Art & Design stories

What hundreds of Super Soakers look like as art

Eileen Marable
Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 11:24am
 
Hong Kong is the largest center of plastic toy production in the world, so it's no coincidence this art installation made up on hundreds of plastic water pistols is located right in the center of it all. In fact, that's exactly what the artist wants the viewer to stop and think about — the volume of goods as a positive creation.

How we'll rethink gas pumps when gas is a thing of the past

Eileen Marable
Thursday, May 31, 2012 - 6:45am
 
Most of us can remember when there were phone booths — and then one day they were gone as mobile phones made them obsolete. The very same extinction could be facing gas pumps if more people adopt electric vehicles. But, as this design challenge shows just because they may not pump gas doesn't mean they have to hit the landfill.

Gallery: Adorably geeky lamps that weren't even trying to be

Kevin Hall
Wednesday, May 30, 2012 - 12:44pm
 
Tell me this little guy doesn't look a little like Deep Thought from the film version of Hitchhiker's Guide, what with that sizable melon and beady, wide-spaced eyes. The set, called "Craft System," is the work of Brooklyn-based design studio UM Project, helmed by François Chambard. It's more a gallery of quirky, cute robots that would be at home in the world of Wall-E rather than a collection of lamps. Check 'em out below.

Cassette tape coffee table brings retro style to the mix

Eileen Marable
Tuesday, May 29, 2012 - 9:51am
 
It seems there is a thriving wood working artisan community out there. I think that's pretty cool — we get to see a mix of old skills and techniques used to bring us all sorts of items reimagined in wood. We've reported on pop culture icons such as the Starship Enterprise or NES controller tables. This handcrafted table reaches back a few years to a pop icon a lot of younger people have never even used — the good oldcassette tape.

10 captivating winners of the 2012 Bio-Art competition

Evan Ackerman
Friday, May 25, 2012 - 6:44am
 
Art and science don't have to be enemies all the time. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (or FASEB, which is pronounced just like you think it is) asked a bunch of researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health to submit "captivating, high resolution images that represent the cutting edge of 21st century biomedical research." FASEB chose ten winners, which we've got for you in a seizure-inducingly colorful gallery below.

These 14 insane building designs will baffle future archeologists

Evan Dashevsky
Thursday, May 17, 2012 - 8:59am
 
Several millennia from now, future archeologists will excavate through to our level of Earth strata and brush aside the layers of cigarette butts and Capri Sun pouches to uncover the remains of an architecturally schizophrenic civilization. These future Indiana Joneses will be forced to reconcile the lives of an ancient people who left behind humble, mostly square-shaped dwellings, but also erected gigantic asymmetrical behemoths that defy the very laws of physics and practicality. Were these towering multi-planed dwellings from the third millennium a tribute to some ancient war god, a misguided attempt to harness the Earth's magic, or just a terrible mess of engineering? Perhaps they will never know. Here we present 14 designs for brain-meltingly unique buildings from around the world that will be coming to a cityscape near you.

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