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Jørn Utzon is the Danish architect best known for designing the Sydney Opera House. That was a 16-year ordeal, beginning with winning a design competition in 1957, then being unpleasantly confronted with engineering challenges, ballooning costs and politically-motivated personal attacks. So vicious were the latter that Utzon left Australia in 1966, vowing never to return. He kept his promise, refused to attend the structure's eventual opening in 1973, and never got to see the completed Opera House in person.

Image: Bjarte Sorensen - CC BY-SA 3.0

While that's all been documented, less well known is that prior to Utzon's introduction to the complexities of international architecture, he actually designed a whimsical piece of furniture. He had been prototyping a sort of pre-metabolist stool in the 1950s, prior to getting swept up in the Opera House maelstrom.

The stool was never realized, but Fritz Hansen has announced they've now put the Utzon Stool into production, after six-plus decades.

"Utzon approached furniture design by applying the same principles that defined his architecture, a synthesis of diverse references and what he called additive architecture, multiple configurations using a limited number of prefabricated components," says Marie-Louise Høstbo, Fritz Hansen's Creative Design Director. "In the stool, the modular principle is evident in the repetitive shapes of the steam-bent legs. Utzon often used maritime references and the spheres of the seat recall marine fenders along with his love of nature and its recurring forms."

"The wooden spheres echo wooden models that Utzon made for some of his projects, the most famous of which is the spherical solution for the sails of the Sydney Opera House roof. The protruding mushroomlike forms also evoke the playful side of Utzon."

Made of beech with brass accents, the stool runs $1,500.

In order to manufacture the clothes we wear, things have to be pulled out of the ground. Plants for fibers, petroleum for technical fabrics. But a startup called Human Material Loop has a more sustainable idea: To create textiles out of human hair.

"Every day, hundreds of tonnes of hair clippings are thrown out," the company writes, on a section of their website addressing hair salon owners. "All the while, the textile industry is in dire need of a more sustainable, repurposed textile source. We have a solution for both – transforming your hair waste into textile fibers. Because ultimately, your hair clippings are just raw material in the wrong place."

The company reckons that human hair isn't just abundant, but the right material to make clothes out of:

"Human hair…possesses incredible durability and strength (one ponytail could hold two elephants). Like wool or alpaca, it's composed largely of keratin protein fibers, making it natural, thermal, biodegradable and moisture-regulating, sans the cruelty or allergic reactions."

The company claims they can turn hair into knits and weaves that are hypoallergenic, heat-retentive and antibacterial.

They also say they've produced a sweater, a "tweed-like blazer" and a parka insulated with human hair for testing. Currently they're gathering hair from salons in the Netherlands (where they're based), Belgium and Luxembourg.

It's a fascinating idea, assuming it works. And while they say they can dye the textiles they create, they don't mention from what specific source color of hair; I wonder if they can turn black hair into different colors. China and India have 3 billion people between them, and the continent of Africa another 1.2 billion; those populations have predominantly black hair and add up to more than half the planet's population. The hair textures of those populations are also distinct from that of the Low Countries from which the company has been sourcing their trial hair.

It will be interesting to see what different varieties can be produced from different populations' hair types (unless it's all the same after the lab process).

These curious looking vintage "road glasses" were made by Kasper & Richter, a German manufacturer of precision instruments. They were designed for driving in bad weather, in the days when enclosed cars were a novelty. I am so curious to try a pair on to see what can actually be seen.

"These glasses with specially arranged viewing slits enable unobstructed vision while preventing rain from entering," writes retailer FORMost. "The sophisticated design is reminiscent of steam punk and bionics. No matter where you go, you will attract attention."

That is certainly true, as seen in these images below: An alternate vendor is selling a similar product branded with the company name, though I'd have guessed they were knockoffs. In any case they're not exactly low-profile.

In mid-20th-century Europe, Margerete Jahny belonged to a rare demographic of industrial designer: She was an East German female. And according to design historian Günter Höhne, she was the first East German industrial designer, of any gender, with a university education.

The German Democratic Republic, as East Germany was ironically called, had a Central Institute of Design (later called the Office for Industrial Design) that oversaw all ID-related matters in the GDR. In the 1960s, the Institute tasked Jahny and fellow designer Erich Müller with designing a set of tableware for use in GDR canteens.

Jahny, who had worked in a restaurant as a child, understood the needs of servers; indeed she had already designed a coffee service system as a student, while studying at the Dresden University of Fine Arts. She dusted off her old designs, which consisted of stackable coffee cups, a creamer, a coffee pot with a no-drip spout, and a lid that could fit all three objects. All were to be made of ceramics, a material Jahny had gained familiarity with while working in a ceramics factory.

Image: Von Christos Vittoratos - CC BY-SA 3.0

Müller refined the design of the lid, which required tight production tolerances to stay in place. He engineered it to stay put even when the coffee pot was held at a sharp angle, no small feat for a ceramic pressure fit.

The objects were well-designed and useful. A person could easily stack and carry multiple cups, and the coffee pot could be poured one-handed without needing the other hand to hold the lid on. The Rational line, as the objects were called, went into production in 1969 and was soon ubiquitous throughout the GDR.

Image: Von Christos Vittoratos - CC BY-SA 3.0

Though the Rational cups and pots came to populate every public institution, canteen, hotel and restaurant in the GDR, Jahny and Müller of course never received any recognition; in fact GDR leadership reportedly derided the designs as "functionalist," that term being a pejorative as it was associated with the Bauhaus and those evil West Germans.

