ECAL: Delirious Home

A playful look at our relationship with electronics in a modern dwelling

As one of the world’s top design universities, it comes as no surprise that the Industrial Design and Media and Interaction Design students from Lausanne’s ECAL would wow the crowd in Milan with their creative prowess. But their group exhibition, aptly entitled “Delirious Home,” brilliantly showcases how the design principles they learned in school can be humorously applied to the future of the seamlessly connected, …

Made in the Future

Colin Raney of IDEO explains the inner-workings of their side project—made possible with help from MIT Media Lab

Hardcore sci-fi writers, NASA researchers and even government policymakers are tasked with dreaming up the next century’s goals for mankind, but cult design consulting firm IDEO wanted to explore a “not-so-distant” future from a designer’s perspective. As a company that’s always looking ahead, their “Made in the Future” project imagines how we will be “making” five or 10 years from now, guided by their belief …

Interview: Roger Linn

The iconic drum machine designer on the limitations of today's musical instruments and what he's invented in response

Without a multi-million dollar budget, high-tech research lab or an engineering degree, Roger Linn created the LM-1 Drum Computer in 1979, the first programmable drum machine that used digital samples of acoustic drums. Unlike other drum machines of the day—like the classic Roland TR-808—the LM-1 was the closest one could get to having an authentic drummer when you didn’t have a kit (or the skills) …