Soft-Architecture Lighting studio Flos recently unveiled Soft Architecture, their latest system that uses an innovative composite material to seamlessly integrate lighting fixtures with their surroundings. The material received a silver cradle to cradle certification http://www.soft-architecture.com
Reef a collaborative installation between Rob Ley of Urbana Studio and Joshua G. Stein of Radical Craft, at the Taubman Museum of Art. Using new technology this piece involves a cloud like covering made out of hundreds of translucent panels and shape-memory wire which responds to it's audience. By utilizing an interface fed by an RGB camera and special software the pieces seem to move like an organism that is breathing curling and uncurling. These movements are programmed to occur as reactions to specified stimuli coming from the audience such as color of clothing proximity to the installation and amount of people that approach it. Therefore the whole environment is shaped according to the people who are in it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-TSgVT8JxM&NR=1
Woven Light London based textile designer Kathy Schicker’s got a fabulous collection of color changing and light emitting textiles. No joke. Some of them react to sunlight when they see it, some of them react to the absence of it once it’s gone. Color changes in the daytime, color emitting in the night. They’re a matching of textiles, design, scarf wearing and science – pure, fabulous, wonderful science! www.kathyschicker.com
Aerogel Sometimes explained as looking like 'frozen smoke' - this is truly an amazing material that possesses some incredible qualities (density, thermal, weight to strength ratio). It is an engineered or manufactured solid that has the 'lowest bulk density of any known porous solid' Check out the video of this crazy stuff: http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/quest-lab-aerogel
Nitinol
Fever Chair This website contains products from Tara Mullaney's Emotional Objects collection. I do not know how long this chair will last, but I was drawn to the user engaging features of the chair. I am also curious as to what the chair/finish of the chair will be after the thermal element wears away. Enclosed is a video of the chair over time.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjyWW-zvCT0&feature=player_embedded
Water Based Plastics Scientists at the Univ. of Tokyo created a new material that is composed of 98 percent water. Besides water, the new material is also composed of clay mineral that is sometimes used in cosmetics, sodium polyacrylate, which is a chemical that is used in diapers to absorb moisture and an altered form of a medical compound known as G3binder. The strength of the new material is almost the same as the strength of silicon used in plastic surgery. If researchers use more clay, they can make the material more rigid. When cut, the material "self-heals". In addition, the water based invention can withstand temperature as high as 100'c.
Electro-Active Polymer Hyper Drive is a start-up company that partnered with SRI's scientists looking to commercialize the device's energy-gathering capabilities. This demonstration is the generator’s second run; the first was in August 2007 in St. Petersburg, Florida, when a buoy was tested in relatively placid Atlantic waters to determine if it could operate in a marine environment. This time the investors at Hyper Drive and the scientists from SRI International were looking for more active waters to determine whether or not their invention—a rubber-like material called Electroactive Polymer Artificial Muscle (EPAM)—c ould use the heaving motion of the waves to generate power http://www.santacruz.com/News/2008/12/09/SRI_Tests_Wave_Energy_Generator_Off_ Santa_Cruz_Shore