5 more great pieces of geeky design

Last time around we covered everything from origami mouses to Tron-stlye duct tape races. This time we decided to give you some ideas on how you might harvest renewable energy on the table in your lounge or let your jeans break down road and industry pollutants. Or add a playful touch to gardening with a greenhouse made of Lego bricks. Step through the three-storey Timber Wave or melt away in a sculpted chair.

Algae energy

Designers and scientists at Cambridge University are collaborating on a project that creates devices capable of producing renewable energy from the photosynthesis of algae and moss.

Known as biophotovoltaic technology, the project creates application for the technology, such as “growing” renewable energy on a table.

The researchers have also created an array of algae solar panels for and a near-shore generator that harvests desalinated water.

Grand entrance

Talk about a grand entrance. Timber Wave was created by architects AL_A and engineering firm Arup for the entrance to the V&A Museum in London. Made from oil-treated American red oak, Timber Wave is a three-dimensional, three-story latticework spiral, 12-metres in diameter.

Lego greenhouse

The world’s first fully functional greenhouse made entirely of Lego bricks popped up in Covent Garden during the London Design Festival.

Lego UK commissioned designer Sebastian Bergne to create a large public installation with the walls, floor and earth of the greenhouse consisting of Lego bricks. Real plants are grown inside the greenhouse.

Field of jeans

Baby once made her blue jeans talk but Project Sunshine make their jeans work a little bit harder.

Project Sunshine uses Lilliput-like nanotechnology to break down pollutants with photocatalysts added to the cloth.

Researchers at Sheffield University in the UK teamed up with the London College of Fashion to develop a way by which jeans break down road traffic and industry pollutants.

Melting chair

Philipp Aduatz’s Melting Chair highlights the transient transformation within a sculptural object.

Made with glass fibre-reinforced polymer and with a special silver coating, the Melting Chair creates the illusion of a solid chair melting away or as that of a liquid shape being solidified.

The geometry of the chair was achieved through form studies with CNC milled polystyrene models, studying the solidification of fluids and the melting of solids with 3D animation software and rapid prototyping.