Check out this lively blog about the fascinating world of industrial design. Key contributor is Sally Dominquez. Please send us your news and views to shapesters @ sparkawards. com. You can find more Sally here: http://www.sallydominguez.com/
China in the B class
Sally Dominguez
Five years ago I cowered in terror as my driver speared down the wrong side of a Chinese motorway and slalomed through oncoming traffic. I swore then that I would never – NEVER – drive in China again. But here I am, this time armed with my own Chinese drivers license, lured by the opportunity to pit Mercedes safety and technology against the twelve million Chinese drivers who average less than 5 years experience behind a wheel. The deal breaker: my chariot is the Mercedes B-Class F-cell hydrogen electric car, and I am keen to know whether this technology could be the answer for the intensely polluted cities of the world.
I first drove the B-Class F-Cell around the basement of the 2011 Detroit Auto Show. What struck me then was the normality of the vehicle, compared to the beetle shapes of Leaf, Clarity et al and the look-at-me interior energy displays of the Prius. 
Although the F-Cell is a hydrogen-fueled car replete with a host of patented innovations, only a snappy paint job differentiates the exterior from a standard B Class. Lack of engine noise aside, the only way you would know this car was different would be to bury your nose in the exhaust pipe and suck up the warm, pure water vapour. Similarly, there is not much to differentiate the drivability of the car from its petrol-fueled sibling. That is a very deliberate move by Mercedes Benz to placate the public and ensure that the transition from petrol to electric technologies is as painless as possible for the traditional Benz customer. The exterior and interior design of the F-cell may not have particular Spark Design appeal, but what’s hidden inside the guts of this car is some impressive and innovative technology. Have we ever awarded a design for a fuel tank? (Editor’s note: You’re the judge!)
The F-cell houses its drive train in the sandwich floor of B-Class so, unlike some electric vehicles, there is no compromise in interior volume. Dynamics are marginally improved by a lower centre of gravity, as four kilograms of liquid hydrogen fuel is stored under the rear seats, in three heavy pods of carbon fibre-wrapped rubber that are literally bulletproof. Having shrugged off misguided jokes about hydrogen bombs before I left I was secretly relieved to hear that the rigorous Benz testing involved successfully dropping the tanks off buildings and shooting them. Forward is the fuel cell stack where hydrogen reacts with air to produce electrical power, and behind the fuel tanks is a lithium-ion battery drawing power from the fuel cell, supplemented by regenerative braking. An electric motor housed under the bonnet runs off the fuel cell stack and the battery, supplying the F-cell with a range of more than 400 kilometres – double the range of the all-electric 2-seater Tesla Roadster or the 5-seater Nissan Leaf.
Turn the key – no Start buttons here – and that strange silence we are learning to get used to with electric vehicles means the F-cell is ready to roll. The whole hydrogen/electric ensemble adds around 700kg to the overall weight of the car but there is no lag in the 290Nm torque generated and you don’t feel the extra load.
Ducking and weaving through kamikaze Beijing traffic, the F-cell is in its element and the neat consumption bar graph, which measures the amount of hydrogen in kg/100km consumed in the last 15 minutes, makes it easy to establish the hydrogen-friendly way to drive and sets up a consumption competition between me and my German co-driver Marcus. I quickly establish that easing off the throttle is better than braking per se and that the energy use is a simple equation: the faster you drive the more hydrogen you consume – there is no “sweet spot” to play with. With air-conditioning on full-blast to filter that heinous Beijing air the car proves as nimble as its B 180 CDI equivalent.
On the open road we are flying along at 120km with a hydrogen consumption rate of 1.13kg/100km, except when we need to swerve into the emergency lane to avoid meandering lorries and the occasional 3-wheeler driving against the stream. Comfort again is classic B Class – on a 3-day road trip I would prefer more support as a driver and more plush as a passenger. There’s nothing to offend except the lack of auxiliary audio input. As we howl along to some local radio and curse the Benzgineer who skimped, I wonder about the efficiency of the cruise control and curiously find it less efficient – the bars climb to 1.15, then 1.18 before I am acutely aware that my range is dropping fast. With no plans to visit for any length of time at a Chinese rest stop, I ditch cruise control as Marcus (who has driven more than 65 days so far in the F-Cell and knows it inside out) explains how the range readout recalibrates to a worse case scenario. He ran 360km in Arizona with the low fuel light on and the car didn’t stop. 
The best indication of range is the total weight left in the tanks cross-referenced with the bar readout. Interestingly the range also depends on the temperature at fueling, with warmer climates causing the hydrogen to expand during filling, losing the car around 140 grams of hydrogen. Filling, which takes place at the dreaded rest stop, comprises a local semi laden with hydrogen cylinders and the Mercedes trailer van combo containing pump and compressor. An entourage of engineers, technicians and a Benz camera crew oversee the pump connections and check the seals – hydrogen is such a small light molecule that it will float away through the tiniest gap. 
