Growing up in the 80’s, most of my toys were LEGOs. Universes literally unfolded as my hands restlessly fitted the bricks together. Astronauts and their spaceships. Knights and their castles. Drivers and their race cars.
The fun, however, was not in playing with the spaceships and castles. It was the assembly that I loved. Having an idea, developing it as I searched for the next piece, going back, introducing some adjustments, streamlining it.
Lego were in Iwo Jima
I particularly like how the building blocks and assembly process help shape creativity. You have a set of blocks that fit in very specific ways. These are your rules. You have to understand them and use them to your advantage, in order to build something you’ll like. A lot like so many other things in life, right?
Now, Lego are so usefull for so much more. Just check out how they can impersonate The Monty Pithon in their Quest for the Holy Grail.
If, like me, you are realy melancholic about those days when the red blocks always fitted, maybe you want to watch the animation showing how the blocks are made.
When trying to make a sense of this world, one million ideas immediately pop to mind. Random hypothesis, theories, relationships and consequences all bump into each other. Being naturally square an engineer, I usually tend to plot imaginary graphics depicting cause/consequence relationships. How many times has a good dinner with wine led to a poor night’s sleep? How often do I order take out Vs cooking at home Vs eating out? All issues that are very practical and totally useless.
I’m happy to report that I’m not alone. In fact, it appears that smarter people have turned that into an admirable art form. Visit Indexed and discover what I’m talking about. Also, you should see the movies below, to find out what you have been missing on.
#1 Le Grand Content
#2 Airport
#3 Royksop – Remind Me
Also, don’t miss out on the low tech approach of Demetri Martin with his flip charts on a large pad. He is just brilliant in this one!
Every once in a while, a simple new idea pops up right in front of our eyes. So elegant and sublime is this idea, that one wishes it were more than just a concept. Now, BMW came up with a new concept for a car, rethinking what defines a car, taking the weight off the bodywork.
GINA stands for Geometry and Functions in ‘N’ Adaptations and refers to the flexible structure and look of the car. What the engineers at BMW did was to set aside the solid, static shell and have instead developed a concept where a fabric that covers the internal subframe. This flexible structure – made of metal and carbon fiber – is controlled by electro-hydraulic devices that allow the exterior shape of the car to be quite dynamic, bending, extending and moving to fit the contours of the moving substructure beneath it.
Discussion arises in what regards to resistance to impact, cloth flapping in the wind, damage by envious hooligans, etc. But, in the end of the day, BMW shows it is willing to present new concepts, instead of just keeping with the existing formulas.
Even if this is no more than a styling exercise, the exercise opens a whole new array of possibilities that may very well be integrated in all large/scale production vehicles a few years down the road. And it’s pushing the envelope beyond what was expected. And that should always be praised.
The effect from a design perspective is quite striking—and even if the GINA concept is mainly a styling exercise at the moment, it opens up some very cool possibilities down the track. Multistructural cars could be built on a platform that, at its core, simply encompasses a rolling chassis, engine and interior, as well as moving structural elements that change the shape of the car completely. If the fabric can be rolled up somehow inside the structure, there’s no reason why it wouldn’t be possible to design a sportscar that transforms into a hatch—or even a wagon—when extra carrying room is needed, finally allowing the sportscar to become a practical everyday vehicle as well.
Naturally, the flexible fabric would have to prove itself in terms of durability, resistance to tearing, puncture and road debris, road noise reduction and overall vehicle safety before GINA ever made it to the market, but it’s fair to say this is one of the most fascinating and fundamentally revolutionary design studies the auto world has seen for some years.
From a design point of view, a solid exterior means that a car’s design has to stay static, and features that need to be exposed have to generally remain revealed or behind doors or hatches. A flexible fabric covering, on the other hand, allows the exterior shape of the car to be quite dynamic, bending, extending and moving to fit the contours of the moving substructure beneath it.
Houses have tiles [finishing]
Cars have parts [content]
Trees have leafs [color]
Mountains have caves [void]
People have problems [fitting] Our heads have ideas [assemble]
MODULOR 