Only One More Month: David Byrne's Bike Racks & Rackumentary

Talking Heads' David Byrne and the New York City Department of Transportation, in conjunction with New York art gallery PaceWildenstein, unveiled nine unique bicycle racks designed by DB and installed in various locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn last April. The racks will only be up for 364 days, so you've got one more month to see them in person -- or, see them all here.

Known as the force behind Talking Heads and later as creator of the highly-regarded record label Luaka Bop, David Byrne’s recent musical works include Grown Backwards, Byrne’s debut for Nonesuch Records; the Talking Heads box set; the Knee Plays CD/DVD from Robert Wilson’s 1984 stage piece the CIVIL wars; music from the HBO’s series Big Love; and Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, a collaboration with Brian Eno . Byrne is currently working on a number of upcoming musical projects including Here Lies Love, a song cycle with Fatboy Slim based on the life of Imelda Marcos.

For those of us who do not live in the New York area and did not get to see these, here are images of them, their locations, David's original sketches and his 'rackumentary' video.


above: David Byrne with his Villager rack

An avid bicyclist for almost 30 years, Byrne was invited to join the panel of jurors selected by the DOT to judge a design competition for outdoor and indoor bicycle racks. Inspired by the city's initiative, he submitted some original design ideas of his own named after specific locations and neighborhoods, which the DOT enthusiastically agreed to install for a period of 364 days.

The nine racks — in shiny red, black and silver — are intended to promote bicycling, which has been a main emphasis of the current transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.

The Bike Racks in situ:


above: The Villager
Powder-coated steel, 2008
LaGuardia Place in front of AIA, NYC

above: The Chelsea
Powder-coated steel, 2008
West 25th Street b/t 10th & 11th Ave (in front of PaceWildenstein Gallery), NYC

above: The Jersey
Powder-coated steel, 2008
NW corner of 9th Ave & 39th Street, NYC

above: Olde Times Square
Powder-coated steel, 2008
South side of West 44th Street, west of Seventh Avenue

above: The Coffee Cup
Powder-coated steel, 2008
West side of Amsterdam Avenue, between West 110th and 111th Streets

above: The MoMA
Powder-coated steel, 2008
South side of West 54th Street, east of the Avenue of the Americas New Project, Brooklyn, NYC 2008

above: The Wall Street
Powder-coated steel, 2008
North side of 82 Wall Street, west of Water Street

above: The Hipster
Powder-coated steel, 2008
West side of Bedford Avenue, near North Sixth Street, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn

above: The Ladies' Mile
Powder-coated steel, 2008
West side of Fifth Avenue, north of 57th Street (in front of Bergdorf’s)

map of locations:


David Byrne's drawings of the bike racks:



above: all nine sketches for the project by DB, Pen and ink, 2008

Photos by: G.R. Christmas / Courtesy PaceWildenstein © David Byrne
and special thanks to David Byrne, Wallpaper magazine and the New York Times for additional photos and info.

A rackumentary by David Byrne:



David Byrne's site.
PaceWildenstein gallery
NY City Department of Transportation (DOT)

A Look Inside The Moleskine Glass House Sketchbook

The Glass House Moleskine® sketchbook features sketches by 29 architects, designers, and artists inspired by the home, quotes by Philip Johnson, and blank pages for notes or sketching. A limited edition notebook, the proceeds from it go to support the preservation and maintenance of Johnson's famous architectural masterpiece, The Glass House (shown above).



This sketchbook is inspired by the site’s unique power of place, its role as a source of inspiration for architects, designers and artists, and the desire for visitors to pause, look closely, and document their observations as part of their site experience. In this spirit, the Glass House has launched a partnership with Moleskine®, the signature tool for creative minds, to produce a custom sketchbook.

The centerpiece of the notebook is Stephen Doyle's 3D glass house:



and here are the rest of the sketches:






















Participants include: Yves Béhar, Michael Bell, Deborah Berke, James Biber, Mattia Bonetti, Constantin Boym, Seymour Chwast, Stephen Doyle, Steven Ehrlich, Rafael Esquer, Alexander Gorlin, Steven Holl, Christopher Huan, Rainer Judd, Maira Kalman, Chip Kidd, LOT-EK | Giuseppe Lignano and Ada Tolla, Mark McInturff, Richard Meier, Toshiko Mori, Michael Morris, Fred Noyes, Gaetano Pesce, Ron Radziner, Jens Risom, Yoshiko Sato, Denyse Schmidt, Alison Spear, Joseph Tanney



To order a copy of the sketchbook, call 203.594.9884, ext.1

Moleskine site
Moleskine® Stories site

The Philip Johnson Glass House (General Information)
Want to donate to preserve The Glass House? Join the Corporate Design Circle here.
Help preserve great architecture! Visit www.PreservationNation.org

Talk About Surround Sound! The Sonic Chair

The sonic chair provides a unique audio experience, allowing you to sit at the very center of a sound system. Whether you enjoy listening to symphony orchestras, rock concerts, or audio books – the integrated satellite speakers are precisely adapted to your ears. The two latest models even include an ipod docking station or a 20" mac touchscreen.



