Though hospitals will end up looking better, these efforts aren’t about decorating, they’re about outcomes. Numerous studies point to the benefits of the design strategies and environmental interventions KP has proposed and implemented. Factors like the quality and intensity of light, access to natural light, the noise level in a room, the privacy afforded by single-patient rooms — all of these affect patient health, satisfaction, soundness of sleep and speed of healing. Views of nature have been shown to decrease depression, pain, stress and even length of hospital stays.
I’ve visited a few hospitals in Seoul and designs vary – some feel very institutional, and look like something from the Soviet Union with dull steel, beige equipment, and dark green walls covered in dark stains. Others, like Severance hospital, feel more like a shopping mall or airport terminal with bright lights, modern design, comfortable waiting rooms, Starbucks cafes and other amenities that make the whole experience a lot more pleasant. I particularly liked the flower gift shop right outside the emergency room at the Gangnam Severance. That’s entrepreneurship.
I like the design of this Melitta pot for pouring water over a manual drip coffee filter. You’d buy something like this for the spout design, which makes it easier to control and maintain a steady pour over the coffee grinds.
So far I’ve only been able to find a wood-handled version for $90 in Korea, and a synthetic handled one for $45 in Japan. Maybe if I’m feeling spendy I’ll get one someday.
“Hand-drip” coffee is really popular in Korea and Japan, but less so in the American cafes I’ve visited. Instead, machines like the Clover or siphon pots have gotten the most attention from both customers and press.
However, there’s something about the performance of drip coffee that I find appealing, especially when taken to the extremes of technical fanaticism that the Japanese (and subsequently Koreans) have gone. Most coffee geeks here in Asia seem to obsess over the intricacies of pouring methods, timing, etc. as if this is the height of coffee production. It is indeed more active and engaging than a french press, and the careful pouring styles have a finesse and theatricality that I appreciate in the coffee ritual – even if it might be a bit superfluous to the results in the cup.
Saw this at Lotte mart today, I kind of like it. But I’m not sure I like how narrow the glass is compared to the size and design of the base — creates a little disproportionality that I don’t like. I wonder if there’s a better example of the concept? Maybe if the glass part widened to be the same size as the base…
This is quite an attractive little container, I love the clean lines of the handle and lever, and the overall proportionality of the piece. Why do things like this have to be $50?
A couple months ago I lent $25 to a woman in Peru who wanted to buy more beans to sell at her local farmers’ market.
It’s not charity; she bought the beans for her business and has been slowly paying me back from the profit she makes on that investment – I’ve gotten $12.50 back so far. Lenders like me make no profit, but the organizations managing the loans charge interest to cover operating costs.
Kiva is the microlending site that makes this possible. Microlending is when you make small loans to people, often in developing countries where small amounts go a long way towards providing opportunities to escape poverty. These people are generally trying to start, maintain, or expand a business but lack the funds or availability of credit.
Kiva connects you to in-country organizations that screen applicants and disburse the money. This is different from charity because it provides the means to self-sufficiency and development. I think it also respects the dignity of people that are trying to make it in adverse conditions.
I think Kiva is still relatively young, but this kind of grass-roots, networked style of economic development has a lot of promise. It’s the sort of thing that Obama’s team picked up on with their fundraising tactics, drawing in millions of small donors to raise more than any previous campaign.
Are better. Don’t you want to buy this car after watching this? I also love how it’s referred to as “the new small Chrysler.” Funny how perceptions change over time.
The music is also pretty slick, it’s the Adagio from the Concerto de Aranjuez, which was also featured in Ghost in the Shell II.
Sorry if it’s a bit morbid, but I was just thinking… What happens to your Facebook or Myspace or other virtual presence after you die? (Or whichever networking site may be popular in the future…). Does it become a de facto memorial to you? Does it take on a life of its own, a repository of memories and past conversations to be revisited and added to by friends leaving last wishes or addressing messages to you long after, much as you might address a grave site symbolically? Something that provides comfort to others?
Is there anything that should be, or can be, designed into a site for that? Is a deceased person’s e-presence a bug or a feature in an online community/social network?
