Tag Archives: Tube

Magazine rack concept defies common sense with intersecting tubes to hold your books

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We’ve seen an almost endless train of design ideas for furniture, ranging from shelves to chairs to tables. The latter even come in different types, functioning as dining tables, work desks, or anything in between. Although table designs can vary greatly, the one thing that they all have in common is a solid and whole surface to place things on top of them. This is true for almost any piece of furniture as well since there always needs to be a flat surface to hold things or bodies. That’s the kind of standard design that this magazine rack and side table in one throws out the window, utilizing two intersecting groups of tubes to hold up books and magazines in an almost illusion-like manner.

Designer: Deniz Aktay

Although we rely on them critically, it’s almost too easy to trick our brains and our eyes with optical illusions and crafty designs. Logic would tell us that slipping a book into a slot like a grill would let the book fall without something to stop it. That “something,” however, doesn’t need to be the ground or a flat surface, just like what this Interspace magazine rack design concept tries to demonstrate.

The rather confusing piece of furniture is actually made of two groups, both of them a row of steel tubes bent to form a loop. Normally, if you put anything in the space between tubes, it would fall down to the opposite side. The trick that Interspace uses is to connect the two groups perpendicularly to each other while also leaving a small gap in the middle where the bottom of one extends beyond the top of the other or vice-versa.

This creates a sort of natural “stopper” for anything that goes in between the gap since the intersecting tubes below it serve as the “floor” for the item. This works whether inserting the book from the top or from the side. The empty areas formed at the top and bottom of the structure also become spaces for reading materials that might be too thick for the grill. Because of the intersecting design of the tubes, arranging books can become almost like a puzzle, where you decide the best place for them in between the gaps.

The curious form of steel tubes intersecting with one another also creates a rather curious visual, almost to the point that it could confuse the eyes because of the play of form, light, and shadows. The top surface of the rack can also serve as a side table, admittedly for larger objects that don’t risk falling into the gaps. You could, theoretically, also put your drink on top, though it’s probably best to have some tray in between for good measure.

The post Magazine rack concept defies common sense with intersecting tubes to hold your books first appeared on Yanko Design.

TOOB turns bicycle inner tubes into rubbery hand-made accessories

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The interest, purchase, and use of bicycles have seen an uptick in the past few years, but these leg-powered two-wheeled vehicles have been around for decades. Many of their problems have also been around just as long, including the parts that easily get worn down and then thrown away. Although significantly more sustainable than cars or even motorcycles, bikes have parts that are definitely environment-unfriendly. Those range from bits of plastic here and there as well as toxic chemicals used in painting their metal frames. Rubber tires and inner tubes, however, are even bigger sources of pollutants down the road. Fortunately, this line of accessories puts inner tubes to a different use, allowing them to go the distance even after they have served their original purpose.

Designer: Roy Sherizly (TOOB)

Bicycle tires are meant to last a long time, but they do eventually meet their end, sometimes sooner than planned. They get worn down over the years, sure, but accidents might make them completely unusable at some earlier point in time. The same is especially true for inner tubes that can no longer be used entirely when they get damaged. These rubber-based products get thrown out and aren’t biodegradable, so they eventually break down into microplastics that pollute waters and even the soil. That green and sustainable lifestyle you’ve chosen suddenly becomes less so because of these wasted inner tubes.

Fortunately, inner tubes don’t have to be discarded just because a small part has become damaged. They’re no longer usable for bicycle wheels, but that doesn’t mean they need to meet the end of their material life as well. More economical and efficient than recycling, the upcycling mentality has taken root with many designers, and this line of TOOB accessories demonstrates how even something as simple and unattractive as an inner tube can become a useful and even stylish product.

