Dorm Room Inspiration From Around The Globe
Dorm rooms are on my mind this week and next. Everyone needs a little inspiration, so I thought I’d send some ideas your way. There are several favorites over at Apartment Therapy that I thought you’d enjoy, starting with this Indian-inspired nook that looks nothing like a dorm room to me. Bravo on that! You can see the other ideas by following this link.
Goucher College’s LEED-certified Athenaeum
The first time I went to college my choice was Goucher, located in Towson, Maryland. I was a theater major. Since then, I’ve gone back to school (The College for Creative Studies) to earn a degree in Interior Design. But I never forgot my first Alma Mater. I’ve been a faithful class agent (begging for money from classmates) since graduation. And I’m still close friends with many of my Goucher buddies.
I met last week with Nancy Turner, the Director of Development and Alumnae Affairs, and was thrilled to hear first-hand about Goucher’s new library and cultural center – The Athenaeum. It’s a green building with a silver rating from LEEDs. Let’s take a little tour.
When I attended, Goucher was an all women’s college. We were fairly ticked when they started admitting men. But you have to roll with the times. I am no longer ticked, but enthused about their international approach to education. Every student must spend at least 3 weeks studying in another country. They’re the first college to dedicate themselves to the global village, so to speak.
The exterior is constructed from Butler stone, redwood and copper.
Part of the environmental design includes 2 grass-covered roofs. Grass acts as an insulator to keep heating costs low. The large windows are light sensitive and change throughout the day to make the best use of the natural energy.
The Forum is the central feature of the new Athenaeum. It’s modeled after the amphitheaters of Europe. The cool thing is that the character can change according to what happens to be oging on. The steps leading up from the stage can accommodate crowds of varying sizes.
There’s more!
Twiggy in Letters by Caroline Ross
Caroline Ross, a design student here in Michigan,  created this for an assignment and I thought it was pretty cool. The assignment required students to create an image of a person using only typography and including a quote from the person in question.
I think she did an especially good job with the eyelashes. Caroline, what typeface did you use?
Do you remember Twiggy? She is now an actress, but in the 1960′s she was a super model known for being very thin – hence “Twiggy”.
Electrolux Design Lab Winners
Electrolux has announced the winners of this year’s Design Lab Competition. The challenge asked industrial design students from around the world to send in their home appliance designs for the next 90 years (Electrolux is celebrating their 90th anniversary).
Here are this year’s winning designs.
Grand Prize: Cocoon Meat & Fish Cooker
Cocoon is a conceptual cooker designed by Rickard Hederstierna from Lund Institute of Technology in Sweden. It uses radio frequency identification (RFID) signals to identify muscle cells in meat and fish dishes and suggests cooking times. The idea is to “use science to create food, thereby decreasing the burden on the planet by reducing the need for intensive fishing and farming.”¬† The concept is to ‚Äúgrow‚Äù meat and fish from pre-packaged sachets, like making popcorn in a microwave. So you don’t actually catch the fish or raise the cow. Well, it looks cool, but I can’t stop thinking of Soylent Green.
Here are the other finalists.
Teleport Fridge
Beam me up, Scotty! Designed by Dulyawat Wongnawa, from  Chulalongkorn University in Thailand, The Teleport Fridge simply takes your order for food and teleports it directly to you, nice and fresh. It reverses the process by taking the leftovers and transporting them to the recycling center. I need this right now.
Flying In The Rain
From China, student Penghao Shan, Zhejiang, from Sci-tech University, comes a device that uses flying balls to catch rain water, purifies it and delivers it to the drinker. The homing tray also reads fingerprints to determine what additives should be added to the water to ensure the drinker optimizes his or her health.
Mol?©culaire
This concept was a little difficult for my tiny brain to understand. It’s a 3D molecular food printer. Designer, Nico Kl?ɬ§ber, from the K?Éln International School of Design, Germany, was influenced by chefs who scientifically experiment with food and food to create fresh ideas. The Mol?©culaire simplifies the cooking process and acts as a computer numerical control (CNC) food printer. It autonomously prepares basic and otherwise difficult-to-create two and three dimensional parts of meals. It works with a layer-by-layer printing process using small particles from diverse ingredients. This provides simplicity, accuracy, repeatability and, of course, great tasting food! Anyone who can explain this to me get a Design Hole T shirt.
Read on! Read More…
Enter to Win Great Prizes in the Dorm Room D?©cor Contest
This is a reminder that it’s still not too late to enter my Dorm Room D?©cor Contest! You have until the end of the month to show off your decorating and budgeting skills. Can you decorate a room for $100 or less? You know you can.
The top three designs will win super-fantastic prizes from FLOR, Always Mod, Alluminare, and Benjamin Moore. For more details on prizes (some shown here), follow this link, and this one. Then start designing!
And, you don’t have to do one in “real life”. Email me and I’ll send you a floor plan (only 13′ x 10′) of a virtual room complete with photos.
Anyone who wants to enter should email me for the rules at designholeonline at gmail dot com. They’re very simple – I promise.
Need some ideas? Here are a few.
- Dress up a wall using decals. You can make your own easily.
- Buy stuff from the hardware store, like yard sticks and washers , to create your own mural.
- Drag something from over your Mom’s house and paint it.
- Buy a white sheet at K-Mart and tie dye it.
- Make some iron-on decals and design your own matching curtains and bedspread made from old sheets.
Have fun! But don’t forget to email me for the rules. There are lots of ideas there, too.
