Abacá employs residues from banana harvesting and recycles them into a high-pressure decorative laminate. Developed by Lamin-art, the laminate consists of fibers which are sprinkled over an array of background colors to yield a random, non-directional design and texture.
Abacá is offered in ten natural hues in 4’ X 10’ sheets, and standard grade thickness (.048”). Abacá is suitable for both horizontal and vertical applications where maximum impact resistance and durability are required. Moreover, the recycled banana fibers and paper products in Abacá comprise approximately 40% of post-industrial recovered content. [via Lamin-art.]
XsunX has developed very thin translucent coatings and films that create large area monolithic solar cell structures. This semi-transparency makes their so-called Power Glass glazing desirable for placing over glass, plastics, and other see-through structures. Using patented processes, such as reel-to-reel manufacturing techniques and multi-terminal cell structure designs, XsunX is working to commercialize large area cell manufacturing processes for thin film flexible plastics.
XsunX claims that Power Glass may provide as much as a 100% efficiency-to-cost gain over conventional opaque solar cells. This 100% gain in efficiency-to-cost is based on estimates of Power Glass solar cells operating at as much as 50% the efficiency of conventional opaque amorphous solar cells yet costing as little as 25% to produce. [via the XsunX website; suggested by Clayton Whitman, Seattle.]
Textile designer Ane Lykke has developed a three-dimensional wallpaper which explores the visual parallax created by two multicolored layers of hexagonal boxes. Currently on display at the Danish Design Centre, her so-called "Mind the Gap" wall decoration inspires interaction with the observer.
”The exhibition explores a very common phenomenon, which we have all experienced, for example when passing two parallel grid fences. As we move we see new wave forms or patterns arising. This is the principle that I have used in the exhibition. I want to find new ways of affecting the perception of a space, demonstrating that the spectator plays a crucial part,” says Ane Lykke, who adds that in physics this phenomenon is referred to as interference patterns.
Mind the Gap consists of a two-layered wall where the layers are separated by a 14 cm-space. The layers are made of hexagonal plastics boxes with stripes made of red lines in varying density and directions. The two layers turn into large pattern areas that change with the light and the spectator's movements. As Ane Lykke puts it, the wall is "passively waiting” and is only activated when the spectator moves within the space. Then variations of the patterns follow along as a film, forming a living, vibrating surface. In this way, the spectator alters the wall. [via
http://www.dexigner.com/.]
On James Carpenter's Blue Glass Passage at Seattle's new City Hall, fully exposed edges and the "lack of cumbersome fixtures" give the glass bridge the look of a "transposed slice of water." New DuPont SentryGlas Secure technology enabled aluminium inserts to be laminated directly into the bridge's glass floor, giving an innovative technical solution for the aesthetic look the designers wanted.
In the first application of DuPont SentryGlas Secure technology worldwide, James Carpenter Design Associates (JCDA) of New York has created a striking, cobalt blue, laminated glass bridge, 20 m long, over which Seattle City Hall council members walk to enter the building’s chambers.
The patented DuPont technology was designed to enable architects to design with a robust new generation of laminated glass applications that meet stringent security – or seismic – standards worldwide. Its inventors at DuPont Glass Laminating Solutions Central Research & Development have said: “SentryGlas Secure technology utilizes the engineered properties of SentryGlas Plus ionoplast interlayer with astonishing results.” This is based on the fact that SentryGlas Plus ionoplast interlayer bonds well to a range of materials beyond glass, meaning that enhanced performance can be ‘engineered in’ to the overall construction. [via the Dupont website; suggested by Kai Uwe Bergman, Copenhagen.]
Thanks to research from the University of Southern California and Princeton University, almost any surface in a building, whether flat or curved, could become a light source: walls, curtains, ceilings, cabinets or tables.
Scientists studying organic light-emitting devices (OLEDs) have made a critical leap from single-color displays to a highly efficient and long-lived natural light source. The invention, described in the April 13 issue of Nature, is the latest fruit of a 13-year OLED research program led by Mark Thompson, professor of chemistry in the USC College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, and Stephen Forrest, formerly of Princeton University and now vice president for research at the University of Michigan.
"This process will enable us to get 100 percent efficiency out of a single, broad spectrum light source," Thompson said. If the device can be mass-manufactured cheaply - a realistic expectation, according to Thompson - interior lighting could look vastly different in the future.
Since OLEDs are transparent when turned off, the devices could even be installed as windows or skylights to mimic the feel of natural light after dark - or to serve as the ultimate inconspicuous flat-panel television. [via Smart Economy, April 14, 2006; suggested by Walter Derzko, Toronto.]
