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Power Your Music Player With Your Pants
Designed by Inesa Malafej and Arunas Sukarevicius from Lithuania, the Dancepants converts kinetic energy from running or dancing into electricity for your MP3 player. More info here. -
Pictures of the City, Submerged
BLDGBLOG is featuring a series of images called Aqualta by Studio Lindfors that depict Tokyo and Manhattan after a catastrophic flood. From BLDGBLOG: Similar in spirit to Squint Opera’s earlier look at a Flooded London, Aqualta is hard—if not impossible—to separate from the context of melting ice caps and global climate change. However, it deserves visual attention in its own right, even outside such politically charged discussions. Far from stoking fear about a coming catastrophe, both of these projects—Studio Lindfors and… -
Pile of Empty Beer Cartons Evolves into Open Air Library
I would love to see a community library like this in Los Angeles! “What began as an assemblage of 1,000 empty beer cartons pulled together by residents in East Germany has now evolved into an incredible open air public library. Designed by Karo Architekten in collaboration with local residents, the grassroots project revitalizes a post-industrial district in Magdeburg, Germany by creating a cultural center and pop-up library where books are free to take and leave 24… -
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Intermission: Eye-popping 3D Building Projections
NuFormer’s 3D building projections have me questioning the nature of existence—but, like, in a sweet way. http://www.vimeo.com/4238052 Thanks, Clay (via Zach). -
Highways as the London Subway Map
Check out this amazing recreation of the highways as a subway map. While there are no geographic features, it sure makes it easier to envision any number of trips and routes around the country. Click here for a larger size. Via Coudal. -
A School That Deserves Extra Credit
What the educational outpost on the site of the old Ambassador Hotel can teach Los Angeles about learning, public space, and community. Schools in Los Angeles are getting lots of attention lately. You might have heard of Steve Barr, a sort of educational desperado, whose Green Dot Schools wrested away several poorly-performing schools from the Los Angeles Unified School District and transformed them into educational powerhouses. But what Barr did for these communities is far more than that.… -
The EyeWriter: Draw With Your Eyes
“The EyeWriter project is an ongoing collaborative research effort to empower people, who are suffering from ALS, with creative technologies. It is a low-cost eye-tracking apparatus & custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes.” The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo. via swissmiss -
Recyclable Paper Laptop
How often do you buy a new computer? After two years? Four? For such complex products, we go through them pretty quick, and that adds up to a lot of ultra harmful e-waste. It’s something computer companies are already striving for, but designer Je Sung Park is taking the idea of a recyclable computer to its furthest limits. His Recyclable Paper Laptop is made from pulp and reprocessed materials, and would be broken down into the…
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First meeting for the “Create, Don’t Hate” billboard project
Seven designers/design studios connected with seven youth in a speed-dating session to getting to know each other, fast. Five (or so) minutes per person. It went fast and we were able to make the pairings of Designer/Student soon after. The event was held at p:ear in downtown. I’d have to say that, both groups were a little tentative at first but everyone loosened up and had a good time finding out about each other’s work. Maybe… -
The Greatest Guerrilla Art Mystery You’ve Never Heard Of (But May Have Walked Over)
The curious case of the Toynebee Tiles and their continuing legacy The most culturally revered street art is often wrapped in an element of intrigue: Banksy’s quasi-anonymity has garnered as much attention as his artwork. But what happens when that intrigue swells far beyond the bounds of mere mystery and consumes the very message of the art? The biggest guerrilla art movement of our time is older than Banksy, more geographically promiscuous than JR, and has remained unsolved…
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Design
How can we use art and design to do more than just make the world a pretty place?!
Contributing Editor
Alissa is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her GOOD column is "Design Is a Verb." 
