Shoes are made of car interior material

December 19, 2018  |  Out There

Joris de Groot teamed up with Low & Bonar, a manufacturer of performance materials, for the in4nite II project, which examined various techniques applied in the manufacturing of car interiors and translated them into a collection of shoes. Designboom.com reports that Studio de Groot has molded…
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Shoes are made of car interior material

December 17, 2018  |  Out There

Joris de Groot teamed up with Low & Bonar, a manufacturer of performance materials, for the in4nite II project, which examined various techniques applied in the manufacturing of car interiors and translated them into a collection of shoes. Designboom.com reports that Studio de Groot has molded L…
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Artist grows fungi into lamp shades

December 10, 2018  |  Out There

London-based designer Nir Meiri selects materials for his creations that most would not consider. Recently, the Nir Meiri Design Studio presented Mycelium Lights at the London Design Festival 2018. According to designboom.com, this is its latest project—the result of ongoing material research in m…
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Drone-operated fire rescue net introduced

November 26, 2018  |  Out There

A group of six students from Guangzhou, China, has designed a concept called NET GUARD that’s a combination of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and cloth net for rescuing people from fires in high-rise buildings. When the drone and net combination receives a distress signal, it uses GPS to pinpoin…
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Robotic skin can animate objects

October 22, 2018  |  Out There

Scientists at Yale University have developed a robotic skin that can be applied to inanimate objects seemingly bringing them to life. The elastic “skin” sheets are embedded with a variety of sensors and actuators capable of animating the legs of a stuffed animal or causing a foam tube to flex. T…
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Eco-friendly, acoustic panels made of hemp husks

October 18, 2018  |  Out There

Russian design studio Aotta presents a new sound-absorbing and lightweight panel made of hemp husks. A completely organic material, the husks are routinely disposed of as useless waste. That means the material is a cheap resource. Aotta’s hemp husk panels are a naturally porous membrane for absorb…
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Researchers investigate seeds’ natural “armor”

October 8, 2018  |  Out There

Biomimicry has revealed ways that nature can be copied to create new products and improve existing ones. Recently, a team of researchers from the University of New Hampshire in the U.S. has shown how the seed coats of certain plants could help in the development of flexible materials that are strong…
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Printing 3D sand: strength and design freedom in concrete

August 20, 2018  |  Out There

Researchers in Switzerland have fabricated a lightweight 80-square-meter concrete slab ceiling that uses 3D sand printing for its formwork. The ceiling consists of 11 segments of Smart Slab, which is 20 millimeters at its thinnest point and is reported to be less than half the weight of a convention…
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Giant space blanket serves a communal purpose

August 6, 2018  |  Out There

Moscow-based designer Alex Shtanuk will be contributing a piece of space travel nostalgia to the 2018 Burning Man gathering later this summer in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada, while giving festival attendees a place to escape the desert heat. A giant “space blanket” will provide a casual place…
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Functioning QR codes are woven into a jacket

July 23, 2018  |  Out There

Artist Julie Helles Ericksen has created a jacket with QR codes woven into it that can access digital information as the wearer shares it. According to Ericksen, “We communicate to others through what we wear, what we post on social media and what we choose to hide. We curate ourselves to present …
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