April 12, 2018

Revisiting early 20th century furniture, Dutch style

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 1:33 pm

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Launched by Casper Vissers, former owner of Dutch design brand Moooi, new furniture and lighting brand Revised has recently presented Dutch designer Sjoerd Vroonland’s collection made from traditional materials including solid wood of oak and walnut, stone, glass, steel and marble, all with nice rounded corners and edges.

The collection features influences from the early 20th century as seen by Vissers and his wife, Suzy Vissers, of pieces of furniture photographed in 35 countries at hotels, calling it “The craft you could say British and Italian with a slightly Japanese influence.” Casper Vissers said that Sjoerd Vroonland understood what he was aiming for and instead of just a few pieces, launched an entire collection.

The products are purposely manufactured in factories across Europe, with suppliers based in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Lithuania. “Perhaps we could get it made cheaper further away, but we have to start driving electric cars, we need to eat less meat and we should not ship from one end of the world to the other,” Vissers explains.

(Link and photo: dezeen.com)

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March 8, 2018

Floating hotel for Dutch theme park in Japan

Filed under: Design,General by Orangemaster @ 10:02 am

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Huis ten Bosch (Hausu Ten Bosu) is a theme park near Nagasaki, Japan that is apparently more than three times the size of Tokyo Disneyland and still bigger than Tokyo Disneyland and DisneySea combined. Its theme is The Netherlands – all of it – and many of the famous buildings of the Netherlands have 1:1 replicas.

The Dutch-themed attraction park will be launching a floating capsule that can accommodate two or three people, with its the floor designed as an accommodation cabin and the second floor as an observation dome. The service is due to start this summer. The company plans to have a ship tow the hotel between the theme park and a nearby island.

And yes, it’s giving me a strong James Bond vibe, if you remember the final scene of The Spy Who Loved Me and the floating rescue pod that just happens to have Dom Pérignon 1952 champagne on ice.

(Link and photo: english.kyodonews.net)

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December 2, 2017

Colourful puzzle hotel unveiled in Eindhoven

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 10:24 pm

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In October 2017 during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, design firm MVRDV unveiled (W)ego, a “concept for accommodation that can adapt to the different needs of any future inhabitants – whether they be families, students or refugees.”

It looks like the game Tetris hung out with Lego and created colourful rooms for students. Co-founder of MVRDV Winy Maas, who was one of Dutch Design Week’s three ambassadors, said “Through gaming and other tools, (W)ego explores participatory design processes to model the competing desires and egos of each resident in the fairest possible way.”

(W)ego is basically a hotel where guests have to deal with the dream spaces of other occupants. It was exhibited downtown Eindhoven last October back when the weather in the Netherlands was still nice.

(Link and photo: urdesignmag.com)

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November 29, 2017

Rotterdam café to make Ajax toilet seats

Filed under: Design,Sports,Weird by Orangemaster @ 11:48 am

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For Rotterdam Feyernoord football fans, there were Feyernoord stickers to ‘rebrand’ all those Ajax brand fire extinguishers in 2015 reminding them of the rival Amsterdam Ajax football club. Now, the owner of Sijf in Rotterdam has gone one step further: he plans to make toilet seats out of Ajax arena seats for his Feyernoord-leaning patrons.

The initial plan was to buy the written off arena seats and make terrace furniture out of it, but that didn’t pan out. However, to make the toilet seats, owner Herman Hell still needs someone to design them.

(Link and photo: nos.nl)

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November 17, 2017

Afsluitdijk lights up thanks to multiple art projects

Filed under: Architecture,Design by Orangemaster @ 3:45 pm

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For many of us who have driven the 32-kilometre-long Afsluitdijk from North Holland and Friesland (or the other way around), it’s a short cut with a great view of the water and sheep. However, historically, the Afsluitdijk is a key part of the country’s world-famous sea defences, as well as a major Dutch accomplishment.

Yesterday, Dutch artists unveiled a design and light show to highlight this feat of engineering, called ‘Icoon Afsluitdijk’ (‘Icon Afsluitdijk’), which shines at night “to enhance and safeguard the dyke’s rich heritage and anchor its position in the world as a Dutch water engineering and design icon,” according to its creators.

The project consists of a number of art installations, of which the last one is called ‘Gates of Light’, created by Daan Roosegaarde and his team. They applied a reflective layer to the Afsluitdijk’s 60 floodgates, which allows the concrete gates to brightly light up at night in the retro style of the 1930s, when the dyke was first built by hand.

The Dutch have lit other important landmarks up, such as the Kinderdijk, UNESCO World Heritage Site, with colours matching the Dutch flag.

