Dear Patagonia, we take your fabulous Common Threads initiative and raise you five pounds… Love, Marks & Spencer

(Source: tuaw, via emergentfutures)

“Everybody’s excited and afraid”

Flipping through Dwell this weekend, we noticed an ad for this contest: ReThinking Preservation, sponsored by Sub-Zero. We like the idea so much, we thought it worth a repurpose here. 

The idea is to submit a landmark you think is worth preserving with an explanation as to why it’s worthy. Sub-Zero will award the person with the winning landmark a wine fridge, and donate $10,000 to a regional organization that conducts the preservation or restoration. Seems like a win win to us.

There are a lot of worthy places on our list. What’s on yours? 

stoweboyd:

Will the new era of architecture be the era of IKEA urbanism? IKEA has proposed to build a complete neighborhood in East London. The Swedish furniture giant tries to implement its ideas and concepts in new fields of knowledge and urbanism. After its injection of each single family’s interior with cheap design furniture and the introduction of the IKEA standard house by daughter company BoKlok, it seems to be time for a complete IKEA neighborhood, reports the Huffington Post, LandProp — also part of the IKEA group — is planning to build a neighborhood of 1,200 houses, shops, cafés and a 350-room hotel.

This is an interesting move for Ikea. It highlights the potential to create thoughtful, affordable housing for everyone - something that is desperately needed in many places, and maybe this project will become a prototype for that.

We suspect, however, that this project could use an intervention. As the article points out, the plans don’t necessarily improve the city or consider the uniqueness of its inhabitants. It will be a fascinating project to follow. And, we may have to take a trip to London to check it out once it breaks ground. 

nycdigital:

Watch NYCEDC’s video on how Brooklynite and Green-Eco evangelist Anselm Doering founded and took EcoLogic Solutions from his apartment, to the Varick St incubator, to the Brooklyn Navy Yards as a thriving business. Discover how Anselm made it here in New York City.

Aside from the fact that we just love stories like this, it validates the importance of the business incubator. Good ideas need real-world places to help them move from paper to product. 

curiositycounts:

In Caffeine We Trust – ingenious “interactive” poster, inviting you to record your coffee consumption by painting infographics with actual coffee, a playful take on the quantified self.

evangotlib:

apoplecticskeptic:

(via What the nanny saw: Housekeeper’s stunning images of 1950s Chicago show working class America in a new light)

To the outside world Vivian Maier was just a nanny and housekeeper working in Chicago. But she also had a hidden talent was not recognised until after her death in 2009.

Maier spent her life wandering the streets of Chicago with a Rolleflex camera strapped to her neck taking remarkable black and white pictures of a different side of the city, and a different side of life in America.

These are beautiful.

Incredible find.

Kickstarter is funding an era of product development uncompromised by focus groups and committees.

(Source: laughingsquid, via david)

gregmelander:

PRODUCT DESIGN

“We swim in an ocean of products. Behind each one, there is someone (hopefully) thinking about the way we experience it. In this episode of Off Book, we explore three aspects of product design” via urlesque

“Good design accelerates the adoption of new ideas.”- Yves Behar

Amen.