No bachelor pad's complete without one!

In the future, single men will take the sting out of alienation by tending to the needs of giant robotic maggots. Or something like that.

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Ever wondered what might happen if David Cronenberg designed furniture?

Learn more about this piece by Ka-Lai Chan here.

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Le petit prince

This Little Guy Might Grow Your Tomatoes on Mars

"Le petit prince" (the little prince) is a miniature greenhouse (concept) intended to walk a plant around Mars' surface in search of optimal growing conditions -- elements from light to nutrients. Eventually the robot masters its environment, sharing growing tips with a whole swarm of bots plant-growing robots.

But the prince is not just a growing machine -- the designer and 2009 Electrolux Design Lab finalist considers the bot first and foremost as a "pet" or "silent friend" to keep a colonist company.

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NOAH

NOAH: Mammoth Pyramidal Arcology Designed for New Orleans

Now, a real-life a group of ambitious designers has taken their looming pyramidal arcology and placed it smack dab on the Mississippi River as a proposal for the rebuild of New Orleans which is currently in progress. This 30 million square foot beast-building with an array of green features is aptly named NOAH (Get it? Noah and the Arcology?), and is meant to house 40,000 mostly human residents.

I first encountered the idea of arcologies in none other than Richard Hoagland's "The Monuments of Mars," in which he speculates that the pyramidal features in the vicinity of the iconic "Face" served as vast encapsulated habitats for the "Martians" -- whoever they might have been.





Perhaps the most intriguing such candidate Martian arcology is the "D&M Pyramid," a symmetrical, faceted formation that looks like it could be a heavily eroded artificial structure. Could an extraterrestrial species have constructed the D&M as a refuge from a disintegrating environment?

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"We do the work, you do the pleasure."

Yeah, I realize that Makoto Tanijiri's Nature Factory is supposed to look arboreal. So why can't I shake the image of the rampant ductwork in Terry Gilliam's "Brazil"?

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In a perfect world

AIRBIA: Awesome Suburban Airships Take Flight

Designed by Alexandros Tsolakis and Irene Shamma, the airship infrastructure system ferries passengers quickly and easily from their suburban homes to urban city centers, and we imagine that gliding through the clouds at the break of dawn each day would make for a heck of a morning commute.

I love the unearthly-looking beings emerging from the fittingly UFO-like airship. I bet the real suburbanites are cowering in the nearest Wal-Mart.

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But where's Gort?

This conceptual dwelling speaks to my sense of futurity. While there are plenty of capsule-like micro-houses out there, I have yet to see one with MercuryHouseOne's deliciously retro, tongue-like "boarding ramp."

(Alas, this might qualify as an exception.)

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Have cube, will travel

This immediately reminded me of the cardboard squatter community depicted in William Gibson's "Idoru." (Evidently Gibson thought so too.) Bruce Sterling calls this sort of thing "design fiction" -- and certainly conceptualism can rival the best science fiction short-stories in terms of implied narrative.

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What's with the giant black sperm cell in your living room?

Discomfiting appearance aside, this suggestively biomorphic heater looks remarkably comfortable.

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Another Cronenbergian touch-interface in-the-making

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I want this clock.

It reminds me of a severed, chrome-dipped insect limb.

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Leisurespace

This proposal for a car showroom/leisure center by Manuelle Gautrand Architecture seems lifted from the luminously decadent universe of Second Life, where structures seem to exist on the margins of the possible. Perhaps the future of the psychedelic "trip" hinges on the transcendent potential of architecture, both real and virtual.

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"Peripetics"

(Thanks to Beyond the Beyond.)

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The fallout shelter of the 21st century?

Extra Room from Bernd Hopfengaertner on Vimeo.

Learn more here.

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Flying saucers everywhere!

This record player doesn't actually exist yet, but word is the folks at Area 51 are hard at work making it a reality.





More information and photos here.





The seemingly physics-defying LP puts me in mind of that axle-less concept car (above), which I still contend was inspired by the "drone" fiasco.

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Xenomorph

WAHHA GO GO nonsense machine (w/ video) (Pink Tentacle)

To activate the machine -- which looks like a skeletal humanoid with accordion-like lungs and a big toothy grin that takes up half its head -- simply spin the heavy metal disk mounted on its torso. WAHHA GO GO rears back its head, takes a deep breath, and exhales through artificial vocal cords to emit an uncanny laugh that invites you to laugh along with it (or at it).

Yes, we laugh -- but considering WAHHA GO GO's worryingly Gigeresque mug, perhaps out of self-defense.

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Pseudosaucers

Do you sense a theme here?




























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Saucer groove

What about Music? UFO Drums

Music evolves. So do the instruments. And when they do, some instruments turn into UFO's, probably because designers like to associate futurism with alien vessels.

What was I just saying about everything looking extraterrestrial?

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But is it Bluetooth compatible?

Motorola celebrates 25 years of mobile phones with 12 concepts that look nothing like mobile phones

In an effort to build such a mythology, 31 of Motorola's designers, from five different offices around the globe, have been dedicating a portion of their time since late last year to a project called "Motorola 2033." The initiative, under the auspices of the Consumer Experience Design team (CXD), uses the 25th anniversary of the mobile phone as an opportunity to imagine mobile device design 25 years on, resulting in a curious set of research-based blue sky concepts rooted in some fantastical, yet plausible suppositions.

My favorite of the bunch is the Tender, shown above; I think it looks like a UFO. (Then again, sometimes I think everything looks vaguely extraterrestrial.)

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Mandala

Lamentably, "Blade Runner" didn't see this one coming.



Hell, even William Gibson missed the boat.

(Thanks: Boing Boing.)

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