Car bed

This relates to design because it's about the importance of DOING as much as planning, thinking, drawing.

I've had on my mind for a while to buy a Berlingo van (or similar)

And to drive from Ireland to Wales and have a wonderful Amdro Jumpkit installed so the wee van could be a camper van. Somewhere to sleep in but small enough to be (almost) mistaken for a car.

The Amdro is designed, invented, manufacted by Iwan Lloyd Roberts by the company he has built up in Wales. It's great to support designers like this. There are copies of the Amdro jump kit doing the rounds too - the idea has taken off. 

But a conversation with a flatmate who works as a panel beater and is around cars and vans put me off a bit... because he talked about VAT on vans and DoE tests and all manner of complications.

I don't know how right he is but it got me thinking.... I should work with what I've got. Which is a 2001 Toyota Corolla.

That pic is not my car... but my car is a three-door! So it's tricky to maneuver in and out!

I found some videos. Some about people permanently living in their cars :(

So I took some measurements of my car with the passenger seat down.

 And then worked on a design

I needed:

18mm plywood (in two sections so I could fold it into the boot)

Hinges

For a mattress, I have a Thai Kapok mattress

For support under my head (between the passenger seat and the back seat), I used Ikea Adils table legs - the holder is peranently screwed to the plywood and the legs can be twisted on when needed.

And at my feet, I rested the plywood on a box, Ikea again: Samla (Width: 56 cm; Depth: 39 cm

Height: 28 cm; Volume: 45 l)

There is a lack of support, however, in the middle of the bed. I had to use pillows here (4 of them!) under the plywood. This still needs to be resolved. It probably is the biggest issue in designing a car bed - the distance that must be spanned.

So I've slept in it and it works! Comfy enough. With duvet and pillow proper bed-like. It offers great freedom to just head off and not be worried about having nowhere to stay! I can visit friends who live on smallholdings and farms with nowhere to put me up.

The condensation issue is a bit crazy, loads of moisture generated overnight even with the window a bit open.

So the message from this post is... Go ahead and do it!

Paper Geodesic Dome

I used two sources when building my paper geodesic dome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym1388CcwuQ&t=176s
http://makezine.com/2008/02/29/how-to-make-a-geodesic-do/

The YouTube video inspired me to make a dome from paper and gave some tips on how and the diagrams on makezine were brill.

This is a 2V dome. That means there are two different strut lengths. I made them from yellow and white paper so I could see the pattern. One strut length is 88.3% the length of the other.

Sparks Joy decluttering flowchart

Based on my own experiences moving house and decluttering using the Marie Kondo method. The "does this spark joy" test really works for me.

Bilingualism and how it affects how we think of things

This is an example of how my brain works independently of language.
I was raised bilingually (Irish / English). I assume that my way of thinking of things has been influence by my bilingualism. I don't think in terms of words necessarily but, rather, in terms of things.
For example...
I wanted to describe my diary/notebook, how it looked. Here is a picture of it:

"it's black with an orange...[?]..."

I couldn't think of the word.

"Rib?" Is it black with an orange rib?

I knew that was wrong.

I could picture this bone-like thing. And was trying to think of the English word for it. Rib was wrong. Bone? A part of the body? No it wasn't a "back" because it was a kind of straight line bone the entire length of the body (well not quite entire length of the body but length of torso anyway).

Spine!

I don't know if this is due to bilingualism; if bilingual people think like this. That our brains our geared more towards context and objects and ideas than words...? The look of it, the feel of it, the "it" of it more than the word. So that's what I was doing, searching for the English word that fitted the "it-ness" or the "thing" that I had in mind.

As designers, involved with things and objects, I think it's important not to get too caught up with words. Not to be anglo-centred. Or indeed any-language-centred.

Ivar v Hejne

I've moved house 6 or so times in the past two years. When I was moving first, I needed to buy shelving. I knew that it was likely I'd be moving again so the shelves I bought had to be capable of moving with me! And boy, was I right about moving again...!
I dismissed the idea of buying Ikea Billy shelving - bookshelf units that seemed permanent once built. And bulky to move.
So I narrowed the choice down to Ikea Ivar or Ikea Hejne.

Hejne was sooo much cheaper. And they won me over. I bought three Hejne units and 1 Ivar (for testing purposes!). And what am I left with? 0 Hejne + many more Ivars that I've bought over the years.
I didn't like Hejne at all. They were flimsy and cheap. No choice in height. Supposed to be adjustable but really the adjustable heights were so wide apart that the options were limited. I think there was a deep/narrow shelf depth option. I used them both in my utility room and in my sitting room. They didn't look well in the sitting room, the books were never the right scale on the shelves. The utility room was a bit scary cos the shelves didn't feel sturdy enough for all the paint and tools piled on, but then I didn't attach the shelves to a wall which would have provided sturdiness. I thought it would be handy to have four stand-alone posts at the corners that could be used on narrow or deep shelf depths but I think the stand-alone posts caused some of the wobbliness and lack in firmness.

Whereas, Ivar, I love. Very easy to deconstruct and reconstruct. Easy to move (well, with a big car for the super-tall side posts!).
In order to change the shelf heights of Hejne, the unit had to be moved away from the wall to access the allen key screws at the back (and an allen key had to be located) whereas with Ivar, the pins can be pulled out of the holes and the shelf heights adjusted without moving the shelving unit.
Dunno if I'll have them forever and ever, if they'll last *that* long. But they've lastest the 6 moves so far and there's more moves on the horizon.

Moon-reactive street-light

These winter months, I am walking home in darkness from college. There is one particular patch on my walk which is quite precarious as it is outside a building site. The rest of my route is well-lit. So I particularly notice when the moon is out because a full, bright moon makes this section of my walk easy to navigate.

Streetlights can turn on/off in daylight when they are not needed. Why couldn't streetlights turn off at night time too - on those nights that are illuminated by the moon? How much energy would be saved? Surely a minimum of 12 nights per year, i.e. 1/40th. But every watt of energy saved is a drop of oil still in the ground or an ounce less carbon in the atmosphere, eh?

So for the purposes of this blog, I did a bit of googling.
"Lunar-resonant streetlights". They exist!
 Designed by Civil Twilight Design Collective. The lamps use led bulbs and respond to moonlight, dimming according to the level of lunar brightness.
A book reference which may potentially provide info on calculations etc: Light and Color in the Outdoors By Marcel Minnaert

Size, scale: earphones

How and why do some things get used and work... and others don't?
The latest example of this in my life is earphones.
I got a gift of these large pink earphones for Christmas a few years ago (not these ones but similar).

And since I started walking to college last September, I used them nearly every day. Apart from the fact that they blocked out the sound of traffic and were comfortable, the size of them meant that I found them in the mornings, stored them in my college locker during the day, and saw them again in the evening to remember to bring them with me on the walk home.

But they broke. Dunno how. The sound stopped working.

So I sourced a wee pair of earbuds that I had lying around.

Disaster.

The size and scale of the earbuds in comparison with the large pink headphones meant that I was always leaving them behind, putting them in pockets, losing them behind things in my locker. They weren't effective in my life!

I think it's interesting regarding design and intuitive design. And designed objects that get used.

Cloone co-op building

When I lived in Leitrim, this building was at the top of my road.

It was a pity it was empty and boarded up. Because I am sure it was a thriving place for community business.

Cooperatives were a big thing in Ireland, for farmers and maybe groceries too.

Vacuum cleaners and stairs

When I was hoovering my stairs recently, I took this photograph because I remembered a cartoon from a lecture in architecture school.

The cartoon showed a stairs and a hoover or vacuum cleaner which reached halfway and an exasperated housewife.
The question the lecturer posed was - which comes first - the length of the stairs or the length of the cable / hosepipe of the vacuum cleaner? Maybe the point he was trying to make is that architects can't be responsible for everything; the cart does come before the horse. Or maybe he was trying to suggest that a socket point halfway up a stairs wouldn't go amiss - if designers of electronic equipment can't be trusted then the architect should provide solutions for the domestic delight of housewives.
When I did a google search of "cartoon vacuum cleaner stairs", I didn't find the image I remembered but I did come across this ingenious solution!

A backpack vac.

Coffee cup waste bin

Spotted in DkIT college in Dundalk:

 

This bin is designed uniquely for the disposal of coffee cups. There are a number of round openings in the lid for coffee cups to go in and be stacked on top of one another. One of the round openings is for liquid disposal. 

Waste sorting in public places

Dublin Airport has got a new bin system.

There are three sections:

• Paper and cardboard
• Plastic and cans (includes plastic bags!)
• General Waste

Colour

Each section is a different colour.

• Blue for paper and cardboard (I think of blue for water, ie liquid, ie drinking, ie bottles)
• Green for plastic and cans (Green in my mind does not equal plastic or cans! Green is trees...!)
• Black for general waste (Yes, I think this colour makes sense).

In Ireland, our recycling wheelie bins come in a multitude of colours: orange, black, green, blue, brown. I think our heads are geared to black for general waste; brown for composting; green for recycling.

 I'd like to think that such colours are innately understood but we're not there yet.

Shape

The holes for each section are shaped differently

• Rectangular for paper/cardboard (I think this is logical)

• Circular for plastic and cans (circular is the obvious shape for bottles and can and drinking vessels, however this bin takes all kinds of plastic - bags etc)

• Square for general waste

The largest shaped opening is for general waste and I think this makes sense. However, although I think black is a good choice of colour for general waste, this opening is not the most appealing or "go-to". I think the idea of shapes is excellent, however this solution is not quite there yet.

Size

All the bins are the same size; I wonder if they could be narrower or smaller or different heights?

Design: a lot done, more to do

I am impressed but this is a protoype in my opinion.There are good design ideas but it's not quite there yet. I love that it is bilingual and I like the non-language-specific icons.

Czech schoolchildren

Spotted in Ostrava, Czech Republic.

An Irish conversation

This conversation happened on whatsapp between me and one of my fellow students:

If this were an Icelandic conversation, the answer would be "Room 256" or whatever, and the poor questioner would be left sitting there for an hour.
Whereas, because it's Ireland, the question presumes that the person asking is in a room for a 9 o'clock lecture and is puzzled because no-one else is there. Unspoken. And yet the person answering could read between those lines and gave the requisite answer although, arguably, not the answer to the question.
Fascinating!
(Maybe it's not an Irish thing, maybe this happens with other cultures too, but I recognise it as Irish and it certainly contrasts with my Icelandic experiences)

Earth architecture

Reading a book by Peter Frey,  Learning from Vernacular: Towards a New Vernacular Architecture,  I came across the phrase:
"Earth architecture represents a way of ecological construction that requires only 1% of the energy that is necessary to erect an equivalent building made of concrete or bricks,  and returning it to its original state requires no energy at all."
When I looked into constructing an earth (one of the options was cob) building as a vegetable storehouse,  I ran into problems with designing foundations.  So the first miscomprehension with the above sentence would be believing that the *entire* building can reduce energy so dramatically.  Typically there is some stone,  brick or concrete construction required too. Secondly,  are we not calculating human labour involved? Because gathering the earth required is laborious -  it should be subsoil with less organic matter than topsoil so deeper digging required! Return to its original state... don't mistake this as implying that the building will leave no mark or footprint when gone- remember those foundations?  And the roofing will likely not be earthen either.

Vegan Cooking for One

This is a design blog so I need to talk about the design of this book. Leah Leneman is the author. Published by Thorsons, a British publishing company in 2000 but originally published as The Single Vegan in 1989.

What I love is... the shopping lists. The book is broken into seasons: Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter. And there are 9 weeks in each season. So that's 18 weeks' worth of recipes.
The notes in the beginning explain that sometimes vegans live with other people who aren't vegans - so this recipe book is not for single people per se but in particular for vegans who cook for themselves. Clever!
There's one recipe per day except for Sunday when there's a lunch, dinner and dessert recipe provided!
One day, a recipe might require "half a cabbage" but one of the other days of the same week, the other half cabbage will be used up.
There's also a list of staples included - or store cupboard stock.
Personally, I am not a vegan. But I am single. I discovered I actually eat out a few nights in the week and therefore the shopping list actually lead to waste.
My favourite recipes were the indonesian noodles and the green curry. Some of the recipes were a bit odd - involving eggless mayonnaise but I suppose that's par for the course for a vegan... and I always replaced the tofu with sausages :)

Is it a painting? No, it's embroidery.

  

Seen in Gotheborg design museum:

Suzy Strindberg
Gron skog, 1999 

Design that makes the world work smoother

Sometimes we forget that things were designed. Systems and objects conceived in someone's mind. Solutions devised. Problems analysed. People and scenarios enquired into and understood.
How's this for a successful ubiquitous design?

The ticket machine with numbered slips of paper and correlating display. 

I have seen this in shoe shops, train station ticket offices, official government passport or motor tax offices. And used internationally also.

I especially think this is wonderful because users are empowered - it's quite a straightforward system, uncomplicated, easy to understand - and if this system is not working out in the user's scenario, it's easily removed and another queuing method devised.

Sometimes the tickets and the screen are out of synch when the customer agent clicks for the next number "64?" and nobody appears but quickly, humanly, a little bit of eye contact among queuers, a decision by the customer service agent and the numbers are brought back to function. When used in the right places, I love it!

Seen in Gotheborg Design Museum:

Turn-o-Matic, M80
Queue ticket dispenser and queue number display
A&E Design AB, Stockholm, 1974
Tom Ahlstrom
Hans Erich

Designing websites

I've dabbled in design of all sorts. And one area has been website design.
Similar to database design, it's really important to get the layout of the end item mapped out before ever using fancy software and good looking graphics. The "architecture" of the website is very important.
Here's a draft initial sitemap or layout design I did for the pages on a friend's website for her company. We never followed through on it but the initial sketch stands up.

I initially drew this on paper as a mindmap kind of but drew it on paint for the purposes of sharing here. All the technology in the world can't beat a little bit of human thinking and intellectualising and planning.

Graphic labelling

On an Aerlingus airplane.
This button/hook was never meant for a coat hanger but yet a coat hanger is the perfect icon.
It conveys hanging, suggests a place for coat.
The alternative would be a coat icon, but what kind? Male, female, duffle, ski jacket... Words are not an option on a plane carrying multilingual passengers.

Designing reassurances

Out walking recently along the busy bypass road outside Trim, and the footpath suddenly disappeared.
In fairness to the planners /road designers /whoever they may be, the footpath did continue on the other side of the road. And the sightlines were good providing us adequate visibility of oncoming traffic to decide to cross in safety. 

But there was no *reassurance* - that's my word for it. A designed element that ignites confidence in the user.
Like the yellow man walking along the Wicklow Way. Every now and then, at a point where you might doubt your route, some helpful person has positioned a reassuring sign "keep going, this way, straight ahead". So reassuring.