In celebration of The Senses: Design Beyond Vision, this Object of the Day post takes a multisensory approach to an object in Cooper Hewitt’s permanent collection. This cut and folded paper sphere created by Masahiro Chatani in 1980 is a complex example of “origamic architecture,” a type of kirigami (切り紙)—from the words kiru (to cut)...
The idiosyncratic graphic designer April Greiman designed the poster Your Turn, My Turn for a 1983 symposium in Los Angeles, California. The conference aimed to discuss the roles of artists, designers, and architects within the field of design and possibilities for multidisciplinary collaboration.[1] In deference to the conference’s ambitions, Greiman embraces innovation and freedom in...
Imaginative author Robert Louis Stevenson wrote in his 1884 essay, A Penny Plain and Twopence Coloured, “If you love art, folly, or the bright eyes of children, speed to Pollock’s…”[1] The toy theatre was a beloved pastime in 19th-century England that appealed to the creativity and craftsmanship of children and adults. Benjamin Pollock inherited his...
The design for Bloom was inspired by photographs of the cacti which the artist used to compose this lush explosion of blooms. Bloom is part of a collection of 3D or anaglyph wallpapers produced as a collaboration between Connecticut wallpaper company twenty2 and Pratt Institute. While many people think of 3D or anaglyph imagery as...
See how state-of-the-art 3D scanning, 3D imaging, and 3D printing techniques came together in this epic effort to fully model Andrew Carnegie’s 1903 mansion in the heart of New York City. The Cooper Hewitt museum, which is housed by the Carnegie mansion, has made this 3D data freely available for architects, filmmakers, video game developers,...
Lit Tree is an augmented-reality project which lets you use hand gestures to interact with an illuminated tree. Usually, a projector emits a field of pixels, creating a flat image on a flat surface. Lit Tree uses two projectors to emit a field of voxels, or 3-D pixels, onto a bamboo tree. A Kinect scans...
Augmented reality, or AR, is a rapidly developing area of interaction design. The point of AR is to enhance your surroundings, whether you're visiting a new city, reading a book, or shopping for groceries. It's similar to the idea of virtual reality, but instead of sweeping you out of your environment into an alternate world,...
Andrew Jimenez is Director of Short groups at Pixar Animation Studios. Together with Brad Bird, Andy developed the use of pre-visualization 2D and 3d storyboard animatics, a technique utilized on both films.
Register now to participate in a FREE Cooper-Hewitt workshop all about 3-D printing. Starting on April 30th, the workshop will consist of five hands-on sessions led by Matt and Mike of Makerbot Industries. Founded in 2009, Makerbot is the Brooklyn-grown 3-D printing firm that has taken the DIY electronics scene by storm with its spirited,...