Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is Back

Frank Gehry tells off contemporary architecture, Google maps the desert on camelback and Marcel the Shell returns in our weekly look at the web

After a two-year hiatus, adored YouTube character Marcel the Shell (who indeed sports a rocking pair of kicks) made a triumphant return in his third video installment this week, coinciding with a new book release as well. The new stop motion short film features the introverted Marcel (voiced by comedian Jenny Slate) locked out of the house, discussing his particular woes living the shell life, …

Link About It: This Week’s Picks

Frank Gehry tells off contemporary architecture, Google maps the desert on camelback and Marcel the Shell returns in our weekly look at the web

1. Google Desert View While a robot-operated car is Google’s vehicle of choice for mapping streets, a 10-year-old camel named Raffia is doing the job of mapping the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Equipped with Google’s Trekker camera, the guide-lead camel takes to the sand at 6am to capture the best light upon the barren landscape. 2. The Single-Brick Lego Pinhole Camera While Lego …

Caicifang: A New Life for Ancient Porcelain

Salvaging precious shards of history to bring a taste of tradition to contemporary design

Since the beginning of last century, when the Qing dynasty was in its final years, China had a tradition of recovering old fragments of precious ceramic. In 1902, in the bustling commercial area south of Beijing‘s Forbidden City, several workshops were already giving a new life to broken vases by assembling little fragments into new pieces of jewelry. Wang Jing, owner and designer of Caicifang, …