic, battery-powered fish. These mechanical, articulating sea creatures were designed and tested by the Robotics Department at the University of Essex.

 

 

 

Does it come with chips, ie Fission Chips?

 

Ha!

 

Is there a quota on how many can be caught? Will the Spanish exceed it, surely they're an endangered species already.