tingilinde

40 square foot house

Actually less than forty square feet, but two levels and a fire cauldron, second level for sleeping, dining area and storage for gardening supplies.  And that's about it.

Project Walden by Nils Holger Moormann (check the gallery)

It makes you wonder what the minimum is for something functional that you could live in (say the inclusion of a bathroom and protection from the elements - oh  - and something that would allow you to maintain your sanity (probably a function of where you live)

towards clothing that fits

Once clothing was custom tailored for those who could afford it, but mass production brought the concept of sizing -  an approximate notion that sort of works.  For most guys it isn't a big deal, but women generally expect a better fit and a someone who is a size 8 in one dimension may not be in another.  One study indicated more than half of women of a given "size" have some issues with fit. 

With a few exceptions "custom" clothing means printing user designs on tshirts or allowing customer input of a five to ten measurements.  Of course if  you have money you can go to a good tailor or dress maker. If you have a lot of money a designer can get involved. 

About ten years ago body scanners began to appear. The idea was to acquire enough information accurately enough to drive custom fabrication tools.  Some universities like Cornell were involved in the work (see an interesting history by the Cornell folks here) and an interesting future was sketched out. T You still need good three dimensional models of the human body and skilled designers, but now the model could be manipulated to match an accurate representation of your body and an electronic pattern could drive automatic cutting machines.    A really nice idea, but too expensive given the extremely low cost of mass production in the third world.  As a result there are only a handful of small companies that use scanners.

One is indiDenim.  If you visit their Emeyville, CA location they will scan you with an Intellifit scanner and a few weeks later jeans are shipped to you from a fabrication plant in Mexico.  They also will work with your measurements you supply, but folklore is the probability of getting a good fit is much better if you are scanned.

Intellifit was recently acquired by Unique Solutions and it will be interesting to see if they can make a go of the business.  Their scanner is rf based rather than a laser scanner, so you don't need to dress in something that makes you nearly naked.  They advertise scans for about $50 and will have fabrication partners.  So far the partner list is slim and there are only two scanners in the US (four more "coming soon").   I hope they will succeed, but for now it may be most practical for people who have extremely difficult fit problems - the people who have to use tailors anyway. 

The apparel business is a large chunk of the economy and a large fraction of customers are not happy with fit ...  there is a real opportunity for someone to get it right.  Standards are needed as well as inexpensive scanners (scanners could get very inexpensive if you made them in the tens of thousands).  One could imagine Google or Amazon being a broker who might jumpstart this in order to collect your data and be a connection hub to designers and fabricators.  Custom will probably mean precise fit with a bit of user selected customization available, but the choices will probably be based on an existing design.  Most people can't design - so think of it as a list of options. 

The apparel industry has too many layers and inefficiencies - it basically works because you can find $2/day labor in the third world.  One wonders how long that can last given the possibility for a system that can produce clothing that fits.  And if this happens there may be people who are doing street fashion now who might find the barrier to design much lower.  Something about ten thousand flowers blooming...

And there are shoes - at least one company is scanning feet and making custom shoes (it seems spendy, but I have no idea what custom shoes cost)

(thanks to Jheri for great discussions on this)

design and newspapers

A nice TED talk: 

design it yourself physical structures

An interview with the co-founder of Physical Design Company.

We'll see more and more of this, but few people know how to design - good design is astonishingly difficiult for more people.  Ultimately you will probably buy someone else's design and add tweaks.

great design great experience

Alex Lee of Oxo speaks at Gel 2008 on great design. (thanks Brian!)

Simple design through keen observation and deep understanding. The part of design that should be fundamental rather than tacked on at the end. Design that is absent from so many products.

goodness and cardboard

Deeply cool -  The Adaptive Design Association of NYC.   Helping disabled kids with inexpensive custom design.  Clay Shirky comments here.

I have a few friends who are outside of the normal 5% to 95% range of the population for which most of the stuff we buy is designed.  People talk about custom manufacture, but it is still relatively expensive and rare. These days there is so much more profit having stuff made with micro-wage labor and shipped great distances.

tiny homes

In the NY Times today ... check out the slideshow.

Sub 500 sq ft may be too small for most (although I know several people who have beautiful apartments around that size). You can do great things on a sub $100k budget and, if your focus is outside the home, it might make real sense. One can imagine engaging an architect and achieving real personalization - something impossible with "normal" homes unless you have a lot of money.

And having less means you may not have to make as much and that may be the key to freedom for some.

I can't imagine many moving in this direction, but I'm guessing the correlation between happiness and floor space and/or stuff is not positive after a certain point.

disclosure - the two of us have 1050 sq ft of paid-off living space. It is full enough that buying anything new requires the replacement of something old. Living in a smaller space would take some adjustment, but I imagine 800 sq ft would be ok with a lot of planning.

So daydream for awhile - what would your life be like if you could have huge savings on your home and time required to keep it up? What if there were constraints on the stuff you could fill it with? What would you do with the extra time and money?

I bet two meter friend Colleen would be ok with small sub 800 sq ft home *if* the ceilings and doors were high enough. It is painful to have someone that tall hit her head on a doorway. She could probably even get a custom place made to her scale with high counters, a long tub, high shower, closets, etc. Practical personalization that may be affordable.

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The average area of a new home in the US is about 2200 ft² ( a bit more than 200 m² - 100 feet² is about 9.29 meters²) Here are some comparisons

who would jesus deport?

Roger points this out...

but most of the Republicans who are into the pure and clean America aren't really Christians anyway ... at least not by their actions. The right-wing mix of government and christianity (Geoff calls it Kristianity) is neither.

We know a very solid Christian couple who live their religion and, among other things, have been offering sanctuary in their home and supporting the sanctuary movement for years. Of course some of the most morally consistent people I know are atheists - but a different story.

who killed the corset?

not a question I have ever considered... but it appears Paul Poiret is a good candidate.

a short photo-essay appears in Slate.

when design doesn't meet physics

Piaa sends a rendering of a bike design ... the designer probably has never taken a physics class - this would be a good image for a mechanical engineering or physics class to critique ....