Hyde Park Blvd

Everyone probably saw this on BoingBoing, but it belongs in my brilliant concept design Pantheon.  It’s not easy to be this inventive.  Kudos to Paul Freyer and his skill with wood, glass, and vacuum tubes.

Via Frango

Social Souvenir is a community project by Danish designer Sebastian Campion and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Roskilde, Denmark.

300 T-shirts, each bearing a text fragment from a famous artist, are exhibited and put on sale at the Museum of Contemporary.

Visitors buy a T-shirt and provide name and address; the info is automatically enered in Google Maps, thereby making it possible to see where each T-shirt ends up after leaving the museum.

The whole concept works.  Great t-shirts — and a way to follow (and contribute to) Brownian motion via the web.  Worth a citation despite the ubiquity of BoingBoing.

Inhabit reports on a design proposal for Singapore’s pavilion at Expo 2010.

Not surprising why Moshe Safdie’s Habitat is experiencing a renaissance.

Takasugi-an treehouse built by architect Terunobu Fujimori in Chino City, Japan. The name translates as ‘tea house that’s too high.’ Via Gizmodo.

Jonathan Ive

A few months ago, Apple introduced the new 13-inch MacBook (full disclosure: I’m a Windows kinda guy) with a terrific video. The transition from Steve Jobs to the future was under way and Jony Ivie, Senior VP for Design, shaved down and wearing the signature black t-shirt, took center stage.

And he is terrific — engaged, emotive — telling a story about a premium product that is more like a Rolex or a BMW than a Dell. And they build on the (false) perception that Apple is a green producer.

Makes you want to run out and buy one, despite the battery compromises and price tag.

Fjällhus, a cabin by Stockholm’s PS Arkitektur

Nice cabin design. Thanks to MoCo Loco for surfacing it.

In response to overwhelming requests for my take on the cars on display in Detroit’s Cobo Hall, a few thought based on available photos.

Overall impression: less than meets the eye. A year of transition; 2010 is already history.

High Intrigue Factor:
Volkswagen BlueSport – clean design all round, especially the front (compare to most cars afflicted with grille statements). Best little car since original Miata.

Cadillac Converj — despite the fawning and the Lutz love, the car makes design sense, especially from the side.

Subaru Legacy — Tokeeyokee by Night! It’s goofy enough to be wonderful. Too many detail lines, big 1960s glasshouse, a Jerry Lewis buck-tooth smile. And wheels that fill up the faux-Mercedes arches.

Meh
Just about anything with a metastasizing grille, including the Fisker Karma:
Why oh why would anyone model a grille on the rictus worn by Jack Nicholson as the Joker?

Lincoln MKT — fire designer immediately.

Lincoln C — not to pick on the car named for my favorite president, but what makes them think that the Renault Vel Satis will do any better on this side of the herring pond?

Volvo S60 Concept — 70s color; at least the designer thinks that Volvo will be sold to Peugeot.

Also-ran meh — Audi Sportback, Caddy SRX, Mercedes E-Class, Taurus, BMW Z4 (actually, the spermatoid Z4 doesn’t rank meh. Bleh is more like it).

Ford quickly showed the nice new Fiesta. Good car, good color. I still think Ford stock is a buy, even at double my original recommendation price.

Ford Fiesta

Detroit’s Auto Show is chockablock with transformation, mostly electric, including a newer, bigger, and uglier Prius (not to mention its reskinned and repriced Lexus brother, the HS250h):

And the Honda Insight, which simplifies the hybrid thing and lowers the price:

There’s also news about plug-ins, including Chevy’s $40,000 Volt, a Cadillac that uses the same power source, and a Ford Escape that eats electrons instead of carbon rings.

Reader ASR sends a WSJ article about destroying barriers to entry, in this case by evolving from internal combustion to electric automobiles.

Wang Chuanfu, a 42-year old Chinese entrepreneur (and the world’s second-largest producer of lithium-ion batteries) is taking advantage of technology change and new realities to introduce a $22,000, Corolla-sized car, the e6, that takes advantage of the new simplicity:

Indeed, BYD’s all-electric e6, has just two motors (45 parts each), one powering the front axle and the other the rear, and two gearboxes (60 parts each) to go with each of the motors. That means the whole system has 210 primary parts, excluding nuts and bolts. In comparison, BYD’s F6, a gasoline-fueled vehicle, has a total of 1,400 powertrain parts: a V6 engine composed of 840 parts and a transmission with 560 parts.

Fuel for thought.