(Links and images: phys.org, lc.nl)

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October 31, 2017

Schiphol Airport to get 3D printed floors

Filed under: Aviation,Design by Orangemaster @ 9:53 am

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In November, Dutch company Aectual will unveil a 3D printed floor for at Schiphol Airport, which they call an ‘on demand floor’. The technology behind this 3D printing was developed in-house by Aectual and will be used to 3D print a design by Amsterdam firm DUS Architects.

3D printing is used to create the initial frame of the design, then a secondary process fills the gaps with a material called terrazzo, a composite material made from chips of marble, quartz, granite and glass. Once mixed with a binder and cured, the terrazzo can be polished to give a smooth surface.

“We make it possible to create your own design for spectacular floors in, for example, a hotel lobby, or for a striking retail brand, giving designers complete design freedom” explains Hans Vermeulen, CEO of Aectual.

I’m getting a 1960 Italian feel and that works for me.

(Link and image: 3dprintingindustry.com)

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September 14, 2017

Delft blue houses made with 3D printers

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 6:25 pm

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While KLM has been well-known for their house-shaped bottles of genever for decades, Amsterdam company Local Makers, which sells 3D printers, has launched a Kickstarter campaign to create customised miniature houses. The campaign is more than half way there, but in a few days either these cute houses will be made or not at all.

Local Makers can create a digital 3D model of any home following using photographs and mapping software such as Google Streetview. After creating a precise 3D model of the home, they print it using Ultimaker 3D printers and bioplastic material. The houses are then sanded and prepared to be painted by hand, Delft blue style, a process that takes two days.

(Link and photo: designboom.com)

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September 12, 2017

Pay digitally with a small Dutch device

Filed under: Design by Orangemaster @ 7:41 pm

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Felix Mollinga, student at the Design Academy in Eindhoven, has won the James Dyson Award and 2,250 euro for his Acoin invention, a way to pay digitally and more anonymously using either virtual money from the bank or Bitcoin.

Acoin is a small black device of about 4.5 cm in diameter where virtual money can be stored. A small screen allows users to see how much money it has stored, money that can be transferred digitally to another Acoin, much like the contactless payments we have now for public transport. There’s also a finger sensor so that money isn’t transferred by mistake.

Mollinga explains that at some point all payments will be digital for many reasons, one of which being that it costs governments too much money to print money. This comes on the tail of my recent visit to Sweden where in June many coins have been rendered junk and an article explaining why the country is close to becoming a cashless society and why the future will be sans banknotes. The downside is, the more electronic payments we use, the less anonymous we become and possibly the value of bank notes and coins will be missed, says Mollinga.

Mollinga plans to take part in an international design competition with Acoin, the winners of which will be announced on 26 October. If he wins, he’ll go home with 35,000 euro, which he says he’ll put towards producing the Acoin.

(Links and photo: m.datanews.levif.be, emerce.nl)

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September 4, 2017

Dutch man walks with exoskeleton

Filed under: Design,Science by Orangemaster @ 9:58 pm

Students of the Delft University of Technology have designed an exoskeleton for a paralysed Dutch man who cannot use his legs. Their goal is to help people with a transverse lesion carry out daily activities in more than just a wheelchair.

The student team Project MARCH that developed the exoskeleton wants to play a role in collecting data on exoskeletons in order to get a better idea of the added value this technology has to offer as compared to the use of wheelchairs.

Early this year the students unveiled the design and last week the man tried out the exoskeleton the students made for him. Check out the video of the man walking again here (in Dutch).

Sometime in October Project MARCH will showcase the exoskeleton with the man in it at an international competition.

(Links and photo: nos.nl, www.tudelft.nl)

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August 28, 2017

Dutch designer creates vest to replace IV pole

Filed under: Design,Science by Orangemaster @ 2:27 pm

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Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Alissa Rees from Amsterdam has designed a trendy-looking vest called the ‘IV-Walk’ that doubles as a mobile IV unit, an alternative to the IV pole patients usually have to walk around with. This innovative design won Rees two Brains Awards this summer, one for Best Innovation and one for Best Overall Idea, prizes that came with 2,000 and 3,000 euro respectively.

“The look and feel are more like a personal wearable item and less like a piece of medical equipment, which helps create a more positive mindset as well”, explains Rees. What’s more, Rees came up with the idea while a patient herself, in hospital at age 19 when she was being treated for acute leukemia from which she has now completely recovered. “When you’re sick and lying in bed, you have a lot of time to think. I saw all kinds of things that could be improved in the sterile environnement.

(Link: tubantia.nl, designacademy.nl, Photo of IV-Walk alissarees.com)

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