Our refuel takes twenty minutes because we are using 80-degree liquid hydrogen pressurized at 700 bars. If the gas could be cooled to -16 degrees Celsius, as it would be at a permanent refueling station, refueling would take 3 minutes and the cylinders would be entirely filled. Marcus tells me that the team refueled twice at permanent hydrogen stations in California and demonstrated the admirable 3-minute refill. That’s more than 3 hours faster than the Tesla recharge and more than 6 ½ hours faster than the Nissan Leaf.
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The success of the F-cell technology hinges on an adequate infrastructure and decent production numbers. Right now the cost of hand-producing the composite fuel cylinders is huge but Mercedes is ready to roll if governments come to the party. Consumer success also hinges on an uncompromised, user-friendly vehicle and the F-cell nails that criteria. Whether its hurling to a stop when the highway suddenly drops down a 20cm ledge or accelerating out of a potential truck sandwich with seconds to spare, driving in China demonstrated a rugged and straightforward car that that excels at city driving and thankfully spits nothing but water wherever it goes. With a range worthy of an Australian suburban car I was disappointed that the Australian government did not show more interest in the F-Cell when it made its Aussie debut. Lets hope Chinese authorities have more foresight and see the European hydrogen highway as the perfect model to utilise their significant wind power projects and produce clean fuel for the polluted cities of Shanxi Province.
Best!
–Sally
PLASTIKI PET Project
The Plastiki PET-hulled boat might be old news now but the innovations that made the journey are more relevant than ever as PET continues to be exploited for its upcycling potential.
It took almost five months for the catamaran with the PET-bottle hulls to make its way from San Francisco to Sydney – that’s almost two months slower than planned. Most boats are built for speed and stability but Plastiki, like its namesake the Kon Tiki, was a proof of concept vessel described by David de Rothschild as a “symbol of solutions” and designed to grab headlines while testing various PET-based materials and alternative energy concepts.
The striking 12,500 bottle-strong design honed by Australian naval architect Andy Dovell is likened by de Rothschild to a pomegranate, the dry ice-filled bottle “seeds” providing 62% of the ballast grouped together to form the hulls but also separate enough that one or two failures would not mean disintegration.
Although hydro dynamically inefficient the unskinned bottles visually conveyed the PET-content of the vessel to audiences around the world. Less visually captivating but far more transformational is the material invented in Europe and trialed on the Plastiki voyage, a PET-based material named srPET. Self-reinforcing plastics gain advanced strength and stiffness from their highly oriented polymer fibres with typically five times the stiffness and strength values of unreinforced plastic. srPET is used as a structural skin on all the non-bottle surfaces of the boat including the Buckminster Fuller-inspired geodesic cabin. srPET is expected to compare in strength and usefulness to fiberglass, but with none of the health issues associated with glass fibres, and all the recycling benefits of being a homogenous plastic material. This thin skin of srPET along with the srPET board material used in the hull structure currently require virgin polyethylene terephthalate but the srPET textile used for the sail utilizes recycled PET and is bonded with a specially developed organic glue made from sugar cane and cashew nuts and currently being commercialized by Adventure Ecology.
A postmortem on the voyage of the Plastiki revealed a crew reluctant to set sail on a bottle raft again any time soon but enthusiastic at the success of the srPET iterations trialed over the months at sea. Composites Evolution, the UK company behind the Aptiform PET-based products, suggest that the light weight, low cost and recyclability of srPET is particularly applicable to large, low volume parts, making it an ideal material for sustainable transportation applications. (Sally’s Plastiki story was first published in Curve Magazine.)
This is a really exciting use of HOG and one that we will be promoting throughout the Bay Area now that California has been told to expect a Mother of all Storms in addition to the Mother of all Quakes. Turns out the other comparable emergency water sources are either pallets of single-use water bottles that need replacing every 6 months or – wait for it – barrels that ROLL!
GREEN AUTO PAPER PLAY
By Sally Dominguez
Cardboard as a construction basic is serious paper play for adults. From Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Chair to the Finnish designed acoustic cardboard listening space Mafoombey, cardboard is an oft-ignored heavyweight contender for green building.
What about a finer-gauge of paper, though? Brazilian Claudio Dias brings a technical eye for minute detail to the art of paper models to create serious paper play for kids and adults. Worried that China-made toys are invested with lead? With a bit of imagination, and some help from Claudio, you can follow his FREE fold ‘em and keep ‘em models to create intricate origami toys such as the Delorean in Back to the Future and the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. No nasty side effects included.
Stuck on the freeway in pouring rain? With a little forethought and some glue you could be whipping up the Interceptor on your dashboard. 
Best of all – these cool designs are free!! With detailed instructions you just print, cut, and fold like a loon.
I felt the need to connect – as they say in the USA – with this master autorigamist:
Claudio, the detail on your models is incredible. Do you have a basic outline you tweak for each paper car design, or is every new model painstakingly conceived from scratch?
When I want to design a new model, I search the internet to find any reference material that could be used. Ortho views, schematics, pictures, and even 3D mesh. If you have something ‘technical’ like views or 3D, it makes easier to design the model. If not, you must be creative to say the least.
1966 Batmobile, Mad Max Interceptor, Delorean were the only ones I found technical information. All the others cars were from scratch.
What paper should your designs be printed on for the ideal result? Is there a particular weight and texture you design for?
The weight depends on the level of details. As a general rule, I recommend 90-120gsm paper for small parts (folks that means all your used office paper can be turned into star vehicles so save it and print Claudio’s patterns on the back) and 15-180gsm for bigger ones.
The final look of the car determines the texture. I use glossy paper for shiny cars. 
The Tumbler, for example requires matte paper.
What is your favourite paper model to date?
Well, it’s not a car… It’s a robot that transforms into a car : Bumblebee. Speaking of cars, the 1966 Batmobile. It’s my first model and it reminds me my childhood.
Has there been a car that you have tried but not been able to model in paper?
No. I’ve finished all models I’ve started. Perhaps, I keep distance from the impossible ones… A friend of mine once asked me to join him in a project – The Nemo’s car from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. 
Which is saying a lot because the models we can download are pretty complex. For instance, there are 72 steps for the 1966 Batmobile.
And for the selfless, and health-conscious tot-toting readers, Claudio’s site www.paperinside.com also has models of PowderPuff Girls and Bruce the Shark which you can whip up for the young ‘uns, safe in the knowledge that they are relatively chew friendly.
MORE SERIOUS PAPER PLAY
by Sally Dominguez
Paper bags and cardboard boxes, butchers’ paper and newsprint hats. Paper plates, papier mache and the versatile matchbox, boxes for packing and moving and play– visionaries like Gehry and Shigeru Ban use it for structure but, whether the blame rests with neat stacking Lego and Lincoln Logs or span-worthy Meccano, most of us don’t consider cardboard as a construction basic.
With around 85% recycled content typically found in corrugated card, the material offers sustainable credentials that many other product and building materials cannot match. Frank Gehry’s seminal 1969 Wiggle chair, featuring 60 layers of corrugated card “Edge Board” screwed into compression, is a plain sexy investigation of how to achieve strength and sculpture through the opposite layering of corrugations. Shigeru Ban’s equally groundbreaking use of cardboard structure in halls, office buildings and houses epitomizes economy in use and lifecycle, marries the strength of the helically wound paper tube with simple, repeatable, affordable connection details. As the architect says, “I don’t like waste”.
Wiggle Chair
Shigeru Ban’s temporary studio, Pompidou Center
Online a smattering of origami-based modules demonstrates all manner of flat packing structure, like Bloxes, flat packed card blocks that interlock for DIY internal walls and structures. Swiss architect Nicola Enrico Staubli and his free, downloadable Foldschool designs. Eschewing the asymmetrical fold for the uniform concertina, the patented Liquid Cardboard creations of US-based Cardboard Designs are poetic and “freely transforming” vessels.
Bloxes
More pedestrian in form but super useful, compressed paper panel materials like Paperstone and EcoTop provide a paper-based replacement for pulp boards like MDF, utilizing the density and strength of papers en mass.
The ultimate in DIY cardboard emersion and superior acoustics has to be Mafoombey, a corrugated space both poetic and functional, designed for listening to music as part of the Finnish Habitare Fair 2005 by students Martti Kalliala and Esa Ruskeepää. In awarding Mafoombey first prize Jasper Morrison commended the design for simply “turning the humble material of cardboard into something so wonderful”.
Mafoombey
AS SIMPLE AS A,B,C… OR NOT
June 12, 2009 by Sally Dominguez
Paid up unexpectedly for an article published yonks ago I decided to shout myself a design treat. For years I have yearned for an Ray Eames walnut stool.
Originally designed for the lobby of NYC’s Time-Life Building where they were coupled with leather armchairs, A, B and C in solid walnut have always captured my imagination. In an exhibition long ago I even tabled my own version in threaded, spun stainless steel sections as an all-weather, industrialized and slightly rustic interpretation. When Athol, my crusty but loveable old metal spinner died from inhaling decades of metal dust, Australia lost an irreplaceable craftsperson and I lost the only person who could spin stainless back on itself in a close take on Ray Eames’ curvaceous walnut B. Before then, and more so since, I have wanted an Eames stool. I always thought I loved B.
I love that this stool works either way up. I love that its gentle concave is a forgiving cup for any-sized bottom. I love the abstract references to chess, dumbbells, cogs, knuckles and axles. So with all that love in my soul I paced into the Mill Valley Design Within Reach to finally take my baby home.
I have never been a fan of the “apple-core-ness” of C so it was a tossup between A and B and when it came down to that – I was stuck. I tried visually separating the two into a neutral setting. I tried context, rearranging most of the DWR floor in growing desperation. With about 10 minutes before closing and no plans to exit sans stool I was in a decision-making quandary. Was it B, my favorite til that point, with its central squashed ball and positive outward curve? Or the tribal squat of A……. The ghost of Ray echoed in my head “You know what looks good can change, but what works works”. Well, they ALL work Ray…..
Suddenly, what luck! Random product designer to the rescue. Male. Apparently working on a new and tiny portable sound mixer. Rode a rockstar vintage bike. And made the observation that B is feminine, A is masculine, and he didn’t care much for C. My concentration thus broken I looked again at the punchy angles of A… and the deal was done.
What do you think?
Sally Dominguez, Rainwater Hog LLC
Architect and product designer Sally aims her sharp Australian wit at the design scenes on both sides of the Pacific. Check Shapesters and ASIANLINE for Sally
Sally Dominguez April 27 2010
Cardboard as a construction basic is serious paper play for adults. From Frank Gehry’s Wiggle Chair to the Finnish designed acoustic cardboard listening space Mafoombey, (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=52409) cardboard is an oft-ignored heavyweight contender for green building.
What about a finer-gauge of paper, though? Brazilian Claudio Dias brings a technical eye for minute detail to the art of paper models to create serious paper play for kids and adults. Worried that China-made toys are invested with lead? With a bit of imagination, and some help from Claudio, you can follow his FREE fold ‘em and keep ‘em models to create intricate origami toys such as the Delorean in Back to the Future and the caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. No nasty side effects included.
Stuck on the freeway in pouring rain? With a little forethought and some glue you could be whipping up the Interceptor on your dashboard. (image INTERCEPTOR) Feeling finicky? Try the crazy detail on the Ghostbusters Ecto 1.
(image ECTO)
Best of all – these cool designs are free!! With detailed instructions you just print, cut, and fold like a loon.
I felt the need to connect – as they say in the USA – with this master autorigamist:
Claudio, the detail on your models is incredible. Do you have a basic outline you tweak for each paper car design, or is every new model painstakingly conceived from scratch?
When I want to design a new model, I search the internet to find any reference material that could be used. Ortho views, schematics, pictures, and even 3D mesh. If you have something ‘technical’ like views or 3D, it makes easier to design the model. If not, you must be creative to say the least.
1966 Batmobile (http://paperinside.com/batman/1966-batmobile/), Mad Max Interceptor (http://paperinside.com/madmax/), Delorean(http://paperinside.com/delorean/) were the only ones I found technical information. All the others cars were from scratch.
What paper should your designs be printed on for the ideal result? Is there a particular weight and texture you design for?
The weight depends on the level of details. As a general rule, I recommend 90-120gsm paper for small parts (folks that means all your used office paper can be turned into star vehicles so save it and print Claudio’s patterns on the back) and 15-180gsm for bigger ones.
The final look of the car determines the texture. I use glossy paper for shiny cars. The Tumbler http://paperinside.com/batman/tumbler/), for example requires matte paper.
What is your favourite paper model to date?
Well, it’s not a car… It’s a robot that transforms into a car : Bumblebee (http://paperinside.com/bumblebee/)
Speaking of cars, the 1966 Batmobile. It’s my first model and it reminds me my childhood.
Has there been a car that you have tried but not been able to model in paper?
No. I’ve finished all models I’ve started. Perhaps, I keep distance from the impossible ones… A friend of mine once asked me to join him in a project – The Nemo’s car from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (see pic below). It’s a simple car, however those silver ornate details made me say NO to him. I know how to design them, but they’ll be very hard to assemble.
Which is saying a lot because the models we can download are pretty complex. Here, for instance is a page of the pattern for 1966 Batmobile. (image of Bat stuff)
And for the selfless, and health-conscious tot-toting readers, Claudio’s site www.paperinside.com also has models of PowderPuff Girls and Bruce the Shark which you can whip up for the young ‘uns safe in the knowledge that they are relatively chew friendly.
