Re-Use is a DIY diary and notebook that allows you to save 50% of the office A4 paper you would normally discard. It is free and released under Creative Commons (Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike) license.

Preparing the 2012 edition, we decided to re-design it, in order to make it even more customizable and flexible. It is now a template, re-usable every year, to be completed and hacked as you wish. Download the PDF file and print it on the unused side of your boring papers. The Re-Use PDF file is available here.

Print it- fold it – punch it – bind it. The graphics are designed in a way that with one single layout you can have three different formats: A4-A5-A6. Use it as an agenda, an organizer, a journal, a sketch book or whatever comes to your mind. Happy new projects!

Being an architect I like to design things that anyone can manufacture. A good design can turn the world population into the bigger creative industry ever known: an aware industry where ideas becomes effectively tangible. In this sense I like to draw recipes and instructions manuals as ultimate design tools of our times, so to produce devices that anyone can make. Readykea is a modular system realized with two IKEA pieces (Trofast and Antonius) combined and reversibly assembled with the use of zip ties. The design consists essentially in the functional subversion of these two IKEA products.

Readykea is a behavioral furniture conceived as an exhibition device commissioned by the DADA House, also known as the Cabaret Voltaire Zurich for the show “DADA New York II: Revolution to Smash Global Capitalism“. The exhibition is curated by Adrian Notz and Philip Meier. The featured artists are: The Yes Men, Reverend Billy, Voina Group, Irwin, Königreiche von Elgaland-Vargaland, Mc Ghillie, !Mediengruppe Bitnik, UBERMORGEN, Roland Wagner.

The exhibition had to be cheap, easy to store, easy to replicate elsewhere, easy to ship, easy to carry around and easy to dismantle. It is conceived as a shop, as a compound and as a workshop in progress. The brief requested three exhibition units containing the sections of the show (documentation – vision – action), a reception desk, a workshop desk, a bed to host a ‘revolutionary in residence’, eight stools and a corner for media content productions such as blogs and social media actions.

It was supposed to be a “guerrilla exhibition” and so it is.

The idea is that you need “capitalism” to “smash capitalism”. So, why IKEA? Because it is cheap, because it is everywhere and because it is open on Sunday. This is an instruction manual: make it, share it, distribute it, but most of all have fun!

As designers we give ideas a form and we transform them into things. We can’t certainly solve the world’s challenges, but what we can do is to create a concrete storytelling about them. A narrative.

Malthus is one of these tales. It is an in-home aquaponics unit designed for the next generation kitchen or living room. It grows one meal a day: a portion of fish and a side salad. Aquaponics farming is a technique that combines the cultivation of fish with the growing of vegetables. The fish provides rich fertilizer for the plants and in return, the plants clean the water from the tank. The fish and the plants co-exist in a symbiotic relationship.

Malthus is an appliance for the kitchen of the future that grows food right next to where you cook it. Malthus consists of a fish tank that holds 400 litres which can support more then 2kg of fish like tilapia, salmon, grey fish or carp. The water is pumped through three cultivated grow beds which filter the water for the fish.

Malthus is designed to optimize space and costs with indoor food production. The weight of the fish tank is comparable to the one of a full bathtub, its width is about the size of two small refrigerators. Its parts are made of elements available in most DIY stores.

Malthus #01 was built thanks to the collaboration of Ola Nilsson and presented for the first time at the 10^th edition of NESS – Nordic Environmental Social Sciences Conference – Stockholm 14^th -16^th June 2011 within the context of the exhibition “Power Landscapes” curated by Po Hangström. The theme of the conference is also the theme of an art project where the invited artists (Katia Aglert, New Beauty Council, Cristine Ödlund) presented works on design as a tool for social and environmental engagement.

Malthus has a planned production limited to 100 numbered pieces. The first piece (Malthus #00) is the prototype currently running in our office in Zurich, thanks to Laura Vargalyte, our intern. The design and the production factors of Malthus have been made possible by the technical support of Andreas Graber from UrbanFarmers and Head of the Aquaponics project of the Zurich University of Applied Science who has introduced us to urban farming and to Aquaponics techniques.

