Designers playful at Milan's 2011 furniture fair

MILAN : Designers laughed off the economic crisis at Milan's annual furniture fair this year, ditching staid luxury for jocular hammock sofas, tilting chairs, bar stools with pedals and robot bookcases.The Salone Internazionale del Mobile - the biggest event in the design calendar - celebrated its 50th year with over 2,700 companies on exhibit and expected over 100,000 people to flock through its doors.Curious visitors and the design-savvy alike wandered between hoards of minimalist lampshades, bird ornaments and plant displays and perched on sleek plastic chairs or reclined on eccentrically shaped chaise longues.French designer Philippe Starck drew crowds with his "Miss Less" chair, a plastic creation for Italian company Kartell, so minimalist that the designer has boasted he had managed to break the limits of scaled down furniture design.The chair, a solid block of glossy black plastic - which also comes in a two-toned version with a transparent back-rest - starred alongside Starck's towering, long-legged bar stool and white table with a lustrous black top.In another area of the show, Italian architect and designer Fabio Novembre showed off his Transformer-style 1980s Robot-shaped bookcase, created for the design company Casamania."My generation always had a robot as a playtime companion and I needed to find a new reason to justify its presence next to my desk," the 44-year-old joked when the bookcase was recently presented to the public.Composed of black asymmetrical shelves and cubbyholes, the towering robot with jetting shoulders and a square head sported a red compartment for a heart - a perfect place for stashing Transformer comics. More news on the furniture fair at: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/lifestylenews/view/1122890/1/.html

D&T Conference 2010

This year's D&T conference was held at Dunman Secondary School with the theme 'Thought in Action'. Below are some pictures of what was showcased at the conference.

SolidWorks Blog

SolidWorks is a 3D Mechanical Computer Aided Design (CAD) software, that runs on the Microsoft Windows Platform. It is used worldwide, by designers, engineers and scientists in industries such as: aerospace; automotive; manufacturing; architecture; product design; and scientific research.

Visit the Solidworks education online community at:

www.3dclassworks.com/blog

Learning Journey@ Red Dot museum

This year's theme for the red dot museum showcases Tupperware, the company that is already a worldwide presence, making a difference to millions of lives for over 60 years thanks to the innovative storage products and an extremely attractive business opportunity. Tupperware has been given the Red Dot design team of the year 2009. Here are some pictures of the showcased products.

Piece-it-up: Eco design@Zhonghua

Zhonghua secondary school organised a Design and Technology exhibition at IKEA recently from 7 June till 13 June 2010. Below are some pictures of some of the exhibits. The theme for this exhibition is adopting sustainability and the projects are focused on saving the planet through the students' creativity in redesigning logos while incorporating the idea of sustainability into their designs.

At the entrance of IKEA.

Theme of the exhibition is Piece-it-up.

Before assembly.

After assembly.

After assembly.

Before assembly.

Students' works: Mobile phone holder

Showcasing 1N1 students' works on mobile phone holders.

Mini project: Cotton bud bridges

Students are given some cotton buds and tape to build a bridge with at least 1 span.