Inhabitat

On the subject of simple lighting solutions, here’s something that caught my eye from Mocoloco’s Milan reportage. Its a parasol made from lace cut in the pattern of foliage. There is something about this aesthetic of emulating nature which reminds me of Paran’s Sunlight Transporting system. You could put these parasols underneath your Bjork, and being inside could be exactly the same as siting under a tree. The designer Chris Kabel has this, and a couple others intriguing items (such as this modular fit-to-size table cloth) for sale through Droog design.

Check out his website >

Via Mocoloco

In a development that industrial designers everywhere have long been awaiting (or was it just me?), an MIT engineering group has finally created an ?intelligent plastic? that changes shapes based on exposure to different wavelengths of light. Although shape-changing plastics have been around since the late 90?s, previous smart plastics required the application of heat or electricity, a quality that limits the practical applications of the material. This new plastic, which can be transformed by light alone, has a wider array of practical applications in medicine, consumer devices, toys and sustainable design (since light is an inexpensive, efficient energy source). One particularly useful application seems to be in the healthcare field:

Imagine, for example, a “string” of plastic that a doctor could thread into the body through a tiny incision. When activated by light via a fiber-optic probe, that slender string might change into a corkscrew-shaped stent for keeping blood vessels open.

I can?t wait till this comes to market and I can finally start on my shape-shifting furniture collection!

Read more about this on the MIT website;

When I first saw discovered this amazing technology, I instantly wondered why no one has come up with a sunlight transport device before. The technology has been around for awhile, and the idea is so fabulous, you would think we would all have these in our homes by now. Swedish company Parans has developed a system of rooftop solar panels that collect sunlight and then transport it via fiber optic cables to illuminate light-deprived rooms inside a house. The light emitting luminaries, which hang from the ceiling like lamps, give off a mixture of parallel light beams and ambient light, which changes as the sunlight outside changes, resembling the dappling of sunlight through trees. Hence the name “Bjork” which is Swedish for Birch tree (No it doesn’t mean Icelandic pop star). The idea is that by bringing outdoor natural light inside a house, you will be able to re-establish a connection with the outside environment, even in the absence of windows or skylights. This sounds like a great idea for New Yorkers, with all the tiny lightless apartments out there. I want one! My one window faces a brick wall. NYC Developers take note.

Grancrete, developed by Dr. Arun Wagh at Argonne National Laboratory, is a sprayable ceramic that is stronger than concrete, fire resistant and provides good insulation in both hot and cold climates. Dr.Wagh, the developer, is originally from India, and wants to see Grancrete used as a cheap and efficient building material for the poor. He believes that anyone will be able to erect an effecient house in a matter of hours, simply by creating a house frame out of styrofoam (or natural materials) and then coating the outside with Grancete. Dr. Wagh hopes the United Nations and other international organizations will subsidize mass-scale production around the world. Once this product goes to market, one can only imagine the other less socially responsible uses people will think up with for Grancrete.

Grancrete was listed in R&D Magazine?s top 100 innovations in 2004.

via Worldchanging