Hermès M9 Special Edition Camera by Leica

Following a string of limited edition collaborations, Leica is back with a third in a line of special M-System cameras built with the help of renowned Parisian fashion house, Hermès. The partnership results in two special editions, with a total of 300 Edition Hermès digital rangefinders set to ship beginning in June for $25,000, while 100 “very special” Edition Hermès — Sèrire Limitèe Jean-Louis Dumas models will release in July for — $50,000. Both editions will be offered as complete kits, with the “cheaper” of the two built with soft calfskin leather with a silver chrome finish for its redesigned control points, complete with a Leica Summilux-M 50 mm f/1.4 ASPH. optic. The “other” arrives with three lenses, the Leica Summicron-M 28 mm f/2 ASPH., a Leica Noctilux-M 50 mm f/0.95 ASPH. and a Leica APO-Summicron-M 90 mm f/2 ASPH — all with an anodized silver finish.

Hermès M9, Special Edition Camera, by Leica, via Freshness

Mountain View Lamp by Dima Loginoff

Mountain View Lamp, by Dima Loginoff

Ice Cube Celebrates the Eames

In the late ’80s, before he became famous as a member of the Compton, Calif., gangsta-rap group N.W.A., Ice Cube studied architectural drafting at a trade school in Arizona. In the video, made for “Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980,” the sprawling Getty Institute-organized collection of exhibitions on the postwar Southern California art scene, Ice Cube tours the Eames House in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, marveling at the resourcefulness of the husband-and-wife team.

“Got off-the-shelf factory windows, prefabricated walls,” he says, sounding as if he were admiring a tricked-out low rider. “They was doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed.”

For the exhibition Ice Cube wanted to recreate this famous photograph by Charles Eames sitting on a rare 1953 DAT-1 Chair.

Exhibition: Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, Ice Cube, Interviewed by The New York Times

Primer V2 by Masahiko Yamaguchi

Japanese roboticist Masahiko Yamaguchi has designed a robot capable of riding a fixed gear bicycle without brakes.

Primer V2, by Masahiko Yamaguchi

Exhibition: Stephen Burks: Man Made

Prototypes & Material Compositions (Pile Up) Including Basket Lamps and Basket Low Tables, 2010

Material Composition 1 (Totem), Polystyrene, Paper, Senegalese Sweetgrass and Polyethylene Basket, Birch Plywood, Acrylic Paint and Oak

The Studio Museum in Harlem is pleased to present Stephen Burks: Man Made, a unique project that furthers industrial designer Stephen Burks’s ongoing exploration of the global economy of artisanal craft. Inspired by Burks’s collaboration with Senegalese basket weavers based in New York and Dakar, as well as projects with artisans in South Africa, Peru and India, Man Made starts with the traditional basket-weaving process as its core concept. During the exhibition, the Museum’s galleries will be transformed into a workshop where New York-based weavers and artisans will create a series of functional and experimental objects and installations conceived by Burks.

Stephen Burks: Man Made, March 31 – June 26, at Studio Museum New York
Photography by Daniel Håkansson for Readymade Projects

Wearable Architecture by SUUM

Designed for modern mind and ritual, SUUM SUMS are wearable architecture that requires the human form to build, support, and embody. More than metal. SUUM SUMS are the experience of acquired function and multi-faceted beauty when beings and design concept work together. Each SUUM SUM is a collection of precision, interrelated stainless-steel components. Original compositions are chosen and may evolve over time with additional sculpture- and material-altering components, known in SUUM terminology as EVOLVERS.

Wearable Architecture: Rings, by Nava Wiegert, Brianna Kenyon SUUM

QuaDror by Dror Benshetrit

Four years ago while experimenting in the workshop, Dror Benshetrit discovered a serendipitous geometry. Initially inspired by the aesthetic and flexibility of this versatile form, he soon realized the structural integrity of the interlocking members. Dror then embarked on four years of inspired and diligent investigations. Working in a collaborative and experimental environment, the team developed a unique structure that can adapt to a variety of conditions and configurations. These range from product design, trestle structures, dwellings, dividing walls, sound barriers, and more. Some applications take advantage of its load-bearing capabilities, while others capitalize on its acoustic properties, ease of manufacturing, collapsibility and energy performance.

Boosted by a team of experts, the studio conducted inter-disciplinary research and rigorous analysis, to soon discover the overwhelming strength of the geometry coming from the most simplistic physical force. The geometry revealed five development direction for applications with endless possibilities; dividing, dwelling, trestle, fenestration and artistic installation. These enabled designs reflect an ever-changing world where contextual factors and technological resources are shifting definitions of architecture, design, and the traditional boundaries between disciplines.

“Our goal is to inspire change. Working with creative and innovative experts from various fields, we aim to share and implement this geometry in urban design, architecture, philanthropic work, and public art. When realizing that the system could potentially bring a groundbreaking solution to the global issue of habitat, we were eager to complete our experimentations and share this discovery with the world.”
- Dror Benshetrit

QuaDror, by Dror Benshetrit, Dror
Volume.MGX Table Lamp from MGX by Materialise

Phasma: Six-legged Robot by takram design engineering

Phasma is a hexapedal running robot that can run dynamically like a living organism. It is an attempt to depict life purely through its motion rather than its shape, by extracting the physics of running from living things and implementing that to the artifact. Phasma uses compliant components such as stainless steel springs and rubber joints to reproduce smooth and efficient locomotion seen in animals. Another interesting biomimicry applied in Phasma is the alternating tripod gait as seen in insects that provides excellent stability.

Created for ‘bones’ exhibition held at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Tokyo 2009.
Phasma is based on iSprawl developed at BDML, Stanford University, USA.

Phasma: Six-legged Running Robot, by takram design engineering
Photography by Takashi Mochizuki

Scent Stories by Ah&Oh Studio

Perfume packaging design and the concept of the perfume were always our dream project. So we took men’s fragrance as our challenge. At the begining we were concentrating on the idea of the scent itself. We found inspiration in the great, dark literature and distinctive, strong characters. We tried to describe the dark sides of men’s nature with line of scents named after famous writers. We packed the scents into bottles which resemble both old glass perfume bottles and the classic shape of the inkwell. We made them white, added black strong lettering and heads of characters which loosely recall author’s famous masterpieces.

Scent Stories, by Ah&Oh Studio

The Furniture of Mad Men: Don Draper’s Office

With the upcoming season of Mad Men, the Mid-Century Modernist has turned its eye on spotting some of the furniture that makes part of the set of one of the best dramas on television. The series is set in the 1960s and the designers have made every effort to depict what a Madison Avenue ad agency really looked like, starting with Don Draper’s Office.

We wanted to make sure it wasn’t a textbook study of mid-century modern America — as Matt specifically pointed out, look around your own house, does everything exist from 2007 or do you actually have stuff lying around from the ’80s?
- Dan Bishop, Production Designer

“One of the best references — we just used it this morning for the size of a baby blanket — is the Sears catalogs and the Montgomery Ward catalog,” she says. “They’re so specific, and they have all these items. And then I have every decorating book from the late ’40s through the mid-’60s. So Better Homes & Gardens — you know, all those decorating books that came out every year — I have all of those.”
- Amy Wells, Set Decorator

Set Design: AMC’s Mad Men, via The Mid-Century Modernist