I am on deadline to finish a feature for CURVE Industrial Design magazine on the new NASA Sustainability Base by McDonough associates so - more on that later. This terrific diagram of how the until-now mysterious Bloom Box works is worth a read.
There was also a cartographer who had mapped people in Sydney with bird names, a poet, and a photographer called Hamish Ta-me who had taken beautiful, athletic stop motion photographs of beat boys leaping through the air either in the moonlight or in front of big spotties. Hamish and I briefly discussed a collaboration in the future....then I returned to San Francisco and lost touch. Last week I received a glimpse into an amazing process Hamish has been perfecting, one that he calls CIRPANS. 
Here, for instance, is a circpan of the Sydney skyline. Hamish takes his photos from a boat and then pulls them together into these incredible fisheye compositions that are as much about the sky and the sea as the perimeter accretions. I have already ordered my Sydney CIRPAN print....which leaves a maximum of 299 remaining for the rest of you..... 
...and here is Bondi Beach looking greener than I ever think of it - probably because from land the green is just at either end (the main shabby lawn being behind you when you look out to sea). For more incredible circpans of your favorite Sydney landscapes check out Hamish's site here. here is our last leg when the navigation basically comes together, I get to drive the X route through the dunes....and we get to the finish line! This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar. 
Flew to Paris from San Francisco yesterday and today Sammy and I met our custom-painted Amarok and took her for a spin off road. She looks terrific, and handles the really steep angles with ease. We are the only VW Gazelles who did not train on the sand dunes in Morocco early last month so - all we can do is listen and learn. Navigation training is in a day and then all the Gazelles congregate at the Trocadero...sleep over under the Eiffel Tower and then - we are off! Ferme la porte d'entree!!!! OK I am working through my packing list - slowly, because its in French. So are all my other Gazelle instructions just to add to the challenge!! Below is a terrific video I found on a couple of American competitors - apparently narrated by their Kiwi mate! We appear to be the first Australians to complete in the Rally and we will be flying the flag! So - knowing now officially via my GP and according to Rallye instructions that "this healthy 42-year old female has no contraindications to off-road driving in a motorized vehicle" I head to Paris tomorrow for a day of off-road training (who knew there were dunes in Paris??!) a day of Readers Digest-style" Learn to Land Navigate 123", a gathering of all 302 Gazelles at the Eiffel Tower and a mass convoy to Morocco! So here is the route we take on a lightning drive through France and along the coast of Spain to the ferry that takes us overnight to our secret starting point in Morocco. 
I am driving with my bestie Samantha Stevens, who has a track record of rally wins and lots of off road experience. Which is lucky for me because to date I have racked up 0 rallies and a handful of off road driving hours. NOT TO WORRY - I am hoping that my navigational contribution will be decent as long as the course is not all in Francais... We are driving courtesy of VW who have entered four turbo diesel Amaroks in the competition. We will be uploading a daily video blog during our drive to the Rally....and during the Rally. Havnt worked out what our channel should be called - all suggestions welcome - along with tips on land navigation.  If you are in Australia today is the day to scour the corners of your closet for that elusive red clothing and show your support for RedR Australia. If you, like me, find the colour red is anathema to your complexion then you, like me, will have to suck it up for the day to make your point.  RedR Australia maintains a register of professionals who are on hand to attend emergencies around the region. its yet another humbling example of engineers going beyond the call of duty to make things happen. So wear red!! I am cleaning the detris layers on my filing shelf and finding so many interesting articles...this one is interesting for its content but also its graphic.  Years ago I would read designboom.com every week, studying their competitions until I finally found one that pushed my buttons. The challenge was a bathroom for the future - or a bathroom appliance, I cant quite remember - and I was in the thoes of designing the inwall shower-to-toilet recycling unit, titled reWASH and using a ferris wheel-like structure with internal "cars" filled with zeolite to filter the water to flushable standard. reWASH would eventually morph into my Rainwater H2OG tank - but I digress. Completely keyed up with my brilliant inwall filtration device I designed a modular "plug-in" bathroom that took shower and sink water to a toilet "wall" for processing and use as the toilet flush, and I expressed this process in a flowing visual made from a resin product like Corian. Come to think of it, I think the challenge was to design a bathroom appliance using Corian..... Anyhoo - because I cant draw on computer I even paid an industrial designer friend to draw my concept up in 3D. I was SO SURE that I would win. Here it is:   
Water flows from basin, across shower floor and into back of toilet wall where it is filtered and pumped up for gravity flush. Mains water runs through the grey section - shower head is part of the ceiling. Hell - theres even a nook under for towel storage!
So - I didnt win. I didnt even get a mention. Devastated and broker than before, I logged off and stopped visiting. But now - there is THIS! Thank you Inhabitat for opening my eyes to a seriously terrific and useful design brought into being by a designboom competition. Israeli designer Yael Livneh designed the TwoGO back in 2010 for a Seoul Bike competition on Designboom and hey - Yael didnt win either! Crazy. Check it out. 
HOLD THE BOAT!! I have just found the original bathroom competition!! IT was 2004 - and here is the winner Tom Jonkers from Belgium with his all-inclusive floating egg... | AuthorSally Dominguez writes, skis, designs and teaches, is curious about most things and loves Dr Seuss. ArchivesMay 2012 CategoriesAll |
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