Aug

Nancy Judd’s Clever Ideas Keep Trash In Style

by Janine Boylan on August 5, 2013

Convertible Trashique, showing clever ideas in recycled fashion by Nancy Judd

Convertible Trashique
design © Nancy Judd
photo by Eric Swanson
commissioned by Toyota

Recycled Fashion Sends a Message

When I first saw Nancy Judd’s work on display, I rushed over to get a closer look at the beautiful fashions.

But, oh, I see! Judd’s work is not at all what it first appears to be. Judd makes her work out of trash.

Janine Boylan 3 Comments

Clever Ideas/Making a Difference

Jul

Paris Expo: Bravos and Bouquets for Urban Gardens

by Sheron Long on July 15, 2013

Roses on display at Paris Garden Show, featuring creative ideas in urban gardening. Image © Sheron Long

A bouquet of roses brightens a rainy day at Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries, annual Paris garden show.
© Sheron Long

Creative Ideas Find Fertile Ground

Plenty of creative ideas grew in the Paris salon of Gertrude Stein (early 1900s), including her famous quote:

A rose is a rose is a rose.

Though generally interpreted to mean that “things are what they say they are,” I’m not so sure that’s the case when it comes to the term “garden show.”

A garden show is a garden show is not just a garden show when it’s in Paris.

This year, the Paris garden show known as Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries staged its magic in the Tuileries Garden—a stunning display of beauty (superbe, as the French say) and fertile ground for creative ideas in urban gardening.

Can’t Go Out? Go Up!—The Beauty of Vertical Gardens

I bought my ticket to beauty and was enchanted from the moment I saw wispy fabric waving in the wind.

Wall of roses at Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries, a Paris Expo featuring creative ideas in urban gardening. Image © Sheron Long

“L’Instant Grand-Siècle,” exhibit by Nicolas Gilsoul for Laurent-Perrier at Paris garden show
© Sheron Long

What was behind it? A vertical garden of roses—pink and mauve and white and red—created by landscape architect Nicolas Gilsoul for Champagne Laurent-Perrier, a participant in the annual event for the past nine years.

Wall of Roses at Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries, a Paris garden show featuring creative ideas in urban gardening. Image © Sheron Long

Just how big was that bouquet? 10,000 roses and over 15 feet tall!
© Sheron Long

OK, a rose is a rose is a rose, but when I saw 10,000 of them in a vertical garden three times my height, I had to elaborate: Oh-là-là!

Vertical gardens have been around at least since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon in 600 BC. Today, however, they are a new and creative way to address issues in the urban environment.

Green, living urban walls bring to city dwellers the beauty and nature that has long been associated with health and well-being.
Vertical gardens play a role in controlling temperatures inside buildings.
Some vertical gardens are farms, growing food to feed the increasing urban population.

Vertical gardens are as varied as any landscape. See 39 more here.

Do Creative Ideas Change with the Times?

Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries, in partnership with the Louvre Museum, formerly the royal residence at the east end of the Tuileries Garden, began the annual event ten years ago.

Each year, the show addresses creative gardening ideas.

Sign honoring Le Notre to whom Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries dedicated its garden show that features creative ideas in urban gardening. Image © Sheron Long

André le Nôtre made the French formal garden
famous throughout Europe.
© Sheron Long

This year’s event honored landscape architect André Le Nôtre (1613–1700) for his creative genius upon the 400th anniversary of his birth.

Le Nôtre was born into a family of gardeners to kings and was trained in the Tuileries Garden, which he modified between 1666 and 1672.

He is perhaps best known for creating the grand gardens at Versailles for Louis XIV.

Creative ideas often spring from need. Le Notre’s creative challenge was to “think big,” generating ideas that worked on a vast scale, whereas urban spaces today often demand creative ideas that work on a small scale.

Times change, and so do creative solutions.

Somehow, I was sure that Le Nôtre would approve of today’s artists, designers, and landscape architects who are working “small” and “up” to bring beauty to urban spaces.

Ugly Sidewalks? Dress Them Up with Dadagreen®

When I saw this gentleman dressed up as Le Nôtre in the Dadagreen® exhibit, I knew I would find creative ideas there.

Actor playing Le Notre at the 2013 Paris garden admiring the creative ideas in urban gardening in the Dadagreen exhibit. Image © Paule Kingleur

Le Nôtre impersonator sits amidst the creative ideas at the Dadagreen® exhibit.
© Sara Lub

Bringing beauty to fences and grills along streets and bridges, by hospitals and schools, to your balcony—that’s the goal of Dadagreen®, innovative flower pots that combine two old ideas—saddlebags and container gardening—to create fertile ground for an urban garden.

Dadagreen® flower boxes straddling urban railings, a creative idea in urban gardening. Image © Paule Kingleur

Dadagreen® flower boxes ride the railings in Paris and green up urban spaces.
© Paule Kingleur

Dadagreen®, the concept of Paule Kingleur, founder of Paris Label, consists of two saddlebags handmade of recycled tarp and decorated with eye-catching photographs. Filled with dirt, the innovative pots welcome flowers, greenery, and even vegetables for those who want to create a kitchen garden on their street.