A special acknowledgement goes to Stefano Massa for making things run smoothly throughout the project. This text has been kindly edited with the collaboration of Liz Henry Economou of Nuance Words.

Fish and Crops is an aquaponic unit that grows one meal. Directly where it is cooked. Aquaponic is a farming technique that combines the cultivation of fish in a symbiotic environment with crops: fish fertilize the water that nourish the plants. Plants clean the water from organic waste in return.

Conceptual Devices is pleased to announce that the results of the first Design Royale Workshop will be exhibited at Fuori Salone in Milano during the design week. A big thank you to all the students who participate to this workshop: Tommy Bett,  Katie Ogden, David Rose, Elizabeth Tschirhart, Joshua Wilson, Darren Yeo Jun Xian.

Design Royale is an on-line workshop, a party-in-progress, and the best mind-boggling night of the Milan Design week. It’s an ongoing project built through human relationships & lots of fun. 21 days of digital work using social media (facebook, twitter, flickr). 14 days of physical work in Milan hideaways 7 days of play and hard work and games on-the-spot …and 1 long night at the giardino segreto – a magical hidden space of tricks where everyone is invited. An extravaganza of elephants, a sauna, a hot-air balloon kitchen, tarot cards, inflatable sumo suits, friendly bento boxes, rope ladders, nets and hammocks, a household aquarium, and a coffin experience + much more… 15th april, via della Moscova 28, Milan (from 11.00 pm through the night).

TOI is a system of graphic templates for do-it-yourself leaflets designed for Vestire i Paesaggi, and used as an archival tool for territorial cultural activities. For TOI, the territory itself is the archive. TOI’s graphic templates use two types of tags: analog tags (shelf marks that define categories of intervention) and digital tags (sematags that resolve into multimedia contents and augment the information of things and places related, providing access to online archival documentation).

Booklets, postcards, headed papers, posters are designed to be printed on the back of A4 already used paper. TOI graphic templates are downloadable as SVG and as PDF and distributed under Creative Commons license.

Instant book: Download Template PDF | SVG | How to Video.

Headed Paper: Download Template PDF | SVG | How to video.

Headed Brochure: Download Template PDF | SVG | How to video.

Archive Record: Download Template PDF | SVG | How to video.

Post Card / Envelope: Download Template PDF | SVG | How to video.

The Italian Constitution, if compared with the real country, looks like a subversive manifesto.

Italy up in Smoke is a project for the promotion of the Italian Constitution abroad. The articles (in English) are framed into the non smoking graphic policy of the European Community. Italy up in Smoke is a way to say basta. We want to let everyone know what our constitution say. We want to say it loud, we want to say it now and we want to say it to an international audience. It is time for designers to take a position.

This is an Italia in fumo special edition with the article n.3. Here you can download the DIY kit. If you happen to be  in Milan for the design week, join us at bar basso Saturday the 17th  at 23.00. If you come with an “Italy Up in Smoke” t-shirt you will get a drink offered from us.

A hoodie is not just a hoodie. In a world full of stuff, smart items should be transformable, editable. They should engage the possibility to be transformed into something else. We do not need a new object. We  rather need to get rid of some of them, to reduce the complex network of things around us. Just undo it is a collection of reversible objects that could be made from a hoodie at no cost. How to videos here.

A hoodie is not just a hoodie. In a world full of stuff, smart items should be transformable, editable. They should engage the possibility to be transformed into something else. We do not need a new object, a new thing. Rather we need to get rid of some of them, to reduce the complex network of things around us.

Just undo it is a collection of reversible objects that could be made from a hoodie at no cost, no particular knowledge nor tools.
The instructions about how to make a computer sleeve was just published in this month issue of WIRED Italia. Check it out.

