Botanical manufacturing

Growing solid wooden furniture without the joins

This is intruiging. Gavin Munro of Derbyshire-based Full Grown explains how moulding trees into one-piece chairs, lamps or mirror frames is far more eco-friendly than felling. This is no ordinary furniture showroom. In a field on the side of a hill 15 miles north of Derby lie row after row of perfectly maintained willow, oak, ash and sycamore trees. What clearly mark this field out from a regular forest are the blue-and-black plastic moulds that are training the trees in pre-defined routes, where they are gently and expertly manipulated into the exact shape of a chair, a table, a lamp or a mirror frame. read more

Caines Arcade

The Video Section

This is video is so great. 9 year old Caine spent his summer building an elaborate cardboard arcade inside his dad’s used auto part store.

Nick Mullick, a filmmaker, discovered the homemade arcade when he stopped into Caine’s dad’s auto parts store. He asked Caine’s father, George, if he could make a film about the arcade. “Well, actually, it’s kind of like a joke around here because you are his only customer,” he says in the film. Well, Mullick changed all that.

The heartwarming 11-minute film got a combined 3.5 million views on Vimeo and YouTube in just four days. That led to hundreds of online articles about the video, which led to television stories about the cardboard arcade by Fox, NBC and CNN. Source: LATimes.

And the best thing is, Caine inspired a lot of other children over the world. Now global play day is initiated by imagination to find, foster & fund creativity & entrepreneurship in more kids. See second video and read more on http://cardboardchallenge.com

Catnapped

The Video Section

What happened to all the milkmen? Megalomaniac thumbcat Bertrum is back and he’s got a plan!

Screen shot 2012-09-08 at 10.42.27

Impressions of Shoreditch

Design & Architecture, Strategy Talk

Shoreditch, this special corner of east London remains hugely popular. By and large Shoreditch remains young, cool, creative, upbeat and fun, as the digital scene thrives and with a viable art en fashion scene. It is a boost for small enterprises. The Trampery (Bevenden street) of tech entrepreneur Charles Armstrong is for instance located here. Feel the Shoreditch vibe underneath.

Boxpark. World’s first pop-up mall.
2-4 Bethnal Green

A mall consisting of shipping containers stacked together and repurposed as individual brand outlets. Ranging from established names such as Puma to smaller outlets, such as Finnish clothes and homeware store Marimekko. Read more detailed information in the review of DesignWeek

tord boontje. Designer
23, charlotte road

New design shop of tord boontje opened last week.

Barber shop
Charlotte road

And wandering around in Shoreditch area.

They seem to be ready for the Olympic Games.

And I ended up at this great event “Worlds Collide” organised by APG London. Where speakers from the world of politics (Alistair Campbell), military (General Mike Jackson), advertising (David Droga) and activism (Jeremy Gilley) gave some inspirational thoughts and perspectives on strategy. Read here the blogpost “Believe you can, you’re halfway there” about the most inspirational thoughts of Droga and Campbell (in Dutch).

Dutch Profiles

Design & Architecture, The Video Section

Dutch Profiles are short documentaries about architects, graphic, product and fashion designers in the Netherlands. Containing interviews with both well-known and upcoming Dutch designers, Dutch Profiles focus on their conceptual approach, their work process, and the context of their projects. Certainly a series of beautiful and captivating portaits that are worth to watch! More documentaires are found at: dutchdfa