The Food Cart of Museums

The SF Mobile Museum is on the prowl, people. Like the entrepreneurial foodies who insert themselves into the fabric of the city with their pop up food cart food courts, the SF Mobile Museum is taking its message directly to its audience, with no walls to keep them out or the work in. I especially like that the current exhibit Genius Loci, works about places with resonance, is doing its part to make the locations it visits a bit more resonant.

All of this public art goodness is the work of Maria Mortati, who, in addition to curating the work for the show, has installed it at the Studio for Urban Projects in SF and The Denver Community Museum, and now wherever the hell she feels like it.

I walked over to Dolores Park to check it out during Mission Open Studios, and it was a really cool scene. It was attracting a lot of attention, but it felt totally at home. Maybe this inside-out museum thing has legs. It definitely goes with red wine in a paper Coke cup.

Model Maker Gets His Due

Italian designers are renowned--especially the great masters from the magical third quarter of the 20th century. Folks like Achille Castiglioni, Enzo Mari, Ettore Sottsass and Marco Zanuso were revolutionary thinkers. But to bring those thoughts to life, they needed model makers. Giovanni Sacchi helped all those guys, and more, bring those thoughts to life with his hands. Designers today have unprecedented control of surfaces and forms. With CAD, I can, all by myself, take a concept from a thought to a ready to mold database. But that way of working is missing something. Its missing guys like Mr. Sacchi. He interpreted 2D drawings into 3D objects. And his very human touch--the way he broke an edge with sandpaper or worked a form with his chisel, necessarily left the hand of the model-maker in the design. Today, the person who ends up doing the CAD for the lead designer does the model maker's job. They interpret. They figure out the detailing. They ultimately build the surfaces that will make of break the overall effect. But for all the power and precision of CAD, there's something about an object that has been touched by a hand, and considered not just virtually, but actually. That feels good. At least it feels good to me.

I love the designed-by-a-patternmaker look too. That's the look that old shop equipment has; presses and mills and lathes. Its focused without being too self conscious. But here is some of that feeling AND Castiglioni!

So here's to you Giovanni. Celebrate his contribution to the world of design through the Giovanni Sacchi Archive. And thanks to Designboom for their story on this.

Making the most of the dimensions you have.

My friend Andre sent me this AMAZING link to the work of Rinus Roelofs. I've done some work with things that fold and join in unusual ways, but this stuff is absolutely amazing. He's like a three dimensional M.C. Escher--carefully constructing a tessellation of identical pieces that nest together to make a surprising whole. Part japanese carpenter, part Bucky Fuller, Rinus sees pattern in a way few people do. Quickly, get over there and check it out. In the mean time, here are a few more objects to ponder.

Recession + Foodies + Twitter = Food Cart Scene

Something amazing is happening in San Francisco. And I hear its happening all over the country. People who want to make a little cash in this depressed economy are turning their passion for food into a small business. But how do you find customers? The answer is they find you. By connecting with customers through social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, food carts (mostly they're folding tables) connect with their clientele in real time. And it works. This little gathering in our neighborhood park was PACKED. And our good friend Ana Carolina (second photo from the bottom) and her Brazilian Bites cart was sold out before the crowds dispersed. Cheap, delicious, unusual, capricious food on the fly is fun! Look for Brazilian Bites (of course), but don't forget to follow Soul Cocina, the Lumpia Guys and Smitten Ice Cream (made on the spot with liquid nitrogen!).

Familiar, but not the same.

I love stickback chairs. If you are using solid wood (as opposed to metal or plywood or plastic), its probably the lightest, strongest way to build a chair. And, as is so often the case, that kind of efficiency exudes elegance. That's what good modernism does--express a synergy between materials, structure, form and people.

But sometimes modernism can get a bit sterile. Too much uniformity and austerity lacks warmth. I was lucky enough to visit the Eames House a few years ago and was taken aback by two things. One, it was small! They built it on a budget, and knew how to extract the most from the grand and cozy spaces they created. But the other thing was that it was a really, really warm feeling place. Ray and Charles appreciated that synergy between materials, form and people--not a particular style. That synergy permeated everything they did, and the objects and architecture they surrounded themselves with.

This family of stickback chairs by Lina Nordquist has that sense of warmth to me. They're mismatched enough to feel different from each other--but all have their own internal logic. It feels like a family--not a clone army. I like that. Its warm.

The Tenth Dimension and How to Get There...

Wow. This is the best, most visual, explanation of the 10 dimensions (eleven if you count dimension 0) that encompass Everything with a capital E. Everything (with a capital E) is all possible timelines in all possible universes--the dimension that the super strings vibrate in.

When I was in High School, my outstanding geometry teacher (and dashiki wearing, former rocket scientist) Ed Murrell recommended that we read Flatland to help us to imagine the leap from 3 to 4 dimensions, and beyond. At the same time, I was obsessed with physics in general. I had been exposed to the very fine info-comic Einstein for Beginners, which was helping me to begin a lifelong struggle to grasp the interconnectedness of time, space and probability. Then in college, I read The Fourth Dimension by Rudy Rucker. And that really blew my mind.

But I guess the lasting impression of this journey is my continuing awe at the possibility of the universe (or should I say, universes). Just as Neanderthals probably thought fire was magic, this stuff seems absolutely fantastical, especially if you are, like me, a visual and tactile thinker. But this movie really gets it right. Stick with it, you'll be glad you did.

Genius Loci

My old pal Maria Mortati is an exhibit designer and curator, in addition to being just generally hilarious, sweet and brilliant. I've contributed to things she has curated before like her awesome book and Maker Faire exhibition Power of the Prototype last year and the Bay area Furniture Art Show, back in 2003. So when she asked me to contribute something for her latest show Looking for Loci, I was happy to help out. But this time, I got the whole family involved.

Let me back up a little. Looking for Loci is a show about capturing the feel of a place that is really special to you. Everyone involved created a little diorama in a box (provided by Maria) in which to capture what was special about your Loci. I managed to turn this call for entries into an enforced family art day (what could be more fun?). When I asked my daughter Dinah what place is really special to her, first she said "going to sushi". When I asked for a place that was not a restaurant, she burst forth with this fantastic and magical scenario.

If I could go anywhere I would get shrunk down really small and live in a rabbit hutch. I would ride the bunnies all day long. And at night I would sleep with my head on their fluffy tails.

My wife, Rebecca was more concise.

Its the fridge. It contains life's greatest joys.

My loci was "in my head."

Sadly, my Genius Loci is in my head, which is like a big cluttered workshop with partially finished projects lying around all over the place. I go there to relax, pick up one of those dusty projects and putter. Sometimes things get done, sometimes I just make a bigger mess. I should probably get out more.

In any case, the project was a lot of fun. And the show is going kick off its SF debut at the Studio for Urban Projects on August 28th. So check it out.