At one time the military actually tried to develop inflatable planes that were strong enough to fly, but easy to transport. Those never materialized, but the technology involved—a drop-stitch fabric that can be inflated to very high pressures—has enabled Volvo to create an inflatable child car seat that’s just as safe as everything already on the market.
Most objects created by 3D printers are made from hard rigid plastics, but as the hardware is continually being improved, new materials are coming into play. Believe it or not, at Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Design, Richard Clarkson has succeeded in 3D printing these flowers from a soft rubber-like material that can actually be inflated.
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Looking for a place to hang out and chill? Look no further than the Everything Chair. This comfy, inflatable easy chair has everything you need to maintain your state of slothfulness, and is the perfect gift idea for the lazy man who has everything.
Simply blow up the chair with the included foot pump, and get to relaxing. The 36″ x 36″ x 36″ chair offers a pair of built-in can holders in the arm rests, pockets in the arms for storing your magazines, game discs, and remote controls, as well as a pair of speakers in the headrest. While you could just hook up your media player to the 3.5mm jack, I’m thinking you could hack the speakers to function as inexpensive, but effective surround speakers for a media room too.
There’s really not much to dislike about the Everything Chair – unless you’ve got a cat that hasn’t been declawed. At least they’ve been kind enough to include a puncture repair kit to help deal with unintended leaks. And you could always just put your cat in the box that the chair comes in.
The Everything Chair is available from IWOOT for £49.99 (~$81 USD) or from Convenient Gadgets & Gifts for $89.95(USD).
Inflatable buildings are definitely an interesting way of creating temporary structures, like for concerts, weddings, etc. This particular blow-up building concept has been in the works for at least a year and it looks pretty impressive.
Arata Isozaki and Anish Kapoor collaborated to make this concert hall dubbed Ark Nova. The concert hall will tour the areas of Tohoku, Japan that have been ravaged by the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
It takes about two hours to inflate the building, and it can hold about 500 people. It’s filled with wooden benches made from tsunami-damaged cedar trees.
Ark Nova makes its debut in Japan today. It will be interesting to see if other mobile venues like this start popping up.
[via Telegraph via Spoon & Tamago]
Designed by Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, who teamed with British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, the Ark Nova is touted as the world’s first inflatable concert hall. Kapoor is no stranger to inflatable structures, having created the Leviathan in Paris back in 2011. But that structure was designed to stay put inside the city’s Grand Palais, whereas the Ark Nova is designed to travel around Japan for the Lucerne Music Festival, visiting parts of the country still recovering from the tsunami.
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In the swinging 1970s, inflatable architecture—along with geodesic domes and conversation pits—was all the rage. But over the past few years we’ve seen a resurgence in pneumatically powered structures, which are actually surprisingly functional as temporary event spaces. The latest? Aeropolis, a big, reflective community center that’s been popping up all over Copenhagen this month.
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This furniture, dreamt up by German designer Philipp Beisheim, is inspired by inflatable rubber dinghies—which means you can take it anywhere.
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So, when your wife puts on this inflatable boat dress, how are you going to answer when she asks if it accentuates her rear end? No, it doesn’t make your aft look big at all – your fore and aft are the same size.
This crazy-looking dress can be a floatation device should you be on a cruise and find yourself in the drink. Jacqueline Bradley’s “Boat Dress” is hard to wear on land, but could save your life under the right circumstances. Think of it as a raft that you can wear.
Of course, you can’t dance in it or navigate a crowded street… You really can’t do anything except survive in the water. Until the sharks come, that is.
I once had a friend who tried to inflate an inflatable raft by blowing into it. It was a dare and it was pretty silly for him to even attempt doing it, but it made all of us laugh anyways.
But if he had something with a built-in Windcatcher at the time, then he probably would’ve won the bet easily.
The Windcatcher is an ingenious piece of technology developed by designer Ryan Frayne. Basically, it allows people to inflate objects like air mattresses by blowing into them without the need for an air pump.
So how does it work? The secret to the Windcatcher is the special valve that “amplifies” the volume of air moved into the inflatable object with every breath. So far, it has been incorporated into a prototype air bag and a sleeping mat, which will be made available within the next few months.
You can check out the Windcatcher site for more information and to pre-order the initial Windcatcher sleeping pad for $99(USD).
[via Laughing Squid]
With Movember behind us, we’re now in the thick, hairy middle of Decembeard, and for those of you without sufficient time to grow an entire beard, I have a slightly unorthodox solution.
Sure, this creepy green-tentacled Cthulhu beard might be considered cheating, but who in their right mind is going to stand in your way if you walk down the street wearing this. And if Lovecraft isn’t your thing, you could always paint it orange and tell people you’re Zoidberg.
You can find the Cthulhu inflatable beard over at Archie McPhee for $7.50(USD). Creepy red eyeball contacts sold separately.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