Instead the objects became associated with the name "Mitropa." That organization, which ran the trains, train station restaurants and gas stations in the GDR, had their name branded on the objects.

Image: Von Softeis - CC BY-SA 3.0

The Rational line remained in production throughout the '70s and '80s (though it was added to by designers other than Jahny and Müller).

After the Berlin Wall came down, production was halted forever. Today you can still find some preserved Rational pieces on secondhand sites—though they're often branded, as this one is, "Mitropa" cups or pots.

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Swiss toymaker Naef has been manufacturing this Cella toy since 1967.

It was designed by German polymath Peer Klahsen, whose career has included stints in carpentry, furniture design, fine art, architecture and writing. "He has a brilliant mind with an excellent mathematical-geometric understanding and spatial sense," writes Naef.

The 10 x 10 x 10cm cube consists of one small cube and eight nesting components that can be endlessly reconfigured:

The pieces are made of Maple. In addition to blue, it comes in grey, red and its natural color.

Though designed as a toy, it is a bit pricey for kids; it runs 208 Swiss Francs, USD $231.

Previously we looked at Astrolab's FLEX, a vehicle with no design predecessor. Intended for lunar exploration, the utilitarian two-person vehicle was designed for NASA.

Now NASA's announced they've selected an additional two companies to develop additional Lunar Terrain Vehicles for their upcoming Artemis V mission. These offerings, or at least the early renderings of them, look a bit more sci-fi than Astrolab's design. Here's Intuitive Machines' Moon RACER:

(Despite the name, it's not designed for high-speed competition; it's an acronym for Reusable Autonomous Crewed Exploration Rover.)

The third LTV to get the green light is Lunar Outpost's Lunar Dawn vehicle:

While all three vehicles are being developed, just one will be awarded the funding for a demonstration mission. That's where they have to actually deliver the thing to the surface of the moon and "validate its performance and safety ahead of [the Artemis V mission]."

It's a pretty tall order, as you can see in the brief below. But whichever company makes the cut will get an additional chance to boost their profit:

"The LTV will be able to handle the extreme conditions at the Moon's South Pole and will feature advanced technologies for power management, autonomous driving, and state of the art communications and navigation systems. Crews will use the LTV to explore, transport scientific equipment, and collect samples of the lunar surface, much farther than they could on foot, enabling increased science returns.""Between Artemis missions, when crews are not on the Moon, the LTV will operate remotely to support NASA's scientific objectives as needed. Outside those times, the provider will have the ability to use their LTV for commercial lunar surface activities unrelated to NASA missions."

So far the only images we have are the renders above. I'll be very curious to see how these things are realized on the surface, as I assume they'll be shipped in pieces and assembled on the moon. Am also eager to see the eventual competing designs from China, India, Russia, et cetera. But we'll have to wait for a bit; Artemis V isn't scheduled to launch until 2030.

NASA posted this image as well, but has not attributed the design.

Asahikawa, Hokkaido has been a furniture-producing center for Japan for decades. The furniture industry produces a lot of wooden offcuts. How can you turn those offcuts into more revenue?

Since 1955, the Tomiya company has been producing these Kuma Bokko*, tiny carved bears made from otherwise useless scraps of wood. The grain is cleverly exploited to produce a contour-line-like effect, further accentuating the skilled hand-carving and burning.

Image: Shokunin

(*In Japanese, "kuma" means "bear." "Bokko," in the Hokkaido dialect, means "stick," "scrap," or "piece of a broken pole"—in other words, an offcut.)

"Due to the extreme delicacy of the work, it is very rare for the face and body to be perfectly finished, and it often happens that a bokko has various 'wounds,' sometimes light, sometimes severe," writes arts & crafts store Shokunin.

Image: Shokunin

"Kumo Bokko has a very particular grain, visible all over its body. The rings vary depending on the type of wood used and the part of the tree it was cut from, so no two are the same. There are also differences in the angles of the face and body, as well as variations in overall color."

Image: Shokunin

"In addition, craftsmen who paint eyes, noses, etc. are meant to finish the expression of each finished piece by examining the individual shapes and colors of the rings, so that even if the same parts are painted, Kuma Bokko after finishing will present slightly different expressions depending on their subtle positioning."

Image: Shokunin

"Each piece is a little different from the other and it's hard to choose your favorite, and I spent a lot of time choosing the one that spoke to me the most."

The "wounds" mentioned above are categorized with hilarious fidelity on the individual product descriptions on Tomiya's website, as with this guy:

"Due to various circumstances leading up to the completion, the growth rings on the soles of his right foot had to be removed. So we ended up with a partially barefoot Kuma Bokko."

Defect aside, he still managed to attract a mate and raise a child. The offspring did not inherit the foot defect.

This bathroom cabinetry is by Thomas Longuefosse, an ébéniste (cabinetmaker) based in the Basque Country.

Longuefosse has been taken by the art of kumiko, and practices it in his spare time.

"The Japanese have a very particular way of working," he writes, "and very different from ours. Their craftsmanship is often based on extremely simple gestures, similar and repeated all day long to perfection."

"The beauty of the works often lies in the repetition of the patterns, and in their perfect execution, obviously done by hand. There is a very hypnotizing side to doing this kind of thing. I'm light years away from perfection when it comes to this type of work, but if you don't try, you don't get anything."

Here's a snippet of the patience it takes to build pieces like these: