My office recently bought a couple nifty Brompton fold-up bikes for the staff which are pretty cool but what about a bending bike that becomes it’s own lock? We’ll just put aside the thought of what might happen should you take a spill. Some text from Design Boom:

Design student kevin scott designed this unusual bending bike that not only folds up tightly but can be used to locks itself up. The de montfort university industrial design student designed the bike to make its safer and easier to lock up your bike in the city. His design looks like a normal bike when in riding mode, but a simple level on the frame triggers the frame to go from rigid to pliable. A ratchet system built into the frame enables the bike to simple be bent around a pole fitting one side of the handle bar into a closure under the seat, locking the bike in place. The design just won runner-up for the business design centre new designer of the year award at new designers. Scott will be using his prize money to further develop the bike, building more iterations for a full testing of its viability.

images via Design Boom

A trip to the ocean with another couple allowed us to score a really cool vacation beach house, obviously owned by some sort of designer that probably built many things themselves. There were a lot of great details throughout with great uses of wood and metal, like the ledge in front of the fireplace in the image below. A nautical theme ran throughout expressed through clean lines and interesting use of materials like the image above where metal cleats where attached to a wood strip for use as coat hooks. This detail was also in the bathrooms for towels.

The house actually sat along the edge of a lake just a block inland from the ocean and in an effort to reduce the disturbance along the lake edge, the house was raised up on metal beams, allowing the natural vegetation flow underneath with a simple gravel path to the staircase leading up to the entry deck.

A rain chain connects the roof to the ground with a stone splash block…

The deck leading to the canoe launch didn’t take out any trees…

The gravel driveway and the vegetated swale…

There were also some fun pieces of art and furniture. My favorites were the chair at the entry that was a simple piece of metal with a strip of tan leather through the top for a seat and especially the fabulous set of 3 paintings of frying eggs in the kitchen.

I happened upon this piece of unique art piece during a recent trip to my hometown of Port Angeles and I thought it was so simple and lovely. This resident installed an old bike wheel upon one of the poles on his chain link fence and attached some glasses to it in order to catch the wind. When it spun in the light breeze it was really quite lovely, especially when it hit the sunlight.

Beware that if you have your sound on, the ferry was leaving right as I shot the video thus picking up the very loud blast of the horn.

One of the things that really struck me about Europe is that the ideaof water conveyance channels right out in the open urban world was not only ok but rather frequently seen. Some are old, some new, but either way they flow right through plazas, down pedestrian alleyways and along sidewalks, promenades and public transit streets like beautiful features rather than ugly hazards to be hidden away.

A great example is in the city of Freiburg, Germany, a city on the edge of the Schwartzwald, or Black Forest. These channels can been seen in most of the streets and alleyways within the old city and are called the Bächle, which means “stream” in German. This is appropriate as it is like an urban stream network which is filled with the water from the river Dreisam. The Bächle however is a very old feature and in fact goes back to at least the 13th century and was used as water supply source for the city, bringing in fresh water from the stream running from the nearby mountains. Now, this fresh water serves as a great place to sit and dip your feet as either a local or a tourist in the warmer months.

The Bächle once used to flow right down the middle of the streets but once cars began infiltrating the city they were seen as inconvenient and were moved to the edge. Some were covered due to their non-use in the modern day city. However, in 1973 the heart of the city was paved in stone and nmed a pedestrian-only core and thus traffic was no longer a threat to the Bächle, or vice versa, and were therefore uncovered and could be enjoyed as a lovely feature among a pedestrian urban center and even live in harmony with the tram.

images via: petits poemes en prose, Laszio, kawanua,

Is it July already? Sure wouldn’t know it given the weather. But while it may not be the most spectacular summer for us people, the plants are loving the extra rain. The image above was taken while walking through my new neighborhood in Seattle where people love wild and crazy plants in place of the boring lawn in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. I only had my phone on me at the time of walking around and admiring the various creative things people have chosen to plant but I’ll go out again with my real camera and capture a good smattering. There are some great little urban gardens as well.

Speaking of the “new neighborhood in Seattle”, that’s why the blog has been fairly dead lately. It was a crazy packing and moving up from the Portland area but then extra crazy when the first location (and landlord) in Seattle was rather less than awesome and I ended up moving again to my current location. Luckily the current house is fabulous and I think I’ll be here for awhile. I’ve only been in the new house for a week so things are still a gigantic sea of boxes but soon I won’t be spending my spare time unpacking and I can instead enjoy some quality time with my laptop and get back to finishing the long list of drafts I’ve got piling up.

Have a happy 4th everyone!