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.Category Archives: research
Design for Behaviour Change
Exercise more. Turn off the lights. These are among many messages we receive about how we should change our behaviour for the better. Now a German designer, Matthias Laschke and a team of students are proposing designs that help us make the changes, reports co-exist.
“if you choose the car key, the bike key drops to the ground, forcing you to pick it up and reconsider your decision.”
He calls them “pleasurable troublemakers” and they include:
- an elevator that takes you to the floor below where you’re going so you can walk up the last flight of stairs
- key hooks that will drop the key to your bike lock on the floor when you choose your car key
- a light turns off slowly unless you keep touching it to indicate you still need the light
On the project’s website, http://www.pleasurabletroublemakers.com, each object comes with a short paper that details the concept. Handy for researcher types!
Paper in the Rye
Designers working on making paper from ag waste favor Rye fibers, reports Shea Gunther for Mother Nature Network. Professor Eric Benson (graphic design) and partners at the University of Illinois are running project Fresh Press to explore how they can turn locally available agricultural waste into paper, creating a “zero waste” alternative paper-making. They’ve built… Continue Reading
What can you do with mushroom materials?
Ecovative is a biomaterials company making its name in mushrooms — their material is grown, not manufactured. I feel myself wanting to add: shaken, not stirred…or stir fried! Ecovative’s “grow factories” produce mushroom mycelium, a natural, self-assembling glue. The mushrooms digest crop waste “to produce cost-competitive and environmentally responsible materials that perform.” The company is… Continue Reading
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