Here’s a lovely video interview with Max Lamb from the @proteinfeed crew, in which he talks about happy making things such as the importance of truth to materials, working with your hands and knowing that there’s a human behind a product. Yes, indeed, this is a heart warming way to end the week that has me pining for the workshop.

Love this from Bruno Munari, via @fchimero in his talk at the Build Conference.

The quote comes from Munari’s book Design As Art - one I surely should have read by now. Must find it.

“The only intuitive interface is the nipple. After that everything is learned.”

That is just one gem from this extraordinary talk by Wilson Miner - When We Build.

Miner shares many wonderful observations about the way we design and why we design.

His talk is beautifully constructed, majestically paced and emotively soundtracked for maximum impact. The medium is the message - indeed.

The thinking of Marshall McLuhan is clearly important, as is the zen philosophy of the ‘don’t know mind’. But really, my favourite part is Miner’s explanation of Robert Irwin’s work; his study of spaces, his visual reactions to them and the way his beautifully minimal installations change people’s perceptions of their environment.

Something to truly aspire to.

Thanks to Simon Collison for posting and to those who tweeted his link.

How flippin’ beautiful are these Syzygy lights by OS & OOS?

Thanks to @sight_unseen for highlighting them in their new Self Portrait column.

I love the solid sculptural forms and the incredible sensitivity to touch they have. I think Barbara Hepworth would have loved them.

“The amount of light emitted by the LED can be adjusted by turning either of the two foremost glass filters by hand. Rotating the filters left or right in nearly endless configurations allows users to change the light atmosphere with extreme subtlety; every millimeter turned gives a different effect.”

A Syzygy, they tell us, is a term in astronomy that means, “A straight line configuration of three celestial bodies in a gravitational system.”

More from the designers Oskar Peet and Sophie Mensen on Sight Unseen:

We were “looking at light or sunlight itself, and the discrepancy between the way most lamps operate and the fact that the transition between night and day isn’t an instantaneous flicking of a switch, but a wonderful graduation that takes time. The physical blocking of light, as the basis for our concept, gave us the ability to fade from light  to dark gradually, just like in nature.”

I’m excited to see more work from these brilliant Eindhoven graduates soon.

OS & OOS

Oh, how can you not love this? An electric, Bucky inspired, geodesic surfing camper on bike wheels. Or as Fast Company describe it: “a wood-paneled Airstream.”

I love this so much because it reminds me of my great friend Polly Brotherwood, who I met while working at Heatherwick Studio. We became fast friends toiling away in Thomas’s workshop on intricate models of fabulous sculptural concepts. La belle Polly is a super talented designer who now lives in France.

She has always inspired me and this camper reminds me of her final project at Goldsmiths, many years ago, a customized camper inspired by her love of skateboarding and surfing (wish I had her wonderful sketches to show you).

Seems like Jay Nelson is a kindred spirit. Polly always loved, and I presume still does, the Cali laid back style. This is what Fast Company has to say about his work.

Glancing over Nelson’s projects, we’re struck by how brazenly Californian they are. Only in California - and in San Francisco in particular - would a wooden Airstream on tiny wheels not look out of place puttering around the streets.

Polly and I have a shared love of pod-like mobile structures (micro architecture) and I have fond memories of one summer, many moons ago, when we had an wonderful time working with Erwan Bouroullec at the Vitra Boisbuchet Summer Workshop making little pod shelters from plastic pipes and sellotape.

Hands on experiments with materials and form are something I really miss from my early design days, which is probably why Jay Nelson’s work has induced such nostalgia in me today. One day I will get back in that workshop.

And it looks like I’m not the only one who is nostalgic for making. Coincidentally Justin McGuirk has also tapped into this theme today in the Guardian:

The art of craft: the rise of the designer maker.

“I am a very highly tuned appreciator.” Curiosity. Appreciation. Imagination. Michael Wolff beautifully filmed by @mssngpeces

Here comes a new film in the Intel Visual Life series. I fell in love with The Sartorialist film, posted below, and now here is another stunning work following Michael Wolff through his day of colourful observation.

“I see seeing as a muscular exercise, like curiosity. I am obsessively interested in everything and that gets more expressed through my eyes than through my ears.”

Lots of resonance here for me in the multidisciplinary design approach and highly attuned attention to detail. I like to think I use those three muscles daily too.

@johnmaeda drew my destiny in the sand at the @riflemaker_soho gallery this afternoon. Playing my part in Maeda’s four day consultancy performance piece was a brief, but rather unforgettable experience.

Knowing you are going to have a one to one audience with a creative guru can be an intimidating prospect. The set up at Riflemaker with gallerists in labcoats ushering you into Maeda’s presence, in hushed reverent tones, purposely served to exacerbate the anxiety.

“Are you ready? Are you sure you’re ready?”

The man is clearly a master of creating an atmosphere.

The reality of the experience was a surprising mixture of disconcerting, charming and enlightening. The sandpit arrangement, with him on the inside and me on the outside, created the necessary space between us. I am the outsider. The challenge? Can I break down the boundary with my presence and words?

There was very little eye contact from Maeda, as he stamped down the sand to create his newly blank canvas, but his quiet presence was authoritarian.

I told him the fortunate story of how an outing for a cookie brought me the opportunity to take part in his ‘fortune cookie’ performance - he liked the poetry of that. I explained that I write for TreeHugger and Cool Hunting, of which he muttered an approval. I told him briefly about my design work with climate scientists.

Then I layed it on the line… all the while Maeda drew my story in the sand, cookie and all.

My question: “From one interdisciplinary person to another, how do you find a harmonious balance between the long + deep and the wide + shallow?”

I struck a chord. Maeda said he also experienced the discomfort of being interdisciplinary, but that he had gotten over it because he was happy in himself.

He then recounted a visual reference he got from the Japanese designer Takashi Okazaki (if memory serves correctly) who contrasted the eastern view of building a wide sturdy base with a shallow elevation (Maeda draws Mount Fuji - Hokusai style - in the sand), with western narrow tall constructions that topple over (Maeda draws a vertical line that immediately resembles a skyscraper).

In summary John Maeda’s advice consisted of these salient points:

• Be confident enough to forge your own path
• Build a wide and sturdy base
• Be happy in yourself
• Don’t let other people take you down
• Move out in front of the pack
• Be a leader and a role model
• Enjoy your cookie

Thanks John - I will!

I left, as Maeda hurriedly erased my sandy story with his feet, clutching a signed print out of one of Maeda’s tweets (a poetic embodiment of making the digital physical). The tweet, for which I paid the princely sum of £2, says:

“The shortest communication path between two people is a straight talk.”

Precisely.

Maeda Studio

Oh me, oh my! My raptures over Kathryn Tyler’s Corkellis House have only increased since I found out that a) it’s her own house, b) she designed and built it herself, and c) you can watch the whole process from start to finish on Grand Designs.

I knew none of this when I saw the photos the other day, but now I am triply impressed and even more mightily jealous. Kathryn has just essentially fulfilled my own dream in front of my very eyes.

And you really don’t get to say that very often.

Many congratulations to Kathryn on her fantastic work.

Linea Studio