Re-Use is a diy diary that allow you to save 50% of the office A4 paper you discard. Download the PDF file and print it on the unused side of your boring papers. The 2010 Re-Use PDF file is available here.
Print it- fold it – punch it – bind it. The graphics are designed in a way that with one single layout you can have three different formats: A4-A5-A6. Re-Use is free and under Creative Commons – not commercial – share alike licence. Happy new year!

Our project Italia in fumo will be exhibited  online at “the word is yours“. Opening 15th of October at 00.00 until November 19th at 23.00. Care of Gaspare Caliri.

Italia in fumo is a project in collaboration with Peppe Clemente for the promotion  of the Italian constitution. The articles are framed within the graphic appearance of the non smoking policy of the European Community. Italia in fumo means, in Italian, “Italy made of smoke” and “Italy is burning out”. Our intent is to claim the deep gap between the actual country and the beauty of its constitution. You can download DIY devices for “non smoking” Italian Constitution here.

Yeeeeeeeehh!!!

In the course of the Symposium “The Future of the Informal” at the 4th International Rotterdam Architecture Biennale (NAI Rotterdam) the winners of the Squatcity-Urbaninform Competition have been announced.

The winning projects and honorable mentions were selected by the Squatcity-Urbaninform Jury out of 60 entries in the categories: DESIGN (Space, Technology and Material), SOCIO-ECONOMICS (Participation and Empowerment) and POLITICS (Good Urban Governance). The Jury was composed of members of the IABR curatorial team: Tim Rieniets (IABR), Fabienne Hoelzl (IABR), Can Altay (IABR-Refuge), Michelle Provoost (IABR-Makable Society), Georgeen Theodore (IABR-Community), Stephen Cairns (IABR-Reciprocity), Bart Goldhoorn (IABR-Collective) and Rainer Hehl (IABR-Squat).

Our project RIKEA (a manual about how to make a free market set with Ikea re-assembled furniture) will take part at the International Architecture Biennale, Rotterdam 25 Sept - 10 Jan 2010. Our participation includes a prototype and a “mini” documentary that will be part of the Urbaninform platform.

How to: destroy the first issue of of Wired Uk and make something with it. They say printed magazine are dead. Wired Unplugged is a proposal to give them a second chance. This project was published on the second issue of Wired UK and the second issue of Wired Italia. If you feel frustrated about the instructions you can watch the how to videos here and here.

They say printed magazines are dead. Wired Unplugged is an “how to” proposal I have made to give them a second chance. The idea is that they can be designed to be transformed into something else. In the second issue of WIRED UK there are five different example of simple things you could do with it. You can see some how to videos in the magazine’s website here and here.

In my opinion this would: a) bring the message of the magazine (and its advertising) in places that would never be reached otherwise [example: make a "fish and chips holder" or a "paper wallet" and go to parties with it]; b) Add symbolic a value on the transformable page [more real estate value for the advertising on a D-I-Y piece of art or design to go]; c) Make mag fetishists buy more copies [one to collect, one to destroy]; d) Allow people to re-use the magazine in a different way than tun on a fire after they’ve read it.

Wired unplugged was taken seriously by wired magazine. One page appeared on the second issue of WIRED ITALIA where I have made instructions about how to make bio-vases and now two pages on the second issue of WIRED UK. If you are willing to do it your self with Wired or with other magazine please post it here!

Microstructures for instant urbanization: the free market square Ballon, Turin. [with Marco Lampugnani]

RIKEA is a prototype for a micro urban structure that conceives the free market Ballon, Turin, as a system of “instant urbanization”. The project was prototyped together with IKEA and Italcementi. It consists of tiles for the recognition of the merchants’ position on the public space (Italcementi) where it is possible to install elements of the system “broder” produced by IKEA in order to support temporary shelters. The re-use of the foldable sofa “svingen” (Ikea) is adapted to realize a trolley for goods delivery. RIKEA is produced within the context of geodesign an event organized by the italian architectural magazine Abitare.

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