Going off on a tangent spurred by the persistence of our virtual silhouettes…
Imagine some future anthropologist sifting through old servers of myspace pages or facebook profiles and analyzing the recorded conversations of bygone eras and individuals…
Imagine looking back on the history of our generation’s recorded personalities and relationships and general lack of privacy. Without a doubt future presidents and leaders and historical figures will have errant blog posts, forum discussions, comments and photos, etc. More data, and I guess transparency, than any time previous.
Maybe 20 or 30 years from now, it could be common to have old AIM logs and other things dug up during elections (let alone the current practice of employers googling you and checking your Facebook profile). If you have any ambitions, maybe it’s a good idea to watch what you say online
I like this ad from 1980. It’s full of little things that have become cliche in motion graphics, but it still looks fresh (aside from the music and Leonard Nimoy’s voice, haha). The computer animation when it gets to “communications” is slick.
Got this in the mail from Amazon.com. What does your data footprint say about you?
Amazon.com has new recommendations for you based on items you purchased or told us you own.
In this message:
* Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era)
* How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now
* Quantum Mechanics for Scientists and Engineers (Classroom Resource Materials)
* Wall-E (Widescreen Single-Disc Edition)
The scary part is, I wouldn’t mind reading/watching all 4 of them.
One by-product of living alone is realizing how much trash each individual person generates. There’s a mountain of crap out there with my name on it. It makes little efforts like using reusable bags and containers, recycling, second-hand shopping, and generally being more conscious about waste and conservation seem much less insignificant.
There are design projects out there that address this kinda thing by attempting to make consumption and waste visible — like glowing power cords and decorative meters that illustrate the electricity that usage otherwise hums away in the background unnoticed. Things like that, I think, can make a big impact on conservation. They’re potential behavior modifiers that hinge on making individualized information about environmental impact available, like the MPG meter in hybrid cars leading to hypermiling and altered driving habits that emphasize efficiency over other motivators. Feedback is important, and offers a relatively benign way to encourage more conscious behavior. Throw in some incentivization, and you might be getting somewhere.
A psychology professor at Yale University found that holding a hot cup of coffee leads people to judge a stranger to be a warmer person, in terms of such traits as generosity and kindness, compared with a group of people who held a cup of iced coffee.
The implication touched on in the article is that physical/environmental cues – warmth, etc – play a significant role in the consumer/user’s behavior and perception, and should be incorporated into design goals.
“This book is part polemic, part science, part serious and part fun. It examines the effect of poor design and equipment failure on human behavior. Intended for a general audience, it covers user-centered design, the psychopathology of everyday things and the psychology of everyday actions.”
“We are all victimized by the natural perversity of inanimate objects. Here is a book at last that strikes back both at the objects and at the designers, manufacturers, and assorted human beings who originate and maintain this perversity. It will do your heart good and may even point the way to correcting matters.”
— Isaac Asimov
Aesthetics and security. Form and function. What’s the difference between a nice looking security gate and a utilitarian one? Who does it avoid offending (who is the audience)? Does it change the perception of the surrounding area? What’s the point? (Alternatively, why not? Why shouldn’t it look good?)
I don’t think enough thought (creativity, culture, wit/humor/irony, style, humanity, whatever) is put into design, especially for mundane things. What if we lived in a culture that could incorporate a sense of humor into the design of security gates as a matter of course? Like, perhaps, Japan and their all-encompassing emphasis on kawaii (see the Japanese defense ministry’s annual report, published as a manga).
Maybe this hints at a deeper critique of industrialized production, monopolization, and/or the cooptation of the aforementioned design aesthetic (and material culture more generally) by a production process that makes it all subservient to marketing, efficiency, and profit.
I think that computers and the ‘net put some of that creativity back into the hands of individuals, atleast for certain things.
The interface design for Google’s new live stock market app is pretty slick. All kinds of information convergence happening. Notice the way it links to news stories on top of the graph of the stock price.
If I were the type of guy that would spend $35 on a pen, I’d be all over this. But alas I’m not, so I will admire its modern, self-contained, elegant simplicity from afar, while I plod away with my “borrowed” Bics and Uniballs.
THE magazine is yet another trend-spotting zine, but it’s pretty accessible, had a few things that I found genuinely interesting, and the hype is kept at a bearable level.
