Adapt Tables

(BD)

This year, I got to speak to another member of the team behind EcoSystems, Matt Tyson, about the new items they unveiled.

Their new concept, Snug-It, is so simple and so ingenious. It's basically a kit of brackets that allows you to create just about any piece of furniture you might need.

Figure out whether you want a desk, bookshelves, entertainment center, whatever, or any combination of the above that you could possibly imagine. Get the brackets and go to Home Depot, have the plywood cut into the shapes and sizes you need, and just fit the whole thing together. Quick, cheap, easy, adaptable, perfect.

Tyson told me they're discussing selling the kits along with the pre-cut plywood for the more standard pieces like the desk, and also giving the brackets squared-off slots to avoid the need for a router. When we started talking about being able to find pieces of wood out on the street and turning them into furniture, I got more excited about this, for some reason. For one thing, Snug-It is a heck of a lot nicer than throwing an old door onto a couple of sawhorses, but allows for the reuse of materials and the satisfaction of not needlessly chopping down more trees. Then I started imagining those wonderful swirling patterns of color you get when you sand down a piece of old wood that's been painted fifty times over the years (uncovering lead-based paint notwithstanding). I love all the possibilities of this.

The other new piece of theirs is their "Bada" table:

That's a generously sized table for entertaining, but it can be shortened for normal day-to-day needs, saving valuable space:

But the best thing is that, after dinner, it turns into a loveseat:

You can see another configuration for Snug-It in the background. Unless you live in a studio apartment or have guests sleeping over every other day, I consider Bada to be far more practically useful than a sofabed. Both a table and loveseat one could conceivably use every day, unlike a sofabed, which most of us presumably wouldn't use more than once a month at the most. Even if you do have enough room for two single-use pieces of furniture, this is a much better use of resources, and I'm in full support of that.

©2009, Ryan Witte

Fin's Tale

I also wanted to make a quick note of something I find very exciting. The Museum of the City of New York is right now putting together an exhibition on the work of one of the greatest architects of all time, Eero Saarinen. I knew there were some exhibits chronicling his career in different cities recently, but I'm so glad that we're getting one here in New York. 

Even better, in association with the New York Design Center, the museum is hosting a preview of the show tomorrow night, that is, Tuesday June 2nd. A number of speakers will evidently be discussing some of his more important works, including the curator of the upcoming show, Donald Albrecht. Proceeds from the event go to the museum and also toward the installation of the Saarinen exhibit, which means we can help to make certain it happens.

Green Machine

(NYIAS)

As I've said before, I've been increasingly interested in Lincoln's styling over the past few years. Once again, this year, they didn't disappoint. Their C Concept is one of the more startling things to be found for a number of reasons.

In profile, I'm immediately drawn to the lines at the back. With the curve of the wheel well and the rake of the back window, what could've looked chopped off and stubby takes on a suave sort of 1920s feel. From directly behind, it's solidly planted on the road with an uncommon sense of gravity. It's not gimmicky creases, folds, and veins doing it, either, but just pure massing and volume.

Lincoln has really jumped onto the eco-friendly bandwagon with full force here, but they're going well beyond just saving gas. It does that, too; the C is projected to get 43mpg on the highway, which is remarkable. 

But they're doing a lot of other things, too, like using sustainable materials for the various interior amenities and things like that, like banana leaf mats, soy memory foam padding, and recyclable leather upholstery (although I'm not sure how leather can be entirely recyclable).

There you can see the floral-motif embroidery on the seats, a lovely, artistic touch but a bit girly for my taste. I won't get into how gas-guzzling might or might not be a gendered problem--we men historically do like our engines big, loud, and powerful--but most definitely responsibility toward the planet is on everyone's shoulders.

They're also embracing some interesting new technologies. The onboard computers sound like they have a level of integration well above what we're finding now. It can recognize different drivers and greets you with your own avatar, presumably it will automatically bring up all your own personalized information and preferences. They also claim that it will "learn you," which to me seems to indicate that it will remember your driving preferences even when you don't officially program them into the system. It will track your mood according to how you're driving and other things. And evidently when the C encounters another of its kind on the road, it automatically "winks" at the other C, a little trick with one of the headlights, I gather. I'm a little unclear as to why that'd be a selling point, aside from the caché being in an elite club of car-ownership.

Above all, its lines are striking. Whereas some concepts fail to look like much more than a fantasy version of vehicles already on the road, the C looks like the future.

Its interior is as large as that of the '61 Continental (one of the most gorgeous cars ever built, by the way), but the exterior is only fourteen feet long.

--Photo courtesy Serious Wheels.

They've also given the C the '61's suicide doors, but they're now somewhat amusingly called "freestyle doors." I guess connotations of danger aren't much of a selling point anymore, so they've awkwardly decided to go "urban" with their terminology instead.

©2009, Ryan Witte