The speakers are encased in a carefully crafted body that creates sufficient volume for powerful bass tones, while a specially developed body-focused sound membrane serves as backrest and further augment the lower frequencies – creating the feeling of a live performance.

The open design ensures a resonance-receptive, well-balanced sound environment. The active and passive sound insulation creates an acoustic island.



Background noises will not disrupt the enjoyment of music or an audio book in the sonic chair. Like an acoustic island the sonic chair will provide both exceptional listening pleasure and unique ambience, suitable for fairs, shops, lounges and homes. DVD- or mp3-player, Laptop or playstation, you can connect every audio source.



some technical info:
First-class sound transmission
– a circular acoustic enclosure with 32 litre speakervolume
– specially developed four-channel amplifier in patented class
D technology to allow separate regulation of both stereo channels,
the subwoofer and a body-focused sound membrane
– equipped with high-quality loud speakers featuring separate
tweeters and mid-woofers as well as a Scandinavian-made
woofer from SEAS
– crossovers especially designed for the sonic chair in a 12 dB filter
topology with high-end air-core coils and foil condensers
– support of the low frequency range from 16 to 40 Hz through
silent physical vibration
Diverse input jacks for peripheral equipment
such as laptops, stereos, CD players, iPods or X-Boxes/PS3

and the chair comes with many color options for the fabric interior:


Two new versions with an iPod Docking station or an 20" iMac with touchscreen expand the range of possibilities - ideal for multimedia-based presentations and entertainment.

With iMac 20" touchscreen:


privoted hinge out of satined stainless steel
– 2.0 GHz, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor
– 1 GB memory, 250 GB hard drive
– 8x SuperDrive (Double Layer)
– ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics
– Mac OS X Leopard, already installed
(actual Windows system is possible,
but not included in the price.)

with iPod docking station:

integrated charging station and wired within

with laptop side table:

from mineral acrylic
white, with rounded edges
pivoted hinge out of satin stainless steel
with integrated cable duct for audio and power supply
in two sizes: 42 x 30 cm / 34 x 25 cm



Price? $23, 275.00 USD
Buy it here.

designatics production GmbH
Bernhardstr. 105–107
50968 Köln
Telephone: +49 (0)221–33 11 11
Telefax: +49 (0)221–9 321 321
Contact: Jan Stühn
E-mail: info@sonic-chair.com

The Capella: Vietnamese Student Designs Electric Folding Bike

Capella, as Truong Minh Nhat calls his creation, is an electric bike made with light composites that the Ho Chi Minh City University of Architecture student says can be folded and put into a backpack.

Capella can have its wheels, chain and chain-ring bolt folded into the body:


Users can take the bike along when traveling and escape the crowd anywhere, Nhat says, adding that it can travel at 30 kilometers per hour with a battery that will run for 12 kilometers after it is charged for two hours.



Nhat says most of the designed components are not available in the market, like a semicircle top bar.

"I had to convince and explain a lot to bike component makers, although I was making only one and offered them high prices", he says. Starting the project more than half a year ago as his graduation thesis, Nhat put a lot of time and effort into it. He spent one month sketching out the design, which was inspired by the Unicorn that controls the star Capella in Greek mythology.

"My product targets teenagers who want to ride bicycles, so I paid due attention to its stylish design", Nhat says.

To ensure that all the parts followed the design, Nhat had to stay with the people making them all the time and because they were more than 30 kilometers apart, he had to shuttle back and forth many times everyday.

Two days before the deadline, Nhat was overwhelmed with separate components, electricity systems and batteries. Although he submitted his product just two hours before the deadline, he obtained high marks for it.

He invited some workers to his house to assemble the bike. "All of them then slept for only two hours each night until the bike was complete", Nhat says.

"My application for intellectual property right has been approved, says the graduate of the university's Industrial Design Department. I am now studying ways to improve the bike's eminent functions before seeking partners to launch the product in the market at a price reasonable for Vietnamese people."

Since the first bike was made manually by assembling separate components, it still has certain shortcomings, he says.



Nhat expects to replace some of the bike's components with even lighter materials to reduce its weight to around 10 kilograms.

source: QUỐC LINH for Tuổi trẻ

Remember the student designed Uno by Ben Gulak?

Read about that one here.