SILICON VALLEY ENTREPRENEURSHIP WORKSHOP

Thanks to our cooperation with YOUNOODLE.COM, the portal for entrepreneurs and competition organizers, Spark was happy to award a $2,500 tuition grant for a lucky Spark:Concept entrant. The Spark Jury chose a winner whose design, in their judgment, had good prospects for a business or NGO launch. Well–it turned out to be two!

The Entrepreneurship Immersion Summer Camp took place at Stanford University and in various hot Silicon Valley companies. For details check out Facebook: http://on.fb.me/l3eiv9

Rebeca Hwang, Younoodle CEO, is directing this exciting program, and we’re delighted to be able to follow the adventures of our prizewinners, Maria Pitallano and Kevin Cheng here at the Spark Blogs. Here’s their diary:

Hi Design Folks–Welcome to Entrepreneurial Boot Camp! This is a quick overview from Maria and I, an entry for our first class and some photos from the day.

Our month-long entrepreneur summer camp consists of roughly 30 or so attendees, many traveling from all over the world to attend, including South Korea, Mexico, and Singapore. The attendees (and their projects) vary – some with just pure concepts, others who have already started a business, and university students, majoring in everything from entrepreneurship to engineering: industrial, bio-medical, software.

Separated into 5-6 groups to work on business plans formed around a concept, the collaboration of this eclectic range of people make for a fascinating experience, especially for us industrial designers with no prior experiences in business.

The group concepts varied anywhere from website and mobile app services to new products, and we’re looking forward to seeing the progress that’s to come out of these groups by the end of the month.

Lecture Friday began with an international Skype conference with Jonas Kjellberg, who worked as VP head of sales at Skype helping lead it to its success today. He covered strategies, specifically how to maximize ”frequency”, “delight” and “business” in order to mature a healthy, innovative start up, and went into details of business make-up and team structures.

This was followed by a 6-person live Q&A session with founders of Silicon Valley start ups, including CruiseWise, Top Dish, and OVIA.  They discussed the hurdles of entrepeneurship, their failed attempts, and the benefits and drawbacks of starting up in Silicon Valley.

The last portion of class was made available for everyone to personally talk to these entrepreneurs allowing them to ask more personal questions involving start-ups of their own. Good stuff! 

Sunday, June 12:  The program hosted a barbeque-fueled hackathon event at YouNoodle HQ in South Park, where the class continued work on their projects and received feedback from VCs, founders, and tech experts in attendance.  Our group consisted of two designers (Kevin Cheng and Maria Pitallano), an engineering major, and three entrepreneurship majors.  Utilizing classic design methodolgies to assess each of the Spark:Concept entries, the group determined that Kevin’s 2P Portable Restroom would be the most viable to pursue within the short length of time allotted (less than a month!).

Monday, June 13:  Our morning began with Stanford professor Tom Kosnik compressing a 10-week course on business models into an hour-long presentation. Kosnik stressed the importance of customer development to validate business models, as well as the iterative nature of business models (no model survives first contact with customers).  We then spent the afternoon at Yammer,  an enterprise social network that facilitates and revolutionizes internal corporate communications (the Facebook of enterprises).  Adam Pisoni, co-founder and CTO, stressed the importance of product-driven engineers, that engineers should be as interested in product design as they are in technology.

Tuesday, June 14:
Stanford professor Tom Kosnik spent the morning lecturing on IP (intellectual property), discussing methods to protect our ideas and products that possess commercial value.  His presentation focused on how to find, then collaborate with lawyers in order to leverage and defend our IP.  The day was capped off with a company visit to the Founders Den, a shared office space for experienced entrepreneurs.  Two of the managing partners, Zack Bogue and Jonathan Abrams, emphasized the benefits of a shared working space – communal knowledge, energy, and general cameraderie.

Wednesday, June 15:
Drama!  New Directions! Late Tuesday night, our group mates from Tecnologico de Monterrey expressed concern about the viability of developing a business plan for a portable restroom in a three week period, so we met the following morning to discuss these issues.  The task of assessing costs, manufacturing, distribution, and identifying key partners was overwhelming to the teammates, and they wanted to focus on a concept that had a stronger technological component.

Maria led a 10 minute ideation exercise that proved to be fortuitous. The brief exercise generated 10 concepts that brought about a lot of excitement and energy to the group.  Through phases of voting, we were able to agree on the concept we were most excited about and move forward on a bike theft detection and deterrent device. We then celebrated at Axis Cafe, which oddly enough was playing Latin pop music.

At 5:30PM, our group met up with the rest of the class along with some MBA students from the University of San Francisco at Twitter HQ.  Over the last couple of years, the company has grown rapidly from a handful of employees to almost 600. We were led on an office tour, showing us their common area, equipped with a large projection screen, cafe, and DJ booth.

Employees, working on laptops, lounged on white couches lining walls where large windows allowed for a bright, sunlit environment. The other side of the building consisted of more sunlit work spaces filled with many desks and computers occupied by busy employees.  Our class then gathered into a conference room where a quick Q&A session was held about Twitter’s origins, where it’s at today, and where it plans to be in 20 years.
— All Best, from Maria & Kevin, following the yellow brick road!

 

 

 

 

June 20-23:
Kevin was in France for a wedding, while I was away due to a family emergency.  But the Track-It team had a successful first run of the presentation that was presented to a panel of VCs.  The idea of a GPS-enabled theft deterrent device for bikes was extremely well-received – the VCs were puzzled why it hadn’t been already developed.

June 24:
We were treated to a moving and inspiring panel on careers in social entrepreneurship.  Social entrepreneurs are realists w/ innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems.  They seek to enact wide scale change through new ideas.  The panel consisted of Tobias Rose-Stockwell of Human Translation, Eve Blossom of Lulan Artisans, and Claire Herminjard of Mindful Meats.

Here’s their story:

Tobias founded Human Translation in 2004, a nonprofit that has developed programs focused on the microeconomics of poverty alleviation, helping several thousand farmers in rural Cambodia double their agricultural income. While traveling in Cambodia in 2004, he came across a group that initially asked him to raise $20,000 for an irrigation system.  Essentially the price of a car, he didn’t think it was an unreasonable request.  It ended up taking five years and $250,000, but the results were immeasurable.  Tobias and his group mobilized a community torn apart by war to help build a dam and irrigation system that now helps them yield two crops of rice.  When asked to explain the key difference between an entrepreneur and a social entrepreneur, he said, “You have this metric for success that isn’t just profit.  I’m interested in building something scalable that isn’t just charity.”

Eve, trained as an architect, uses design for social change through Lulan.  She created a for-profit social venture that utilizes the talents of artisans in South East Asia. How she became involved was through a life-changing experience that led her to what she refers to as “disruptive entrepreneurship.”  At a dinner party in Vietnam, she overheard a male guest boasting to an acquaintance that he had arranged to have sex with a six-year old girl.  Despite contacting the local authorities, she was unable to stop him; the sexual predator had managed to double bribe the police and he even physically threatened Eve. At this point she realized that combating human trafficking on an emotional level would only lead to more failure; she needed to create a business that could compete with it, disrupt it.  Through her work with Lulan, she has not only employed weavers, dyers, and spinners, she has also assisted in benefits, such as education and housing, to improve quality of life in the villages, towns and communities. ” How many times do you turn your back on need?  There is always one day, one point in your life where you can’t turn your back on something.  That becomes your passion.”

Claire founded Mindful Meats, which is focused on making local, sustainably and humanely raised, meat more accessible. Claire views social entrepreneurs as “impact drivers,” explaining, “I’m coming to hate the term social entrepreneurship.  It doesn’t adequately describe the work, resourcefulness, scrappy nature of people in this space.”  Combining her public policy background with the skills gained working in tech, she began researching a market need and model for her own food business, to which she developed a curiosity and concern over the meat she consumed.  This led to the marriage of her belief in expanding consumers’ awareness and choice of meat with her career goal of being part of a business with a mission of tracking impact beyond profit.

Monday, June 27
The entire class boarded a shuttle to Stanford to visit the campus.  The hour-long ride was a great opportunity for our team to regroup and hammer out next steps to prep for the final presentation, as well as talk to other classmates about their projects.  Some of the feedback from the VCs was that 1) we needed to explain the obstacles that have prevented others from developing a GPS-enabled anti-theft device 2) articulate the benefits and delights of the device, and 3) identify what makes the product different from products/services out there.

Tuesday, June 28
Crunch time!  Tuesday was a working day, with all of the groups meeting separately to work on their final presentations.  We met at USF to finalize the device’s features, decide on whether to market to directly to bike manufacturers or to bike shops (bike shops won; our cyclist interviewees unanimously chose wanting to have this as a stand alone device rather than something pre-installed), and further assess current and future competition.  Kevin also made revisions to the device, lengthening the device, adding the technology, and materials changes.
–MP

June 29 – Final presentations were Friday!  In our last formal class, we presented our  concepts and business plans to not only our instructors, but several guest entrepreneurs and venture capitalists as well.  Our 10 minute presentations included a sports sponsorship app, a social advertising website, vaccine stabilizers for farm life, individually-tailored children books, a bike theft device, and a mobile image recognition app with each presentation followed by a Q&A.  Everyone did a great job and not one group came out of the program empty handed. To celebrate, everyone convened at Starbelly restaurant (16th and Market St.) where we shared dinner and had drinks. Many people gave speeches about what they’ve learned over this last month while toasting the program.

July 1 – A wrap-up class where we had a chance to give feedback on the course and discuss what we should do next with our concepts. The course instructors gave an overview of the future of entrepreneurship and gave guidance on what to expect on the route to success. 

Onwards and upwards now. Class is over, learned a lot. Time for the 4th of July and some Summertime fun!

All Best from Maria and Kevin

THE “S” WORD

(Revised) June 11, 2011 by Clark Kellogg

It’s hard to find a person who is against sustainability. I can think of only two people I know. Sustainability is in the same league as Motherhood and Apple Pie. But in most conversations, sustainability’s approval rating nosedives somewhere between 14 and 31 seconds later. That’s usually the time when the gauzy notion of sustainability inevitably gives way to defining what it is (30 point drop in approval rating) or doing something about it (free fall).

What’s going on here? For one, humans are good at using our big brains to know a lot. But it doesn’t always translate into doing a lot. Second, we are on sustainability overwhelm. Staying current is like drinking from a fire hose – everyday.  And that’s hard to swallow.  Third, amid this explosive growth in knowledge and information the very meaning of sustainability has been diluted to the point of meaning just about anything, and thus meaning nothing.

We all support motherhood, apple pie and sustainability. We know what the first two mean and we know how to create them. Not so for sustainability. Even the Brundtland Commission’s definition – development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs  – is difficult to apply to the here-and-now of one’s own life. Paper or plastic?

Without an explicit shared agreement about the meaning of sustainability even the well-informed and well meaning among us cannot make much progress. Indeed, this lack of clarity enables avoiding the most neglected problem in sustainable design today: time. There are many projections about when catastrophic environmental events will take place (GHG, ice shelf melting, sea-level rise, water wars). It’s hard to know how accurate they are and it doesn’t matter. The plain fact is that we don’t have time to wait and find out if the projections are correct. What matters is taking smart bold steps now because here’s what we do know: the longer it takes to start meaningful healing of the earth, the less likely we are to have a viable future. In short, we don’t have time to waste.

Is there any hope? Yes, and its not false hope. Design – and design thinking – as a set of solution-seeking tools is spreading to every corner of the world. Indeed, we are all designers now and optimism is an onboard skill of designers (sustainable or otherwise).  More importantly, healing the earth is igniting the largest movement of human energy in the history of the planet. It is a movement without precedent; amorphous, unorganized, instinctive, and blessedly uncontrollable. Literally billions of people are on the job. It is already the single largest public works project ever.

If we can get as good at making sustainability as we are at making motherhood and making apple pie we just could be very happy, be well-fed and live long, balanced lives. Cloth or disposable?

THINK LIKE A DESIGNER

June 13, 2009 by Clark Kellogg

“Everywhere you look today, Design has taken on new meaning. Design isn’t just about decoration; it’s a critical component of how we communicate, collaborate and compete. But behind the “look and feel” of any good design are a host of carefully conceived principles; fundamental propositions that define the essence of the design. The trick is to learn those underlying rules–to think like designers.”

- “Design Rules,” Fast Co. Mag, October, 1999

Two things about this quote stand out. First, it recognizes design as a

useful process beyond object-making. And, it was published ten years ago. It was also ten years ago that I started teaching a course at UC Berkeley’s architecture school called, “Beyond Buildings; New Sites for Designers.” The purpose was to help students understand what habits of mind they come to know (often tacitly) through the design studio sequence of classes. Then, we looked at how those skills can be used to make things other than buildings. Over time, that work has boiled down to a list of qualities – or habits of mind – that one could arguably title “How to Think Like a Designer.”

It would be foolhardy to claim this list is absolute or even complete. It has started many conversations and some debates. We are reproducing it here in that spirit. For now, here is the whole list. Your comments and insights are welcome.

Design Thinking: Clark Kellogg’s Ten Habits of Mind:

1. Focused Creativity

2. Generous Collaboration

3. Drawing and Thinking in Pictures

4. Comfort with Ambiguity

5. Non-linear Information Processing

6. Multiple Solutions

7. Learning by Doing

8. Communicate for Understanding

9. Charrette Culture: Shaped by constraints and bounded by time

10. Curiosity is better than Judgment

Clark Kellogg, Partner, Collective Invention

From his perspective as a consultant, architect and graphic designer, Clark holds forth on Design At Large in the D/Views Blog. Clark Kellogg is a designer and partner at Collective Invention, found HERE

D-DAY FOR DESIGN

June 6, 2009 by Nathan Shedroff

(Here, in honor of the 65th anniversary of D-Day and the invasion of Europe in World War II—- a new call for courage. Ed.)

This past week, I spoke on a panel at the Sustainable Brands conference about the potential end of conspicuous consumption. Koann Vikoren Skrzyniarz, the founder of the conference, asked three of us to talk for 15 minutes about whether we had, indeed, entered a post-consumer world (as many writers posit these days) and, if so, what that means. For myself, I’m not sure we’re quite there, though I hope we are. The biggest issue is that we don’t yet know what it looks like, and our visions of what a more meaningful, sustainable, and post-consumer world might be are either too much in the past–like our entire history up until the 50s, or the future–imagine the latest vision of Star Trek.

One of my co-panelists, Teaque Lenahan, from gravitytank, a Chicago consultancy, showed a video his firm created. What it made clear was that our grandparents experienced not only a more sustainable world but one where reuse and recycling was standard operating procedure. In fact, during World War II, this was equated with patriotism.

People planted Victory Gardens, saved and recycled materials and didn’t use other materials unless absolutely necessary. People gladly sacrificed for the good of the nation.

Now, compare that to today. Perhaps, the most extreme reversal came in the moment after 9/11 when our president asked us all to go shopping in response. It may have even been a good idea but the lingering cultural reverberation is that patriotism = consumerism and that’s ever more scary. I’ve made my own case against the concept of “retail therapy” in my latest book, Design is the Problem. In addition, just about every study looking at the intersection of happiness and consumption shows that the two seem to be opposed (the more we consume, the less happy we are). Now, students and scholars are actually building-out the notion of Gross National Happiness, a term coined by the Sultan of Brunei, into a real economic indicator: http://grossnationalhappiness.com

One of the problems we face is that we don’t actually know what this new, better world looks or feels like. We can look to our past or find clues in the present from places like Cuba (the most sustainable country on the planet at the moment), India (the country with the least consumerist people), Curitiba, Brazil (a city that has transformed itself socially, economically, and environmentally–all on a budget), or Sao Paolo (a city that banned outdoor advertising in 2007). I was reminded at the conference that Vermont banned outdoor ads in the 70s. Though these places probably don’t resemble what the USA or other countries need to grow into, they all offer glimpses into a more sustainable, meaningful, and less consumerist culture. So, they’re a start. But they’re not the vision we need.

The reason why visions are so important is that most people need one in order to step off in a new direction. This is what leaders do so well. The more visual, aural, and verbal the vision, the more people it communicates to and the more vividly it communicates.

Gil Friend, who runs the company Natural Logic and whose new book, The Truth About Green Business just launched, took us to task after our panel for not approaching the most important question of this brave, new world: what are the new economics? For example, if everything lasts twice as long–or more–then which is more sustainable? And if people consume less (possibly because they don’t feel a whole lot of meaning in their lives), then most companies are selling half to a quarter to less of the goods and services they do today. What do their business models look like? How do they survive? And why is it in their interest to change?

I don’t yet have the answer to the fundamental change part of this question–the one that is really about the macroeconomy. However, I do have an answer to the questions posed by companies about why they should care about sustainability, transform their offerings into services where possible, and get ready to make less stuff overall. The answer is simply: if they don’t, they’ll be beaten to market by those that do. Learning these lessons early and devising the solutions to these challenges will put forward-looking companies in a stronger position, with a brand promise that resonates with customers more deeply. Try being late to this party– when a handful of companies have already reached radical resource efficiency, innovated their products and services, and aligned themselves with the customer trends that connect at the level of meaning–the deepest and most powerful point of connection possible.

These won’t be connections that can be broken by features, performance, or price. Apple’s already made that clear to anyone paying attention. We’re reaching an inflection point that combines Darwinian evolution’s first premise with the most hardcore market capitalism: this is going to be a test of Survival of the Fittest like we haven’t seen since the Great Depression. General Motors has already shown that playing the frog in the slowly warming water will no longer cut it in the marketplace. It’s astonishing that it took 35 years for the water to boil, but companies can’t count on that slow of a reaction in the hyper-global world today. Quite simply, those companies that don’t make rapid, significant strides in sustainability and meaning won’t be around in ten years. Period. And, we’ll all be the better off for it.

Nathan Shedroff, Chair, Design Strategy MBA, California College of Arts

Nathan connects interaction and information design in the Re:Start and DIGE Blogs. Cutting edge we think!

>Register for Spark Today!

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.
.
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.)

We calculated that the HOG represents 400x 16oz water bottles for emergency use – which means over the next 10 years Edna Maguire does NOT have to replace and dispose of the 8,000 single use plastic bottles they would otherwise be using. 

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.  Feeling finicky?  Try the crazy detail on the Ghostbusters Ecto 1.

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.  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.  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

>Register For Spark Today

LETTERS FROM THE RING OF FIRE

Harrowing and heroic stories are reaching us from our Spark friends in Asia. We’ve posted several below. The first two are from Leimei Julia Chiu. Julia is the Executive Director of Japan’s Good Design Awards, and President-Elect of the ICOGRADA organization.

Julia—
I hope you and your loved ones are well.  Please—when it is convenient—send Spark an update on the Japanese design community and the latest efforts regarding the calamities.
—Peter

4/15/11
Hello Peter and the Spark Community—

At times like this, one can not help feel very different perspectives about how we can reposition design so that the profession can really be of service to the weak, the poor and those in need.

It will be a long-term commitment and we will need to learn how to combine and share our expertise.

We really need to bring people from different disciplines to start thinking about how we could work together- to help communities rebuild their lives at transitional shelters and afterward.

We will need everyone to help with this huge task.

At JIDPO, we have shifted all our projects towards how design can help with community-rebuilding in the northeastern areas.

Please see: “How can designers support relief efforts in Japan?”
http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401.html
http://www.jidpo.or.jp/en/news/2011/0401_2.html

I am contacting major design awards from around the world to collect good case studies/products/services/systems that could be of use to the reconstruction efforts.

INDEX (Copenhagen), Design Forum Finland (Helsinki) will be working with us for this project as part of the collaboration and AIGA (U.S.A.) has been helping with this effort. Both are promoting design/architecture in all disciplines.

Israel Community of Designers has created a facebook page which permits designers to express solidarity:
http://www.facebook.com/designers4japan

Another idea is as follows:
I will be working with Niigata Prefecture which has also experienced an earthquake several years back. The government has a project to integrate craft industries, manufacturers and designers to develop new products each year.
Here’s the website:
http://www.nico.or.jp/hyaku/english/

This year, I will be the design manager to direct this initiative and I am thinking of setting the theme as follows: How can we design products and systems for a better living environment, where people have been displaced, and are trying to reorient themselves to build a new life from scratch?

We need ideas. The companies in Niigata will realize these ideas into real products/systems after one year.

with warmest regards
—Julia

3/17/2011
Subject: deepest gratitude from julia/ tokyo, japan

Dear everyone–
Thank you so much for all the encouragement and offer to help the design communities in Japan.

I am deeply, deeply touched and will try to answer all your messages individually.

I will stay put in Tokyo for now and try to work out some plans for how design associations in Japan can help with the long term reconstruction efforts in the areas heavily hit by the earthquake/Tsunami.

We will probably need support from the international design community. I will keep you updated as we progress with the planning.

We are having rolling blackouts in Tokyo area to cope with the energy shortage so it might take me some time to respond.

with warmest thoughts and a big, big hug from Tokyo
–julia

And we have this reflective note from teacher, reporter, Reverend and friend Jaime, currently across the Sea of Japan in Northern China

3/16/11
Jaime R. Vergara
Special to the Saipan Tribune

Channel NewsAsia out of Singapore, along with CCTV 9 of Beijing, is following the unfolding crisis in Japan after the 9. Richter scale tremor, the strongest quake ever to shake the nation, and the subsequent tsunami that sent 10-meter-high waves 10 kilometers inland in Honshu, leaving the tarmac of the Sendai International Airport underwater, a local hospital still standing as the only refuge for some 300 persons in an area of collapsed structures, and 10,000 people from one village still remaining unaccounted for. The predictable aftershocks add damage and discomfort, but it is the threat of the nuclear meltdown of six reactors that is sending chills down everyone’s spine.

Not unlike humankind’s previous relationship to “flat earth,” which we now know to be spherical, and calling the experience of sundown as “sunset” when the earth actually turns, we never really consider land mass as floating tectonic plates on magma, but to appreciate how strong the earthquake in Japan was, the whole archipelago moved by a couple of meters and the axis of the planet itself shifted by a few centimeters!

Zen Japan is showing a remarkable face of solid calmness. News reports portray a nation intentionally going through the motions of a rehearsed drill in the midst of the surprising destruction that trails the wake of this disaster. The vaunted train system, one of the most sophisticated rails in the world that connects Kagoshima in south Kyushu to Wakkanai of north Hokkaido, shut down momentarily, along with its metro systems, at least in the urban centers of Honshu. Undaunted, people bought bicycles and pedaled home, while some just trudged and walked in the cold.

In 2002, we took a week-long retreat in late January before the cherry blossoms, taking the train from Narita to Sapporo in Hokkaido on the eastern corridor through Sendai, and returning on the western route through Akita and Niigata to West Tokyo. The cultivated and manicured countryside was a scene to behold, the tidiness of the trains and orderliness of its people a welcome respite from the hustle of crowd and mass humanity.

Although signs of juvenile vandalism-mainly graffiti-were evident in metro structures, the orderly Japan of our previous acquaintance, of nature both physical and societal disciplined into the level of art on terrain and population, was still very much and unmistakably alive! Majestic Mt. Fuji reigned as Hokusai’s rowers navigate the towering waves off Kanagawa in my sea of tranquility!

It is with deep appreciation that I recall that solitary week almost a decade ago, but as I watch today the deluge of painful unraveling that characterizes the Land of the Rising Sun, only the sound of silence is appropriate to express our profound sorrow of the innocent suffering unleashed.

A people’s tragedy, however, has awakened humanity’s empathy. Though its economy is one where its GNP far exceeds its GDP, showing barely any economic growth though ascending into international eminence, it has shown an economic arrangement where the concern for humanness matters. Japan projected a country with a human face.

Its virtues of simple elegance in cuisine and decor, lifestyle and landscape, custom and technology, its thrust toward moderation on all things in its post-WWII demeanor, has endeared it in many parts of the world; though it was saddled with the cruel memories of militarism, it also lived through the mushroom cloud brunt of Little Boy and Fat Man over the skies of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The nation took this nuclear kamikaze and domesticated it for peaceful use. Now, the ice and the fire, the heat and the water, Mother Nature’s yin-yang elemental force comes calling on Nippon’s door again.

Presbyter and poet Ellie Stock wrote the following not too long ago:

What do I call what calls from the deeps,
that pulses through stars and quickens heart’s beat,
that surges through waves and cleanses with fire,
emerges from dust and breathes soul’s desire?
What do I name what mocks human pride,
that bends the tree of life, sustaining being’s tide?

It is with Zen calmness that we join Japan and the rest of the world in daring to give a name to that which emerges from the deeps, whether from the bowels of the earth, or from the deep abyss of the battered human soul.

The world joins that call of the deep as its K9s head for Tokyo to locate survivors. There is solidarity afoot in a world already grieved by the Gaddafis and the Tehrar Squares. But the ebb and flow of global reconciliation fills the air, and I, in my archaic season of Lent, smell the scent of transformation, in faith, hope and love. With T.S. Elliot and Zen calmness, I sing:

Quick now, here, now, always-
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well…
———————————————————–

Then, wham, we were slammed with all the pre-Spark deadline publicity–well, you probably experienced a bit of it. The Spark Jury finally convened in late October, and we all had a swell time. The Jury was Monday. The Awards Celebration and exhibition of winners was the following Friday. In between, all of the staff came down with a vicious bout of food poisoning. So things were a little out of sorts! Anyway we made it happen, the Spark party was fun and 2010 was a wrap.

Well, almost. For our final act, Spark Director Clark Kellogg and I went on a whirlwind tour of Korea, Taipei and Guangzhou. The Guangdong Industrial Design Association graciously invited Spark to mount an exhibition of the 2010 winners. The occasion was the GD Industrial Design Week. So this was both an honor and a pleasure.

The GDDW Themes were Talent, Fusion, Industry and Cooperation. We were part of the Fusion Pavilion.

And the finished Pavilion glowed with your winning Sparks.

A pioneer of Chinese design, Prof. Tong Huimin, Director of the Guangzhou Academy of Art, came by to welcome us to GZ. Prof. Tong is a great friend of Spark and we always enjoy seeing him again.

Next stop, Seoul, Korea– at a hot spot in a cold town. DesignKorea 2010 Expo was a lovely show, honoring design from the G20 Summit nations. We were delighted to meet with Nara Suh and Song Hyo-sik from the KIDP, the producers of the event.

A very interesting final stop on this tour brought us to the Taiwan Design Expo in Taipei. This was a show with lots of great student work, some incredible fabric and fashion design and some nifty electronics. Taiwan Design Center’s Vivian Wu and team filled us in on next October’s International Design Alliance Congress, and Spark’s contribution–hoping for something fresh and… Sparkly, please! (This show will be a doozy of a networking event. Don’t miss it.)

So ended a momentous year–and we lived through it! Back home we gave thanks, shoveled snow and rested up for the next round. All Best!

February 17, 2010 in architecture, Cities, Design, Leon Krier, Observations, Parking, Poundbury, Prince Charles, Sustainability, urban design | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

FREE: The Web as Big Box Retailer

July 15 by Tad Toulis

A few days ago I stumbled across an interesting pair of companion pieces:  Malcolm Gladwell’s New Yorker review of FREE and Chris Anderson’s response to that review – Dear Malcolm: Why So Threatened?  Read back to back, the two pieces make for an interesting, if disjointed, debate.

Anderson has shrewdly tapped into (and consequently helped frame) an emerging and controversial debate over the future of business. Taking a page from Stewart Brand’s “information wants to be free”, the core observation of Anderson’s book is that the triple threat of ever cheaper processing, unlimited storage and increased bandwidth conspire to drive web based business models toward a no-cost formula. It’s a sexy premise and one that’s clearly in evidence all over the web.

While I generally agree with the observations Anderson sets forth in FREE, I can’t help but find the premise worrisome. The present recession not withstanding, the information economy is in full swing all around us – and there are some troubling signs amidst its apparent success. The 24/7 media culture that started with the mainstreaming of cable television some twenty odd years ago has taken up full residence on the web. That’s hardly surprising given the role that cable providers had in helping to boost broadband subscriptions. With the proliferation of cheap ubiquitous internet access, the hucksterism many of us sought to steer clear of, by turning to the web, has increasingly become standard practice. Which raises a question very much at odds with FREE’s premise. What chance does ‘free’ on the web have of avoiding the ‘Buy one Get one Free’ culture that defines ‘free’ in big box culture?

Many, including Anderson himself, believe that the meritocracy of the web will somehow help it circumvent a noisy future full of digital penny-saver equivalents and cash back coupons – but I for one remain doubtful. Sure, the web has a great history of fighting to maintain its neutrality but those days fueled by an academic altruism are fast receding. The popularization of broadband brought about through bundled cable packages and device offerings like the iPhone, the PalmPre and $300 Netbooks have introduced more and more consumers to the possibilities of the web. This surge in demand has helped fuel the web’s meteoric growth and made much of it easier to use, but this same influx has meant that the web has necessarily had to change, becoming increasingly reflective of the world beyond it.

While much is made of the web’s ability to support a place for everyone and everything, recent events in China and Iran demonstrate that like all other broadcast media– the web can be manipulated and controlled. If that strikes you as paranoid think of it this way– control need not come from an organized nation-state, it can come from the passive censure of popularity and relativism. Within the fresh vision that FREE sets forth, resides a parochial soul: more stuff to more people for way less. That vision should inspire as it simultaneously cautions us. Given that the consumer in both the physical and digital world remains us, the dynamics that drive commerce are still dangerously subject to the same old same old: Business as Usual.

FEATURISM IS FAT–AND NOT THE GOOD KIND
Lessons on consumerism from the organic food movement
June 19, 2009 by Tad Toulis

A month or so ago I attended a conference in Portland, Oregon held by the APDF where I caught a presentation by Benjamin Linder from Franklin W. Olin’s College of Engineering. Among the slides in Linder’s lecture was one which re-imagined Michael Pollan’s bestseller In Defense of Food as “In Defense of Product”. This idea struck me so violently; I stood up, walked out of the auditorium, went directly to Powell’s and bought a copy.

For some time I, like so many in design, have been trying to conceive of the next ‘big’ model. Seeking to reconcile, often with mixed results, what it is I do for a living with the world I see taking shape around me. Equating product with food isn’t new, but when re-examined in the contemporary context, the corollaries between organic agriculture, low impact manufacturing and environmental sustainability become as numerous as they are thought provoking. What’s more, having achieved critical mass, the mechanics of the organic movement are finally mature enough to start informing other sectors of the economy.

The premise of Pollan’s book is summed up in his eater’s manifesto: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Central to his argument is the notion that nutritional marketing is a shell game devised to sell processed foods as the technical equivalent of their natural counterparts: whole foods. Pollan goes on to explain how longstanding scientific tampering with nutrients has left the North American diet chemically rich but nutritionally vacant. When seen through the product lens, the practice of adding nutritional value to industrial foods reveals itself as the produce equivalent of adding features and upgrades to poorly conceived product lines. It’s self-deluding tomfoolery: a myopic focus on capability over need that ultimately leads to systemic and environmental ruin.

Extending the metaphor, the strategies that Pollan describes for coping with industrial agriculture can be viewed as sketches for how we might re-imagine our relationship with mass production as a whole. Viewed in this light, the growing popularity of Community Supported Agriculture programs (CSAs), Cow-Pooling and the interest in Urban Farming become potential benchmarks for tomorrow’s production, distribution and revenue schemes.  By artfully wedding long-standing components of small and mid sized production with hyper coordinated demand and delivery, these programs successfully and consistently deliver high quality produce in a schema that’s both efficient and sustainable.

Most provocative of all, food – cutting as elegantly as it does across issues of sustenance, commerce, and culture – has the capacity to affect societal change on a massive scale. Perhaps, motivated by the growing body of evidence implicating industrial agriculture in rising rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, consumers may yet surprise us all and demand the type of legislative change so sorely needed to bring about real change. Something, which the comparatively abstract issue of sustainability, has thus far failed to do.

I’ll leave it to you to imagine the full depth to which the food movement could invigorate design. But incase you find this whole conceit laughable consider this, in preparing this piece I debated a comparison between slow food and slow design only to find the concept already well established. So let me leave you with this my fellow traveler: Buy Stuff. Not too much. Mostly services.

>Register for Spark Today!

John Norquist lives in Chicago and serves as President of the Congress for the New Urbanism. He previously served as Mayor of Milwaukee from 1988 to 2004.

More about John here and the Congress here.

BLOGGER #2: JOHN CARY!

Executive Director, Public Architecture and Co-founder, ArchVoices, John writes and speaks extensively on issues relating to architectural education, internship, licensure, and public-interest design. John’s views will be posted right here in the P.ARCH blog

BLOGGER #3: KRISTEN RICHARDS!

Editor -in-Chief of the very popular architect website, ArchNewsNow, Kristen has written about the industry, the firms, and the personalities for 20 years. She is also Editor of Oculus magazine and e-Oculus for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York Chapter.

>Register for Spark Today!

Contributors include Sally Dominguez, Dan Sturges, Dave Muyres, Mark Charmer and Joe Simpson. Gentlefolk, start your powerplants!

Pedal Power

Sally Dominguez Driving the Green Line, Courtesy Sydney Morning Herald

A few years ago a mate and I decided to make our fortunes with a silicone driving sock we named Foot Franger. The Franger would sit rolled up in the door pocket ready for use and its rough-rider-style rubber grip would ensure the contained foot stuck to the pedal. When I sought research to determine whether a thin sock was safer drivewear than sneakers or riding boots I came up blank: seems there is a lot of speculation but very little published fact on the co-operation of shoes and car pedals. Foot Franger was relegated to the backburner.

Suddenly a four-million-car recall by the world’s largest manufacturer has turned table talk to the otherwise unremarkable topic of car pedals. Rogue floor mats may be Toyota’s pedal diddlers, but off the record plenty of pedal near-misses closer to home have happened to drivers via their unpredictable footwear, whether its flip-flips bending under the brake pedal, mules snagging the clutch or Crocs coming off completely. Accident statistics don’t list the footwear involved and regulations rarely attempt to intervene but if you do regard your shoes as reckless, consider the quandary of driving unshod. Is it legal to drive in bare feet? (yes it often is, unless you are driving in Hong Kong). Is it comfortable to drive in bare feet? (try the Dr Scholl-like feel of the Honda Type R’s rubber studs before you answer), safer to drive in bare feet? (Brazil apparently thinks so, at least when compared to driving in “slippers or clogs”).

Any conversation regarding appropriate driving footwear inevitably reaches driving in heels. Its not illegal and apparently one in four women do it – that’s around 2.6 million Australians – yet most people regard it as unsafe and no vehicle directly addresses the very different mechanical action of an angled foot and elevated ankle on the pedal of a car. The International Encyclopedia of Ergonomics and Human Factors suggests that an accelerator pedal be angled between 35 and 45 degrees (depends on seat height) to control the amount of force exerted from driver to pedal. The force on the pedal is also controlled by my the angle of thrust – higher seats create a downward pressure on a pedal, and the lower the seat the more forward motion comes into play. The good Encyclopedia notes that pressure feedback from the foot “can be largely masked by footwear”. Since even a 3cm boot heel substantially changes the angle of the foot, the area of foot brought to bear on the pedal, and the thrusting movement of the foot, men in Cuban heels are as compromised as boot-skootin’ gals by the average car pedal.

Heel guards on the driver side foot mats were pioneered by Carla Zampatti in her 1985 Ford Laser interior to prevent wear and tear at the back of the driver’s shoe. This design feature is now fairly common, suggesting that many auto makers know women drive in dress shoes and just haven’t tweaked their engineering to suit. Things are changing however, at least at Ford where a recent chat with Bob Coury, Core Vehicle Architecture Supervisor at Ford headquarters revealed a new, innovative approach to the ergonomic design of pedals.

Bob was the lead engineer responsible for introducing adjustable pedals to Ford vehicles via the Territory (Expedition to Bob) in 2003. Adjustable pedals had been around in concept cars since the 1950s, allowing driver access into difficult and restricted cockpits. In 1971 the Maserati Bora pioneered adjustable pedals in a production car courtesy of hydraulics by Citroen. French auto makers ran with this trend yet oddly, at a time when almost every part of a car can be automatically tweaked to suit, movable pedal boxes remain largely an under-utilized after-market add on for the rest of us. Not so for Ford. The 1996 Dodge Viper had used adjustable pedals to deal with a cramped foot area and Bob rigged up a prototype electric pedal box for his Boss’s Mustang to demonstrate their usefulness. When the 5’1 wife of the 6’5 boss used the moveable pedals she deemed them essential and the electric adjustable pedal box was born.

In itself the adjustable pedal box represents safety progress for the vertically-challenged because it allows short drivers to sit further away from the wheel – and the airbag – and still remain in control of their vehicle. Pedal extenders in various strange forms are the after-market alternative to adjustable pedals – studies suggest they are commonly used by female bus drivers – although these would conceivable completely change the force of foot on brake and create a Thunderbirds puppet-like pedaling effect. As race driver Amanda Hennessy notes “the trick is to keep the heel planted and roll the foot” – easily done in flats, harder in heels, downright tricky on stilts.

But Ford’s pedal innovation does not end at adjustability. Bob acknowledges that car companies model their CAD pedal calculations based on averages and percentiles, always assuming that the driver is wearing shoes but never inputting data on the shoe other than its size (some morph between Women’s 7 and Men’s 13). As Bob saw it his team knew that a successful pedal design was more than angle and anatomy, but “ struggled with the time, energy and research needed. We didn’t have the manpower or the money – so we did some creative thinking”.

In 2008 Ford employed a shoe industry consultant to supply them with the facts and figures normally used to stock a store: the most common sizes, and the proportion of sandals to stilettos to snow boots. User types were input into the database with pickups weighted towards boots and mustangs and minivans deemed more heel-friendly. Armed with an extensive matrix of sizes and shoe types, Ford is venturing where no other auto maker has gone in tailoring pedals to the reality of shoes.

Today’s cars offer every mod con from heated seats to DVDs – some even accommodate a ponytail in the headrest. Compared to a heel-compatible, adjustable pedal my Foot Franger doesn’t rate for driver convenience.

As Carla Zampatti says, “ I always drive in high heels. I don’t have time to change my shoes”.

Finding meaning in Frankfurt – 2009 auto show review

Ferrari’s 458 Italia was the prettiest looking core-model Ferrari since 1994’s 355. The stunningly executed Rolls Royce’s Ghost showed Bentley’s Mulsanne the way in elegance terms, showcasing some particularly fine English craftsmanship – check out those door inners, and ingot-like door handles.

Rolls Royce Ghost doors

Lexus and Saab still disappoint. The Lf-Ch was predictable – somehow feeling a little too close to Toyota’s similar sized cars in its execution, and bringing little new to the premium C-segment dominated by the Audi A3 and BMW 1 Series. SAAB’s 9-5 doesn’t really stand cross-examination against Audi or BMW either. While a welcome new product on a stand starved of product under GM, it suffers from a slightly dated feeling (not surprising really, as its design was signed off some time ago). We wonder how – and if – things will change for SAAB under Koenigsegg.

Citroen Revolte’s interior raised a few eyebrows

Citroen’s ReVolte was much talked about before the show as being a modern interpretation of the 2CV. Yet for all the talk of plundering a heritage line, this was Citroen having a bit of fun. Drawing inspiration from a certain section of Parisian society, the interior takes on the feeling of a boudoir in the rear (crushed red velvet) and clashes it against an integral rear-facing child seat and hi-tech, pilot-like driver’s chair. If nothing else, it made us smirk, and provided an amusingly playful contrast to the seriousness of the Germans.

Sister brand Peugeot produced an intriguing concept in the form of the BB1. A sub-Smart sized city car, the BB1 actually seats four, although they may want to be more than just good friends with one another before all climbing aboard. Cleverly for a product that in size approaches something many might hesitate to classify as a car, there is strong use and reference made to Peugeot’s road bike heritage (bike inspired front seat perches, bike-based driving controls). It felt like an authentic gap-bridging vehicle between car and bike. We expect to see much more of this type of thing aimed at the urban populations of mega cities. Certainly Renault’s Twizy appears to be just that, too. It provides an interesting contrast to the BB1, being physically smaller but designed to imbue the driver with the sensation that they are in a real car, in a way the Peugeot passes over.

Four passengers in the Peugeot BB1 – they’re all good friends…

Favourite vehicle of all for me was the VW L1. Some explanation is appropriate here. Last year I finished an MPhil at the RCA, and my final project was a VW-branded city car, arranged in a tandem formation, and in part inspired by the 2002 1 Litre concept – brainchild of Ferdinand Piech. For many reasons, a very aerodynamic, light, narrow, tandem format car makes sense for our future world.

VW L1

Yet just eighteen months ago (when completing my project) I thought VW had shelved the 1 litre. It was a Piech pet project, and featured rocket science tech that was too expensive, too weirdly packaged to ever see the light of day in a production car. Never underestimate Ferdinand Piech is the message to take from this… more than ever, he’s very much in charge – and in the seven years since the original 1-litre car, the production techniques and cost of making its carbon fibre monocoque have fallen. Meanwhile, the two-cylinder diesel motor has entered the realms of economic reality too – as it’s likely to be pressed into service under the hoods of future Up! and possibly even Polo models, as the internal combustion world continues to downsize. So the L1 is very much set for future production according to VW.

The headline is that the L1 has a drag factor of just 0.195cd (the lowest I’ve heard of – and for comparison, today’s best the Prius, is 0.25), and weighs under 400kg – the monocoque accounting for a scarcely credible 65kg of that. But after talking to designer Maximillian Missoni, there’s a sense that the real achievement has been to create a beautifully spare exterior style, reflecting the purity of purpose in the engineering, with design language that is recognizably VW, and acceptably car-like.

The low cockpit, and side-hinged canopy enclosure make sitting in the L1 feel more akin to piloting a fighter jet than merely driving a car, an idea that is intentional. The design theme was inspired by aeronautics, and intended to convey a sense of speed. More than that though, Missoni says that there was a desire to create a positive sense of drama and forward thinking here “you want to be able to drive up in front of a restaurant, and not feel embarrassed, you want to feel “I’m a pioneer’”.

Compare this to the other future we’re presented with; the forgettable, dumpy forms of the Prius or Leaf – essentially the cars we have today with new powertrains underneath. There’s much merit to what these cars have done to condition markets and move consumer’s mindset. Yet there’s also evidence that – from both an environmental perspective, and an urban mobility one – we need to go further, rethink some first principles. For me, the L1 is that car, it shows a really different way forward – in a positive way. VW’s a huge car maker, but it’s proving that size isn’t a hindrance to thinking differently.

So while the Prius may be a green darling, and its current iteration reputedly very good, the VW is – in many regards – much more elegant when viewed from a holistic design and engineering point of view. Of course, you won’t be able to fit a family of four and the dog in an L1, so many will dismiss it. But think about how often you travel alone, or with just one other – and think about how menial a task day-to-day driving has become. The L1 shakes those ideas up, and says that the future could be different, but the future could have a real sense of adventure, a sense of fun about it. If VW is truly saying that a car as pioneering as this can now be produced, at a cost those pioneering individuals can afford, then it suggests there is every reason to be optimistic about the future – of not only the car, but of how we can push the boundaries of travel itself within the constraints of the world today.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 23rd September 2009

Four Minutes In Frankfurt–Video

Four Minutes In Frankfurt

Are You Electric?

The NYTimes reports a different, perhaps more confident mood among would-be electric vehicle makers. What do you think?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/14/automobiles/14electric.html?ref=business

The last 12 months of auto design – our favorites

August 24, 2009 by Joe Simpson, with Mark Charmer

Pininfarina Bluecar (nee Bo)

Electric and hybrid cars need to look apologetic and dumpy don’t they? Ergo, all cars of tomorrow will look like the Prius, right? Wrong! Pininfarina, the Italian design house better known for styling Ferraris, took the unusual step of developing their own-brand car, in conjunction with French battery maker Bollore, to showcase a small, electric city car. At its unveil at last autumn’s Paris auto show, words like ‘cute’ and ‘funky’ were the order of the day. Pininfarina even put solar panels where the radiator grille would have been (because it doesn’t need one), and showcased an interior whose design picks up where their brilliant Sintesi concept left off. All in all, this ought to be the car that moves the game on beyond Prius.

Ford Smartgauge

Just under a year ago, Ford was smarting from being (wrongly) lumped in with GM and Chrysler over auto bailout shenanigans in the US. The perception was that the US auto industry didn’t do green, because it didn’t make a Prius competitor. Step forward the Fusion Hybrid, a car which drives just like a regular car, looks like one, but gets better gas mileage than any other hybrid in its sector. But all of this wasn’t really the reason for excitement. No, it was the Fusion Hybrid’s Smartgauge cluster – a four-way configurable digital instrument panel, which helps drivers to get the best economy from the vehicle. Using ethnographic research done with IDEO, Ford have come up with a system that adds layers of complexity and information as drivers learn and want to know more about how their activity affects economy. Ultimately, it just makes the car more engaging and fun to drive… and I never thought I’d write those words about a hybrid.

Toyota iQ

Arguably as innovative as the Gina, the iQ is a sub-3m long city car, which (at a squeeze) seats four, can turn on a six-pence, and yet will let you walk away from a 40mph crash alive. The Prius is often lauded as Toyota’s greatest engineering achievement – but this car trumps it. Among other things, Toyota completely rethought and redesigned the air conditioning and HVAC system to take up less space, remodeled how the steering rack / differential / front axle arrangement worked allowing the distance from front wheel to driver to be reduced, and built a fuel tank to fill the (tiny) few spare spaces they had left under the passenger compartment. It out-smarts the Smart car in one move. Shame Aston Martin want to do crazy things to the whole concept…

Honda Insight Speedometer

A lot of people criticise Honda’s new Insight, but it can be applauded for an approach which – rather than adding complexity, which is inherent to most hybrid cars – seeks to simplify. So the electric motor and hybrid system is smaller, simpler, sitting like a ‘pancake’ behind the engine. And rather than the all-singing, all-dancing driver displays found in some hybrids, the Insight keeps you driving economically with a really simple piece of design. The digital speed display, sitting at the base of the windscreen and in the driver’s line of sight, simply glows green when you’re driving economically, and goes purpley-blue when you’re being lead-footed.

Volvo S60 Concept

Changes are afoot at Volvo. Ford is keen to sell its Swedish subsiduary. Steve Mattin – the chief designer – left suddenly, and now one of the blue oval’s top designers, Peter Horbury – who made his name at the Swedish firm, is returning to head up the design team. If he gets the next S60 into production looking anything like the concept car unveiled at January’s Detroit auto show, there’ll be lots of happy people in Gothenberg. Not only did the S60 concept look sleek and fast, but it had an interior of such jaw-dropping beauty and detail design attention, that it was many people’s star of the show. Criticised for deserting its Swedish roots under the stewardship of Ford, the S60 emphatically hit back, featuring a huge chunk of glass dashboard that flowed between the seats and into the back of the car. Done in conjunction with Swedish glass firm Orrefors, the end result was an interior that embodied everything great about Scandinavian interior design values, and felt as Swedish as Abba, but a damn site classier.

