Design

Bureau A’s Antoine is a house and a sculpture in one. The wooden cabin blends in the rocky hillside of the Swiss Alps thanks to its irregular concrete exterior. Inside it is a fireplace, bed, table, stool and window. More at designboom.

In 2012 Amelie Künzler, Sandro Engel and Holger Michel thought of making a Pong console for pedestrians waiting to cross the street. Now they have a working prototype and are raising funds to develop it further.

Vintage Industrial’s Hure tables were inspired by and named after a 19th century lathe and milling machine maker. Hure added his signature to his products and made beautiful bases for what would otherwise be utilitarian devices.

A couple of years from now, you won’t need to touch or talk to your phone to interact with it, thanks to Elliptic Labs. The company came up with a technology that uses ultrasound to detect gestures made around a device.

The Evo bicycle lost to the Denny in the 2014 Bike Design Project, but it’s a great concept as well. It has mounts at the front and rear for a variety of cargo accessories. It also has a built-in lock, headlight and brake light.

For many pedestrians, the don’t walk sign is merely a suggestion. Carmaker Smart found a way to make people stop. It set up motion capture booths where people danced, and turned them into eye-catching signs. Making of here.

Desks with treadmills are nothing new, but if you also want to become a metaphor for some poor bloke’s career or perhaps the human condition in general, then replicate Robb Godshaw and Will Doenlen’s hamster wheel standing desk.

Michael & George’s HB Lamp is a large pencil-shaped lamp with a 26ft. cord snaking out of its tip. The 5.5ft.-tall lamp has a cedar body and a brass ring. You can also customize the color of and the text on its body.

Have you ever tried doodling on carpets and other furry surfaces? Professor Yuta Sugiura and his colleagues tried harder. They came up with three devices that let you draw, stamp or automatically print on furry surfaces.

Designed by Sebastian Errazuriz, Explosion is a small cabinet that is opened by pulling its parts outward until its contained space is fully exposed and the furniture resembles a pixelated explosion. Part of Sebastian’s Look Again exhibit.

Made by Andreas Bhend, Miilo is an extendable children’s bicycle. It starts out as a trainer bike, but you can upgrade it to a fixed gear bicycle using most of its existing parts to adapt to a child’s growth.

Winner of Oregon Manifest’s 2014 Bike Design Project, the Denny bicycle has a handlebar that doubles as a bike lock, a front carrying shelf, and a removable battery for its assistive motor, brake light, front light and turn signals.

Like Mercedes-Benz, Nissan also built a life-size model of its Concept 2020, the concept supercar that will be playable in Gran Turismo 6 this July. The model was displayed at the 2014 Goodwood Festival of Speed.

The Concept 2020 is Nissan’s entry in Gran Turismo 6‘s Vision Gran Turismo and a peek at its future supercars. The car will be available for GT6 this July, but “Nissan believes that the real-world is ready” for the car as well.

From 5/21 to 9/7, the High Museum of Art in Atlanta will be hosting Dream Cars, an exhibit of various concept cars from 1932 up to the present, as well as related media. If you can’t make it there, you can check out the gallery.

The pages of The Drinkable Book contains tips on proper sanitation & hygiene, but more importantly, they’re function as water filters. Each book can provide clean water for up to four years and costs just pennies to make.

Hugh Herr and his colleagues at MIT’s Biomechatronics group develop artificial limbs that complete or augment the human body. His presentation is amazing, but if you’re short on time skip to 13:40. Really, watch the whole thing.

Stratton Violin makes electric violins with skull-shaped bodies. They come with Barbera Twin Hybrid bridge pickups with frets and wood stain as options. You can also opt for hand-carved and detailed bodies or even fully customized designs.

Swiss furniture maker Peka makes shelves, closets and other storage with compartments and drawers that slide or swing out. Instead of having to reach in to get items, they come to you. Find local distributors here.

Character creation in MMORPGs has become a mini-game of sorts. The upcoming Korean game Black Desert takes it to the next level with a dizzying array of options. The developer might as well spin this off as a standalone program.

The Micro is an affordable 3D printer that promises to have an intuitive and user-friendly software. It’s also quiet, not power hungry and easy to maintain. It prints with ABS and PLA and has a base print area of 4.4″ x 4.3″.

“Design” is often associated with fancy concepts for gadgets, clothes, cars, etc. Johnny Kelly and Scott Burnett remind us that even everyday objects, structures and surroundings need to be thoughtfully designed. Learn more here.

Hang your coffee table books on this seemingly invisible stand. Like the Conceal Book Shelf, that will make it appear like your items are floating on your wall. They say it can be used with records too, but we’re thinking only double albums.

DIY Screen Printing Supplies developed this desktop screen printing device. Aside from being very compact, it also has a handy clamp that lets you change screens quickly without misaligning prints. Another demo here.

Commissioned by a security camera company, custom motorcycle builder Chicara Nagata modded a ’66 Little Honda P25 and used a 2MP Sony camera as its headlights and taillights. He also added two more cameras to the bike’s body.

Made by Haibara, these handcrafted washi envelopes and sheets are outlined with red or blue woodblock print. A wonderful gift for people who love writing by hand. Each pack comes with six sheets and three envelopes.

Wooden coat hangers that have magnets instead of hooks and can hold up to 4.4lb. They look nicer and are easier to remove than ordinary hangers. A more affordable plastic version would be sweet though, since these ones are crazy expensive.

The Quant e-Sportlimousine is a 912hp electric car powered by a flow battery, which generates energy by mixing electrolytes dissolved in water. Apparently this makes refueling nearly as fast as with a gas-powered car. More here and here.

King of Sweden sells large rugs made of the leather and fabric labels from discarded jeans. The labels are stitched together over a sheet of cotton. If you have enough old jeans lying around you could try this idea yourself.

Google presented a non-functioning prototype of the Project Ara modular smartphone at This Week in Startups. The bare bones model could cost as low as $50 and will come in three sizes. Skip to around 6:00 for the demo.