Cambridge Consultants announced the launch of the ‘Syreen’ syringe, a new concept that demonstrates the cost benefit and supply chain disruptions made possible by sustainable product design.
Instead of glass, Syreen syringes are made with COP (cyclic olefin polymer) plastic, which has enabled Cambridge Consultants to shed the need for secondary packaging altogether, a first in this medical device arena.
The United States alone produces 6,600 tons of medical waste per day, equaling well over two million tons per year—approximately 85 percent of which goes to landfills throughout the country. The Syreen eliminates the need for wasteful fillers such as cardboard and styrofoam, reducing the packaging weight by 30 percent and volume by 50 percent from today’s standard packaging. After delivery, with a simple snap, the user ejects the needle into the sharps bin allowing the user to potentially recycle the plastic capsule.
Swedish designer Matti Klenell has designed two bird families for Iittala: the Harakka (Magpie) family and the Korpi (Deep Forest) family, both with two generations of members. Both families have five members – Mommy, Daddy, Brother, Little Sister, and Baby – each with their own distinctive character and their own story to tell.
Birds by Klenell collection is a celebration of glass technique and colour. The black-and-white Harakka family combines black, white, and clear glass, and depends on a range of moulds and traditional tools to make them possible. The Korpi family, in contrast, is very colourful, combining pink heads or beaks and dark blue bottom sections, or green, black, red, and white, with colour drawn on the surface in bands or blown into the body of the glass. In the process, he has given his glass birds a practical use alongside their aesthetic one – drawing on the varied skills of the glassblowers and craftsmen at Iittala’s Nuutajärvi glassworks.
Klenell’s birds comprise two or three parts, which adds to their sculptural qualities. They also include a functional feature that is unique in the Iittala Birds collection, as the hollow bottom sections of his birds can be used as handy little containers to keep treasures, such as jewellery, notes, and memories, just like the magpie.
Glass is a familiar material to Klenell and one in which he excels, as his exhibition of unique glass pieces in Stockholm in 2008 showed. Working with the craftsmen at Nuutajärvi gave Klenell the opportunity to continue his exploration of what glass can offer.
Jihyun Ryou, Design Academy Eindhoven graduate, did his Master Thesis about food preservation. By accumulating traditional oral knowledge, he looked at a feasible way to bring the knowledge into everyday life.
"Through the research about the current situation of food preservation, I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and don’t understand how to treat it.
Therefore my design looks at re-introducing and re-evaluating traditional oral knowledge of food, which is closer to nature. Furthermore, it aims to bring back the connection between different level of living beings, us as human beings and food ingredients as other living beings."
Verticality of Root Vegetables -carrot, raddish, leek...etc. Keeping roots in a vertical position allows the organism save energy and remain fresh for longer time. This shelf gives a place for them to stand easily, using sand. At the same time, sand helps to keep proper humidity.
Dryness of Spices Rice absorbs the humidity easily. The spice container with rice inside helps spices stay dry without forming into a mass.
Humidity of Fruit Vegetables -zucchini, aubergine, pepper...etc. We tend to think zucchini, aubergine, cucumber, etc. as vegetables. But they are biologically fruits. This shelf gives them a space to be outside the fridge. Also through the ritual to water them everyday, they will stay fresh.
Berlin design gallery Helmrinderknecht contemporary design dedicates its second show completely to the subject of vases.
The exhibition Vase vs. Vases brings together contemporary positions of 15 designers and artists. Works of renowned designers and young upcoming design talents are shown in the creative tension between diverse forms of design engineering, and a variety of materials and production approaches. The novel handling of experimental and conceptual design, figuration, abstraction and craftsmanship result in vases that dance, that shine, that are actually a plant, that used to be a bag, and much more....
Frédéric Dedelley (CH), Objet mélancolique No 1 - 2009
The final jury of the 'Prix Emile Hermes' has selected 17 projects from the contest theme 'la légèreté au quotidien / everyday lightness', a contest that was launched in 2008 in all the countries in Europe where Hermès has a commercial base.
The aim was to create an object for everyday life - Simplify use - Optimise function - Give material a spirit - Innovate to make everyday life easier - Create intelligent and user-friendly objects.
The jury unanimously decided not to award a first or second prize for this first edition of the Prix Émile Hermès, but rather to award three third-place prizes.
'Bronco' Rocking stool - Simon Lécureux, Switzerland - third-place prize
Nanny Still was one of the most colourful figures of Finnish design. Born in Helsinki in 1926, she started her career in 1949 at the Riihimäki Glassworks. Until 1976 she designed countless sets of tumblers, yet she was not afraid to experiment. She introduced many innovations in the use of colour and technique.
In the late 1950's Nanny Still moved to Belgium and started designing for companies like Cerabel (Belgium), Heinrich Porzellan (Germany) and Rosenthal (Germany).
Nanny Still earned herself a reputation designing a varied range of industrial products in a variety of materials such as glass, metal, porcelain and wood. (via Design Museum Gent)
The prize committee's reasoning is as follows: “Harri Koskinen is one of the foremost designers now occupied with the task of continuing the Nordic design tradition. His extensive, wide-ranging body of work has a unique, austere design that is consistently expressed with clear Nordic roots in its demands for good function and simplicity of form, as well as in the choice of materials. These elements combine to create lasting value. At the same time as he enjoys successful partnerships with design-intensive companies around the world, he is also participating in the renewal of his homeland’s design industry.”
The prize will be ceremoniously awarded at the University of Gothenburg on the 4th of November and will be followed by an exhibition at the Röhsska Museum from the 5th of November 2009 until spring 2010.
The prize of SEK 1,000,000 is the largest design prize in the world.
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