What do you think? Lists tend to create disagreement, so let the debate begin! What blindingly obvious thing have I omitted? Ultimately, there’s nothing too out of the ordinary here. No Tesla. No Aptera. No Jetsons-esque flying cars that start to creep into the kind of ‘reality’ one expects to see South Park satirizing. The auto industry doesn’t do ‘innovation’ in a way that’s highly visible, or that changes the world, very often. In fact, it’s largely still doing things the way Henry Ford did 100 years ago, which many argue is why it’s in the state it finds itself today. Yet for some (and I include myself here), it’s possible to take delight in the new models, and the little details which showcase the behind-the-scene hours spent by engineers and designers, who’ve dedicated their lives to shaving off a kilogramme of weight here, or an inch of unnecessary flab there.

It’s the little things, those moments where you’re made to feel ‘someone in the development team thought about me’, that still ultimately make cars the special, coveted objects that they are today.

Posted by Joseph Simpson on 19th August 2009

Disclosure – Ford is sponsoring The Movement Design Bureau’s design and research work in 2009, Honda provided an Insight test car free of charge for review purposes.

Images: BMW Gina – Steve.Jackson, Nissan Cube – winni3, Audi A5 – philippluecke, Pininfarina Bluecar, Ford Smartgauge, Honda Insight – all Joseph Simpson, Toyota iQ – Mark Charmer, Volvo S60 – potatowedge

LAUNCHPAD

July 1, 2009 by Peter Kuchnicki

It’s appropriate to launch the GOING blog with a launch by friend and Spark Council member, Tom Matano.  Tom is also Director, School Of Industrial Design for the Academy of Art University and ex-chief of Mazda Design. In a somewhat cryptic PR from LED (Louisiana Economic Development), plans are outlined for a new eco-car, designed by Tom and an impressive team. When I asked Tom “What else can we put in the GOING blog about this? How about sharing some design guidance, mission, drivetrain, etc?” Tom responded, “Unfortunately, I can’t give you any more than that the plant site has been selected… If this goes as planned, it will be another ICON like Miata has become.”

We’re rooting for you, Matano. And dig the VC masters of the universe-types behind this startup. Watch out Elon! Here’s most of the PR:

RELEASE: Louisiana Economic Development

V-Vehicle Company, or VVC, is a new American car company that will produce a high-quality and fuel efficient car for the U.S. market. Its goal is to provide the American car buyer greater product value and a superior automotive experience. By designing and building its cars in the U.S., VVC wants to help re-establish American leadership in the global automotive industry.

• VVC was founded in 2006 by Frank Varasano, a former Oracle Corp. and Booz Allen Hamilton executive. The vehicle design team is led by Tom Matano, who is best known as the “father of the Miata,” which was recently named the “most iconic” car of the past 25 years by BusinessWeek.

Headquartered in San Diego, Calif., VVC intends to locate its first manufacturing facility in Monroe, La.

First Plant Location Selected

• VVC selected Monroe, La., as its first plant site after an extensive and competitive, multistate evaluation of potential candidates against a detailed list of critical factors. Key to its decision was the availability of an existing facility, the quality of the labor pool, its confidence in the state and local leadership and a creative incentive package developed by the Louisiana Economic Development team that addressed core needs and provided value where it was most needed. KPMG advised VVC in the selection process and CBRE acted as real estate broker.

• VVC plans to renovate, retool and expand the former Guide headlamp facility in Monroe, approximately doubling its size with the addition of about 325,000 square feet of production space. The construction project is expected to begin later this summer. Gray Construction of Lexington, Ky., has been chosen to design, engineer and supervise the project. CKGP/PW & Associates of Troy, Mich., will provide process and manufacturing engineering support. Both organizations have impressive resumes in automotive plant design and construction.

• Once completed and at full capacity, the Monroe facility will employ over 1,400 workers. The majority of these workers will be employed by VVC, with approximately one-third employed by several colocated supplier companies. VVC intends to take full advantage of the Louisiana FastStart™ program to help recruit, screen and train a world-class workforce. Production hiring is expected to begin in the summer of 2010.

V-Vehicle Company Funding In Place

• VVC has been funded thus far by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, or KPCB, under the stewardship of VVC board members and KPCB partners Ray Lane and John Doerr. KPCB is one of the world’s leading venture capital companies, with success stories including Genentech, Amazon, Compaq and Sun Microsystems. VVC and KPCB are currently in the process of closing a second round of equity funding.

• VVC has applied for engineering and manufacturing loans under the Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing Loan Program, a $25 billion loan program established by Congress in 2007 and administered by the U.S. Department of Energy to spur innovation in automobile technology.

For more information, visit www.OpportunityLouisiana.com.

BIOGRAPHIES

V-Vehicle Company Selected Investors & Executives

John Doerr
Managing Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

“V-Vehicle Company coming to Louisiana, I think, is a great statement and a great catalyst for all kinds of new, innovative economic opportunities.”

Ray Lane
Managing Partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

“The thing that excites me the most about V-Vehicle is that it is a holistic change, so we’re thinking about – from beginning to end – how to reconstruct a car company.”

Horst Metz
Vice President – Assembly Operations, V-Vehicle Company

“Designing a car in America, building a car in America, selling the car in America – we’re going to show that it can be done.”

T. Boone Pickens
Founder and Chairman, BP Capital Management

“I’m excited to be an investor… and I believe that the automobile industry will survive in America, but it won’t look like it did in the past.”

Frank Varasano
Founder and CEO, V-Vehicle Company

“Our vision for a new American car company is coming to life here in Monroe, La.”

Tom Matano
Director of Design, V-Vehicle Company

“My belief is to do a good design that lasts longer. It’ll make people happy.” Tom Matano has 30 years of experience in the automotive design industry. In addition to his responsibilities at VVC, he serves as the executive director of the School of Industrial Design at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Matano joined Mazda in 1983 and progressed through numerous design positions, ultimately becoming general manager of Mazda Design, with responsibility for the chief designers’ group that created Mazda’s entire line of car designs, as well as the European and North American studios. His accomplishments at Mazda include the MX-5, the RX-7, the 929 Miata “M-Coupe” concept car and many other projects by the design teams he managed and created. Earlier in his career, he held design positions at General Motors and BMW.

>Register for Spark Today!

TIMES SQUARE: PULL UP A CHAIR

June 12, 2009 by Jennifer Bostic

Jennifer Bostic, Principal, Paper Plane Studio

Specializing in corporate visual voice projects, print systems and books, identity design, and exhibition design, Jennifer is a welcome leading voice in the GRAPHIK Blog

>Register for Spark Today!