Core77's Light Objects Design Competition: The Winners Are In
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 10.19.06
The results are in for Core77's Light Objects design competition! We put out a call for entries a while back; the designers were charged to not only come up with something sustainable, but push beyond merely reducing the negative impact on the planet and push the concept of lightness in every way, from material selection and reduction to objects that actively improve our environment through use. Considering these factors, Daniel Sutherland's "Pulse" was chosen as the Grand Prize Winner. Designed to monitor energy drain, "Pulse has been designed with a clear glass section running throughout its body to allow the product to glow different colours to signify specific conditions to users. It will glow red throughout these edges if there are products in the household that can be switched off to save energy. When the user touches the body it will identify the product in question onscreen," according to its inventor. Sutherland hopes that a product like Pulse will help the world at large gradually learn to monitor energy consumption and use of electrical products.
Runners up include the "Coca Hanger," which repurposes used soda bottles to fashion effective shape-keeping clothes hangers, having transformed into permanent items that can be used over and over again; "Suno," a sun umbrella the uses solar cells to power a 6-LED lamp located on the underside; "Stem," a compostable toothbrush made from bioplastics; and "Shade," a sustainable shading system for large-scale parking lots that use photovotaic fabrics to convert the sun's energy to electricity. Pictures and further descriptions of these runners up, as well as other notable entries, is here.
We've seen variations on most of these ideas before; the Kill-A-Watt reminds us of Pulse; this solar umbrella is an early version of Suno, for example, so what's the big deal? Aside from the designs themselves having a high degree of sophistication and style, there range of concepts that were recognized is interesting. Core77 said "Light Objects" and got an energy monitor, a clothes hanger, a toothbrush an umbrella and a parking-lot shading system...just goes to show that sustainability can be integrated into anything and everything. ::Light Objects via ::Core77
Man, that stuff looks like someone beat it with an ugly stick...