Greening the City : Upcycling with KaCaMa Design Lab

Of the five Hong Kong design outfits Thomas Lee shot for his CoSPACE CoCREATE video series, at least three are relevant for Core77 readers. The first is his look at KaCaMa Design Lab—that's ID'ers Kay Chan, Catherine Suen and Match Chen—on their mission to re-use post-consumer waste. To that end, they're upcycling ad banners (the real kind, not the kind you can tell Firefox to shut off) into lighting, and educating kids on why that's important:

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Lee's video on the unusual outfit known as HK Farm is not strictly ID-related, but it's worth peeping. Ex-Londoner and creative director Michael Leung spent the summer of 2011 working Brooklyn Grange, the world's largest rooftop farm; now relocated, Leung is seeking to export the concept to greenery-scarce Hong Kong. His co-conspirators are fellow British expat Matthew Edmonson and Norwegian expat Glenn Eugen Ellingsen.

The video for the second ID firm on Lee's list, Milk Design, was not ready at press time; but once it's ready it will go live on Stylo Vision's film page.

Colorful umbrellas over the streets of Portugal

Over the streets of Agueda, Portugal, hundreds of colorful umbrellas float above pedestrians’ heads. The umbrellas are hung from promenades overlooking the streets, providing both shade and a cool view to those walking under them. Luckily, photographers Patricia Almeida and Diana Tavares documented this amazing event for those who were not able to experience it in person.

Building in Motion at Brisbane Airport

Recent visitors to Brisbane Airport will have noticed the bottlenecks caused by the newly completed car park at the domestic terminal but it is not the cars that are backing up – the delays are caused by people stopping in their tracks to understand what they are looking at. 5000 square meters of rippling steel is not something easily ignored.

One side of the new car park is covered with thousands of small aluminium panels resting on tiny pins which respond to the slightest change in air movement. The result is a fluid metal curtain which allows you to ‘see’ the breeze. Designed by Ned Kahn, an American artist who describes the work as a ‘kinetic façade’ referencing the Brisbane river, the wall is a delightful and engaging welcome to the city.

OMG : Handmade eyeballs

Glass eyes have been made since the 1800s, and photographer Michaela Rehle has a kickass gallery up on Reuters of ocularist Gerhard Greiner’s work with glass-blown human eye prostheses. Every bespoke glass eye takes just one hour to make, right down to drawing in veins. Kind of spooky to look at these when they’re not beaming out of their human hosts’ eye sockets.

Bloemencorso: Netherlands’ Annual Flower Parade

Bloemencorso is the annual parade of flowers in Zundert, the Netherlands. Each giant float is sculpted from thousands of flowers such as dahlias. You can see a little bit of everything at Bloemencorso, including intricate floats resemble exotic animals, puppets, and graffiti. You can see this stunning event for yourself on September 1 and 2, 2013.

Foam clouds hit the streets in Singapore

Recently in Singapore, a warehouse fire resulted in barrels of detergent concentrate getting damaged. Which in turn caused foam clouds to form. Some of the billowing foam started hitting the streets, floating about in the air, carried by the wind. We’re having fun looking at the pictures of the foam-ified streets that’ve turned up on Twitter.

Foldable Occasional Table

by Sanna Lindström & Sigrid Strömgren
Inspired by a pop-up map of New York, Grand Central is a table with a decent-sized round top, which folds down into a much smaller occasional table.



The expandable table is composed of 22 pieces that work together to unfold like a map to rest on a frame that folds out as well.

Grand Central is made out of lacquered plywood and MDF.

Designed by Sanna Lindström and Sigrid Strömgren, Grand Central is the first collaboration by these Swedish designers who shared a booth at Salone Satellite 2010.

Toilet Roll Art Exhibtion Display

Every person, every object has the potential to be great. This includes, er, toilet paper. Turkish artist Sakir Gökcebag, who is based in Hamburg, has an installation project, Trans-Layers, with toilet rolls sprawled across walls and dangling down from ceilings with pretty grand results. This really makes us want to doll up our bathroom walls with toilet rolls.

New Art Display / Literature vs Traffic

Welcome to a book lover’s paradise. The streets of Melbourne have been installed with 10,000 discarded books, overflowing and filling in empty public spaces with pure, serene literature. The lovely pages were lit up with LEDs to create a scene for the modest power of the written word. On the last night of the one-month installation, visitors were offered to take home the overflowing books, and even some passerby cars were gifted with these. This ephemeral installation, by Luzinterruptus, reflects the wonder of books and its grand balance of words and imagination.

Palmas Concrete Origami Vase

Israeli designer Ofir Zucker in collaboration with origami artist Ilan Garibi, has created the Palmas concrete origami vase collection for Talents Design.

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Description from the designer

Palmas is a vase collection made of concrete, each casted into a hand folded origami mold.  Each pattern consists of 150-250 molecules, according to its height. The origami mold has a one-time use only, once the concrete hardens inside it, the paper is peeled off – a process which creates each vase as a unique piece.

The whole collection consists out of two basic shapes – a triangle and a circle, patterned and combined in different sizes and proportions. The sharp lines and rough concrete stand in contrast to a soft glass top which can be taken out for filling water.

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Taiwan Noodle House

100% love for this interior design of the Taiwan Noodle House by Golucci International Design.

That wall is amazing giving so much identity to the whole place. Beautiful, minimalistic and clean design...Can't help myself looking at that wall over and over again.