here is a great piece on the difference between Upcycling and Recycling complete with excellent diagram

I have just finished an article for Qantas magazine where I explored the concept of psychogeography.  Originally proposed as a theory by French social revolutionary Guy Debord in the mid 1950s psychogeography is about unconventional exploration that defies town planners and eschews normal everyday practices to make every journey an adventure.
Particularly big right now in London, "explorer-artists" meeting in subterranean passages to share their experiences in drain and train infrastructure, abandoned silos and other "off Limits" infrastructure around the world.
I made contact with Australian Cave Clan founder Doug who, in addition to sharing some very claustrophobia-inducing stormwater drain experiences with me, organized for other Clan members to send me some incredible photos of Australian drains and tunnels.  Here are shots of down under Down Under, Australia as you will never see it in the postcards!

OK the results of the Drive COTY are online and generally they accord with my grand plan.  Generally.  I abstained from voting on the Large Car segment because I didnt find either contestant particularly inspiring and because I was holding a candle for the Holden SS-V which I wanted to compare as a "Big Car" rather than "performance Under $60k) - the SS-V is actually slightly longer than the Omega wagon in the "Big Car" class.  But it was not to be.
The other surprise for me was the overall winner.  Whilst I had voted the VW Polo for sheer chutzpah-for-cash I thought the Kia Sportage was sneaking through as the ultimate value proposition.

OK so now comparing the two I dont see the similarity.....but the abundance of wildlife in this region of Victoria - wombats on the porch of Flowerdale Estate, echidnas and turtles by the roadside, wallabies in the paddocks - has made me determined to bring my kids back for some Aussie marsupial imersion.  Did I mentioned the platypus?

I have just sent a photo of my 8 year old rUg to DWR, prompted by Sophie Hunt from Hunt Leather who, during my last visit to Australia, reminded me about this product that I had sold through her shops and at Chee Soon Fitzgerald years ago.
rUg came about originally because I wanted to make sheepskin beanbags.  Meeting with a tannery in Melbourne I learned that sheared skins were cheaper - but also that the sheared fleece curled with age (like the inside of an Ug boot) which I rather liked.  I couldnt get the shape of my LambBAG right...and I couldnt get my head around using styrofoam pellets either from a child safety or environmental point of view, so I went with rUg.  And it was a hit - the curly version in (let me be careful how I say this next bit.....) four skins cut to resemble a bear's pelt and naturally dyed chocolate brown and the long haired version in white.
Initially I sold them rolled and belted..but gradually I realized that my forte is not with managing money and somehow the income and the supplier payments were not adding up (which is what happens when retailers pay you in cash and you are adjacent to really good shops).
Despite decent sales I ended up paying everyone out and shutting down the business.  Eight years on my two Rugs still look great - and apparently Sophie

I just spent the weekend on a property called Hanging Rock near Bathurst, over the Blue Mountains from Sydney.  Once we had left the muggy streets of Sydney and a brewing urban thunderstorm we took Bells Line of Road, a winding drive through eucalypts all the way over the Mountains to Lithgow.
So many of the landed properties we passed had blank walled project houses and nasty stark unshaded walls plonked bang on the road frontage. 
Ah but not Hanging Rock: John and Miranda have a tent, a shed for storage and kitchen, and the best bathroom I have ever bathed in.  Nuff said - check it out.

I have just completed seven days of hard driving and debating with the passionate team of Fairfax motor journalists - what a week!  And what great cars! - well, some of them at least.  Blown away by the engine note on the Ford Focus RS which in full blown flight gets close to the jet rush of the 911 turbo in sound at least.  Impressed also with the commitment to colour and ride shown by the design team responsible for the Renault Megane RS250 Cup Trophee.  A super tight fist of a car with seamless acceleration and a rocketing ride.  
Another highlight - having a large koala stalk across the road (safely) in front of my car.  The surrounds of Flowerdale and Broadmeadow in Northern Victoria are a haven for echidnas, turtles, crazy numbers of magpies and cockatoos, wombats and - koalas. Flowerdale Retreat even apparently has platypusi and our team had a wombat waddle down the verandah outside one of the rooms.   So dont just go there for the sharp turns of the Broadmeadow race track.
Driving back to Melbourne in the manual Boxster was a terrific end to a long but rewarding week.

The other night I had a long phone chat with ex BMW designer Chris Bangle, inventor of the flame weld and lots of other inflammatory design stuff.  Chris now works out of a collection of buildings near Torino, Italy, and is forming a design collective under the banner Chris Bangle Associates where he plans to rethink production and the expression of regions and culture in design. 
We covered lots of design ground which I will cover here in a day or two.  I have to finish writing my cover piece for Drive on Chris and other influential car designers so until then here is an intriguing page from Bangle's sketch book.  I love seeing other designers' sketch books!

With the Nissan Cube, Kia Soul et al heralding the rise of the "character car and Diesel now leaving its fashion mark on the Fiat 500 I am calling for a remake of the original denim-finished city car, the LEVIS Gremlin.

Last Monday I worked at Autodesk in San Francisco with an impressive team of graphic designers, industrial designers and architects to judge the 2010 Spark Design Awards.  a crazy number of entries and a diverse range of products winning the coveted Spark Design Award (which Rainwater HOG won in 2008) from a bladeless fan to a towable bike racking system and two very sweet sex toys.  Shown at top is a shoe bag by fuseproject working with Puma that uses 65% less cardboard than regular shoe boxing and offers a terrific way to organize a shoe closet (if you buy enough Puma shoes!).  Curiously I purchased Puma shoes only two days ago and I didnt score this bag....not happy Jan!

Check out this crowd pleaser  - another Spark Design winner by fuseproject enigmatically named Form 2.  Its a sex toy for JimmyJane and the judges unanimously voted its deceptively simple way of waterproofing, driving and charging a winner.

Another terrific winner was the Braille Stapler by Dongwon Jan, a portable streamlined device for writing braille.

Of course the Dyson bladeless fan pulls crowds wherever it appears and Spark was no different: just try to resist putting your arm through the ring that multiplies air 15 times and sends it scurrying in your general direction!  I am interested in what influence this design may have on vehicle propulsion - is propellerless air direction more or less energy efficient than conventional blades?  At any rate I am all for a dustless fan.

This is your new blog post. Click here and start typing, or drag in elements from the top bar.