Flexible Furniture

foldable cardboard furniture

Growing Structure

Climate/Season responsive architecture

meltdown chairs - tom price

Tom Price has created a new way to sit when designing his newest series named Meltdown Chairs. He uses the same technique of heating and pressing a seat-shaped former into a ball, using different materials for each chair including polypropylene rope, PVC hose, and a stack of common plumbing tubes. All the materials begin to melt when in contact with the heated former, and when cooled a seat is made. All the chairs use no additional material and come just from the rope, hose, or plumbing tubes. Who knew something so simplistic would turn out looking so neat.

Heat reactive tile

Lately there have been some very interesting products for the home improvement segment and the NewUltraBloom Heat-Reactive Tiles by UltraGlass are no different. These new tiles use a special heat-reactive coating to allow the tiles to change into a variety of colors depending on the temperature, eventually cooling off and returning to their original color. These new tiles come in a wide variety of colors and textures to fit any design. Currently pricing is unknown.

fibre optics tablecloth

Looking for a new way to spruce up your dinner party? Lumigram is a hand washable fiber optics tablecloth that will make your dinner shine.

Concrete Cloth

When a disaster strikes, it’s often difficult to get shelters up in time for displaced residents. Enter Concrete Canvas‘s new Concrete Cloth, a durable waterproof building material made of cement sandwiched between fabric. The cloth, which won Material ConneXion‘s Material of the Year 2009 award, can be molded into any shape when bonded with water — and it takes just two hours to set!

Read more: CONCRETE CLOTH: Flexible Material Makes Durable Disaster Shelters | Inhabitat - Green Design Will Save the World 


http://inhabitat.com/concrete-cloth-flexible-material-makes-durable-disaster-shelters/



Perhaps the most useful application for Concrete Cloth is in disaster relief, where the material could be used to quickly and efficiently house both people and food. Since the cloth has a life span of 10 years, it can be used in situations where displacement is prolonged. Concrete Cloth’s durability also makes it ideal for military use.
There’s just one drawback to Concrete Cloth: the material contains PVC, a plastic that leaches toxic chemicals. If Concrete Canvas could figure out a way to replace PVC with something else, we’d love to see Concrete Cloth used around the world.

Print lighting

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9891842-54.html
The ability to "print" organic light-emitting diodes could bring down the cost of flexible, energy-efficient lights.

Your next lightbulb could come off a printing press.

General Electric's Global Research organization said Tuesday that it is the first to demonstrate roll-to-roll manufacturing for organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)--a move that can dramatically lower costs.

OLEDs have been touted as the next generation of lighting and displays for consumer electronics like TVs.

They are very energy-efficient, are made out of flexible material, and can be tuned to give off different colors of light.

As part of its Ecomagination initiative, GE is investing in the technology in an effort to make it a viable replacement for incandescent or fluorescent bulbs.

The demonstration of a roll-to-roll production, similar to how a newspaper is printed on rolls, has the potential to lower the manufacturing costs and make the end product cost-competitive with existing lighting, according to GE.

This printing process is being pursued by solar manufacturers as well, including Konarka, which is making solar cells from plastic.

GE demonstrated a transparent OLED, made at its research lab, to reporters last October and said it hoped to have OLED lighting devices available by 2010. (For a photo gallery of OLEDs and GE's Global Research lab, click here).

The roll-to-roll manufacturing machine will be used for further research, company said.