“Useless” bicycle inner tubes are handpicked from Tel Aviv’s local shops and are then inspected and thoroughly cleaned. Depending on how much damage it has, the useful parts are cut off and then transformed into completely different products. The TOOB Keychains, for example, only need a small part of the inner tube. In addition to the material’s natural durability, TOOB adds a strong button that makes it easy to open and close the keychain to look around belts and bags. The TOOB Strap, in contrast, requires a longer stretch of inner tubing. The accessory takes advantage of the tube’s natural stretchy properties to hold things down onto bike rails or other surfaces.

Inner tubes make the perfect material for this kind of heavy-duty accessory, and their clean appearance and smooth surfaces make for a nondescript aesthetic. The keychain, for example, looks discrete, and its black color blends with almost any pair of jeans or bag. TOOB also supports the local bicycle economy by giving shop owners a better way to dispose of their waste.

Inner tubes don’t last forever, though, and TOOB does admit that the material will eventually wear out and dry. Then again, almost everything does eventually, including materials like leather. Ideas like TOOB don’t completely remove synthetic rubber products like tires and tubing from the picture, but it helps delay their inevitable fate in landfills, at least until we can figure out how better and more sustainable alternatives.

The post TOOB turns bicycle inner tubes into rubbery hand-made accessories first appeared on Yanko Design.

This modular low-cost flotation device uses recycled plastic bottles!

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The World Health Organization is spearheading efforts to help children in low-income areas learn how to swim, and the SAVIOUR concept attempts at creating highly-effective, low-cost training tools for children as they gradually pick up swimming. The Saviour is a modular system of interlocking tubes that help you create flotation devices. The tubes don’t float themselves, but rather, allow you to attach multiple plastic bottles around the rim to help the overall product stay afloat. You can either assemble the Saviour to form a U-shaped training apparatus, or join multiple pieces to close the U, turning it into an O-shaped device that children can use as a tube.

The Saviour is low-cost, and its individual modules can easily be 3D-printed based on demand. Moreover, it utilizes plastic bottles, helping recycle waste into something vastly more useful. If a plastic bottle gets damaged, it can easily be replaced with another one, allowing you to quickly upgrade/repair your training gear. Besides, the colorful bands on the Saviour help increase its visibility, allowing you to spot it floating on the water from a distance!

The Saviour Modular Swimming Set is a winner of the Golden Pin Design Award for the year 2020.

Designers: Chih-Shan Huang & Wan-Ju Wu

This float-inspired mouse design is perfect to add some summertime to your desk!

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Every time you think you have seen all kinds of mouse designs, the universe conspires you to bring you yet another one! And this time a conceptual mouse called Tube perfectly captures the mood too – a summer beach float inspired mouse that lets you daydream about a lazy pool day while you work from home.

Tube is unconventional in many ways like it doesn’t have clearly defined scroll or click buttons and the float-like body makes the ergonomics a little questionable. The designer’s idea was to create a slim mouse that didn’t feel like clutter if you left it on your desk. Using the touch scroll technology, the volume of the body has been reduced so it seems to be more like a trackpad-mouse hybrid in terms of form and function. The power can be turned on and off by pressing the top tube, however, if you place your palm on it like how you use a traditional mouse it could accidentally turn off/on and it makes me wonder if there is a lock mechanism for it. I wonder if the whole top is touch-sensitive or just certain areas, it is something that should be distinguished to make it more user-friendly. The yellow is the perfect color for the vision the designer had for the mouse – it makes you happy!

The form itself is very playful and a complete summer vibe. A mouse is such a daily part of our routine that we often don’t look at it with creative possibilities and that is a refreshing perspective that Tube offers. While there needs to be more work done on its form and function to make sure it is intuitive and comfortable for the user, it certainly has the potential to be a great mouse and join its peers on the list of mouse designs we love. We will already have a bias to Tube because who doesn’t love a beach float on their desk!

Designer: Student

Android Pay helps Brits keep track of their Tube spending

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It might have been late to the party, but Google is determined to make Android Pay the de facto payment solution for non-iPhone users in the UK. An update going out "this week" will add some deeper integrations with Transport for London (TfL), includ...