While living in San Diego a few years back I had a 400-square-foot studio apartment in the University Heights district. In an effort to conserve space I bought a sofa bed from IKEA, a cleverly designed piece with wheels that locked into place, making it easy to fold and unfold. I soon realized that I was usually either too busy or too tired to make the change (or to replace the upholstery with bed clothes), and would end up either sleeping on the ‘sofa’, or entertaining on the ‘bed’.

Gary Chang would no doubt be disgusted by my inefficient use of space. In 1988 Chang, a Hong Kong architect, paid $45,000 for a 344-square-foot apartment in Hong Kong’s Sai Wan Ho district. It was the same apartment he had lived in with his entire family (6 people in all, including 1 tenant) since he was 14 years old. What followed over the years was a series of transformations, all with the same goal of maximizing space and creating more flexibility of use

The latest iteration, completed in 2006 and dubbed “Domestic Transformer” by Chang, has 24 possible configurations, allowing for a variety of uses – living room, library, kitchen, laundry, lounge, spa, dining area, wet bar, and a screening room complete with a hammock – achieved with a series of sliding wall units on overhead tracks that shift to create and reveal completely different rooms.

Chang, who operates the architecture firm EDGE Design Institute out of Hong Kong, hopes his creation will inspire others, particularly developers, to be more creative in their approach to space planning, helping to alleviate the overcrowding and space shortage problems prevalent in many Hong Kong homes.

By Mike Monteiro

“Let’s make better mistakes tomorrow. Let’s scratch our heads and give up and wake up and try it again. Let’s fail at digging the well the first three times to get it right the fourth. Let’s build faster horses, and then strap rocket ships onto them. Let’s start a company, let’s watch it fail, and then let’s start another one.

Let’s be the boss. Let’s take the boss down. Let’s order too much of something just to see where our limits are. Let’s take a chance precisely because it might fail. Let’s take the hard way out. Let’s go to the moon. Fuck it; let’s go to the moon again. Let’s quit our jobs. Let’s work at being better at what we do by fucking up faster, not less. Let’s fuck up really fast. Let’s wrestle sharks, fight monsters, and disagree with the board. Let’s borrow so much money it becomes someone else’s problem. Let’s start a 10-hour drive by announcing ‘I’m not into you anymore.’ Let’s dump everything out of the garage onto the sidewalk and build something really cool in that space. Let’s start out to build a better mousetrap, and halfway there let’s decide to jump on the mice’s team.

Let’s bet on a longshot. Let’s buy her a drink. Let’s start baking bread in our cubicle. Let’s try bringing fresh water to distant villages precisely because we have no idea how to do it. Let’s pool our money. Let’s take their money. Let’s solve that hard problem. You know that one that keeps you up at night? Let’s tackle that bastard. Let it kick our ass a few times, and then finally get it right. Let’s find out what’s at the bottom of the ocean. Let’s tame the Kraken.

Let’s just fucking tell people we’ve read Infinite Jest and move on. Let’s forgive our parents. Let’s do something with the goddamned planet. Let’s rent an electric generator and open a food cart that sells nothing but frosted PopTarts, but makes a lot of fucking noise. Let’s have a breakthrough. Let’s have a breakdown. Let’s agree that bruises fade, bones heal, hearts mend, and that tomorrow we’re right back on that horse and that this time, THIS TIME! we’ve at least got a rocket strapped to its back.”

(via GOOD)

A trailer created entirely in infographics for Waiting For “Superman”, the recent documentary by Davis Guggenheim that explores the American public school system and its failures.

The animation was created by BUCK, the NY/LA motion studio also responsible for the information design and animation on Guggenheim’s last documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

(via Design Observer)

The imaginative designers at Hyperakt just sailed past 500,000 views of their video “I have PSD” on Vimeo and YouTube, cheered along by Photoshop lovers who share their inability to imagine a world without PSD (a.k.a. Photoshop Dexterity).

“Photoshop dexterity (PSD) is a skillset acquired by proficient users of Adobe Photoshop, the world’s most ubiquitous digital tool for creating visual ideas. Qualities of PSD include supernatural powers of imagination and an overwhelming desire to constantly make the world more beautiful. PSD affects people from different walks of life. In fact, there is a high probability that you have PSD.”

To celebrate, Hyperakt has designed 20 variations on the PSD t-shirts featured in their video and are inviting you to vote on your favorites. If you want to share the video with friends and family, you’ll be entered into Hyperakt’s contest for a chance to be one of 150 lucky Fans who will receive a limited edition t-shirt with one of the three most popular designs printed on it.

To enter, first watch Hyperakt’s “I have PSD” video, next vote on your favorite t-shirt designs and finally Retweet “I have PSD and I want one of these shirts: http://bit.ly/amf4HB @ihavepsd via @hyperakt on Twitter. That’s it. Now you’re in the running for a chance to be one of only 150 people in the world (plus the hyperactive creative team at Hyperakt of course) with the I Have PSD t-shirt. 

Shot in stop-motion style by the folks at Brooklyn design office Hyperakt. via Adobe

A great little short by Imaginary Forces, The Desk examines the relationship and habits between artists and their desks. Directed by Mark Gardner, it includes interviews with design writer/critic Alice Twemlow, legendary graphic designer Massimo Vignelli, illustrator David Miller, product designer Søren Kjær, and novelist Kurt Andersen.

The Desk is part of Lines, a web series of mini-documentaries “highlighting the beauty and importance of the architecture in everyday objects, and how the design and structure of these objects affect and reflect our lifestyles. These objects range from parking structures to high heel shoes.”

A new TV ad for the Belgian beer brand, this spot is titled Apartomatic and plays like a live-action Quagmire scene. Shot by Wes Anderson (a collaboration with Roman Coppola) in his signature style – sharp, perfectly framed, and with just enough quirk to keep things humorous.

(via Creative Review)

By Ike Edeani

You thought you’d left the sweat-stained, shoe-marked floorboards of your high school gym long behind, eh? Not today. In an effort to recapture nostalgia, designer Søren Rose has introduced the Gymnasium Collection, a limited edition series of cabinets made from recycled gym floorboards, allowing your “kissing under the bleachers” memories to make an everyday appearance.

The current collection is being mass-produced, and merely borrows the graphic lines and simple silhouettes of the court. The cabinets are made using sustainable, eco-friendly materials like renewable pine and controlled Danish oak with water-based fixatives and varnishes.