The Dadagreen, a creative idea in urban gardening, is planted with zucchini. Image © Paule Kingleur

Zucchini for dinner? Just pick it from your street garden!
© Paule Kingleur

How Do Creative Ideas Sprout and Grow?

In Paule Kingleur’s case, one gray November day, she saw a colorful child’s bonnet with stripes perched atop a street pole, one of those ugly anti-parking barriers.

She noticed how the bonnet dressed up the sidewalk. Committed to an urban life, Paule also believes in the right of urban dwellers to connect with nature.

That’s when she had an “Oh, I see” moment, realizing that she could hang pretty containers, called Potogreens, on existing poles to create micro-gardens and beauty in urban spaces.

Many new ideas are born like this. And often, the first idea leads to another. Later, Paule created the larger Dadagreen® where bigger urban gardens can thrive.

Where will Paule’s ideas go next? All over the city. Not content with prettying up a static sidewalk space, Paule threw the Dadagreen® saddlebags on a bike to take beauty on the road! Now, that’s a creative idea that fits our times!

Bicycle with Dadagreen® flower boxes, a creative idea in urban gardening. Image © Sheron Long

Garden on the go!
© Sheron Long

At Jardins, Jardin Aux Tuileries 2013, the rose wall by Nicolas Gilsoul won the Prix Coup de Coeur (“Lovestruck” Award).

Paule Kingleur’s Dadagreen® won the Prix Innovation Cité Vert (Prize for Green City Innovation).

The name Dadagreen® is a combination of the English word “green,” denoting its green mission, and “dada,” a childish nickname for horse, reflecting its characteristic of a straddle (and a wink at the Dadaist-Surrealist movement).

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Sheron Long 1 Comment

Clever Ideas/France (Paris)/Innovations

Jun

Clever Ideas and Happy Accidents Reinvent the Wheel

by Janine Boylan on June 24, 2013

David Patrick whose clever ideas created Shark Wheels

David Patrick
© 4sphere

How Do Shark Wheels Roll?

Shark Wheel vs old wheels, showing the result of clever ideas

David Patrick had a clever idea: he added a twist to the world’s most perfect invention, the wheel.

And he has patented and hopes to begin creating these twisty wheels for skateboards.

Patrick designed a wheel that looks square from its side, has snake-like curves, but goes faster and smoother than a standard wheel.

In his Kickstarter video, Patrick explains, “The inspiration for this wheel came from a cube…I had figured out how to take six simple shapes and assemble them in such a way that it formed a perfect cube.”

He continues, “The helix shape of it was perfectly balanced so no matter what the terrain, it kept on going.” And it was fast.

Just how does a wavy cube-inspired wheel work? The wheel has a broader contact patch, illustrated by its snake-like tread, or sine pattern. This wider contact means that it won’t dig into soft ground like a traditional wheel will.

an explanation of the Shark Wheel design, showing clever ideas

It also means the wheel performs well: the Shark Wheel prototypes are fast, smooth, and have great grip control.

(Happy) Accidents Will Happen

Patrick had no intention of creating skateboard wheels. In fact, about ten years ago, he owned a software company.

He was working closely with a designer to construct computer drawings of 3D models, when he paused. He recognized that one of their artistic designs, if it was real, would spin.

They had accidentally created a new shape. This was his first Oh, I see moment.

Soon Patrick sold his software company in order to focus on developing the shape into a machine.

A bit later, as Patrick was working on his project, a coworker noticed, “That looks like a propeller. What happens when you blow air on it?”

What happened was: it spun, it was quiet, and it ran quickly. In fact it got up to 50 thousand rpms, considerably faster than other turbines.

Oh, I see moment number two.

It was a good design; it worked well; and it was actually smaller, more attractive, and more efficient than blade turbines.

Then one day, using the same shape over and over, Patrick explains, “It fell on the floor and rolled. Suddenly we had a wheel.”

Oh, I see moment three.

Patrick reflects, “I accidentally invented a machine; from that came a propeller; from that came a wheel. I accidentally fell into all of this.”

Shark Wheels on board, showing the results of clever ideas

Why a Skateboard Wheel?

Patrick is a skateboarder and knew that his wheel would work perfectly in that market. So that’s where he plans to start.

Shark Wheel bike, showing the result of clever ideas

But he’s not stopping there. He envisions companies using his wheel design in many more everyday things like rolling luggage, grocery carts, strollers—anything that, as he says, “when you hit something soft, the thing endos.” He even sees it as a future solution for cars.

“But not bicycles,” he laughs. He created a bicycle-version of the wheel with a frame modified to fit it, but, Patrick says, the design works only on the back wheel. The front wheel requires a double helix. (Oh, I see. Of course.)

And, as if wheels aren’t enough, Patrick hopes to produce wind and water versions of his turbines as he develops his wheels. In fact, he is three months into dynamic tests on a wind-version of the turbine, and Patrick hopes to move into water versions soon.

But Where Did the Name Come From?

Just compare the wheel shape to an actual shark’s jaw.

Shark Jaws and Shark Wheels, illustrating creative ideas

Plus I think Patrick is planning to use his clever ideas to take a huge bite out of the wheel industry!