Reversible Destiny Lofts

by Tim Yu

In 2005 architects Shusaku Arakawa and Madeline Gins designed a building of nine apartments known as Reversible Destiny Lofts in Tokyo. Resembling a combination of Legos and fast food restaurant playgrounds (click image for detail), inside, each apartment features sloped floors, hard to find switches and no closets. The result is that occupants constantly lose balance and fall over and finding everyday items can be trying. Arakawa argues that this "makes you alert and awakens instincts, so you'll live better, longer and even forever." Each apartment had a $763,000 price tag when they first went on the market. Don't worry, the apartments actually meet every building-code requirement. Keep a look out, Arakawa plans similar complexes in Paris and New Jersey.

via Boing Boing

Shalgo iBook Cover

by Ami Kealoha

From the frontlines of the Pool tradeshow, Shalgo's harlequin patterned iBook cover brings the kind of playfulness that the LA-based company is becoming known for to Apple's own Zen aesthetic of renown. According to our informant, the outfit is made of vinyl stickers. Thanks Ted!

Max Büsser & Friends HM1

by Watchismo

The new company Max Büsser & Friends is really more of a commune for wayward horological geniuses.

The first watch from the brand, the HM1 or more specifically, Horological Machine #1 was conceptualized by Büsser, designed by Eric Giroud, a former architect and built by movement engineers Laurent Besse and Peter Speake-Marin. The known and unknown talent will be assembled and rotated from machine to machine where everyone involved is given credit for their hand in the project.

Like a horological Malcolm Mclaren, Büsser has matched some of the most unique talent to create timepieces unlike anything ever seen before. (It's Büsser who I believe is responsible for leading this new age of independent watchmaking, mostly due to his previous time-bending series of Opus watches for Harry Winston Rare Timepieces.)

With the HM1, MBandF has reinvented the traditional flat hands-on-dial timepiece by creating a multi-layered three-dimensional time "machine." Timing has been deconstructed by separating the hours from minutes into two overlapping dials, much like a splitting egg. But Büsser's "Friends" are close to splitting atoms with the level of technical intricacy. The dials feature transverse mounted floating sapphire subdials connected by a raised central flying central tourbillon and four massive mainspring barrels fueling a seven-day power reserve. The two beryllium gear trains run in parallel to reduce torque of each mainspring, improving synchronization between them. The entire watch caliber is built from scratch.

Only 30 HM1s will be built per year, limited to a total of 100 models ever made and prices exceeding $100,000. According to Büsser himself, upcoming Horological Machines will pass the baton further with each lap. The next Machine is slated for an October release—be sure to check here for any advance looks and go here for more images of the HM1.

Odd Bird Domino Pendants

by Ami Kealoha

Printed and then hand-colored onto dominoes, each of these one-of-a-kind pendants features an image on one side—from a sweetly ironic diamond ring to the subtle visual pun of the four-leaf clover (pictured above left, click for detail). The other side reveals a heart-shaped finding for those who prefer to wear their heart somewhere other than on their sleeve—our one concession to today's holiday. Made by the Toronto-based Odd Bird, each domino is $36 from Chocosho.

Monocle

by SummerSeventySix

What Tyler Brûlé did next. Well, maybe not as he's done a fair bit since selling the influential title Wallpaper* that he founded in the '90s. Monocle is, however, his much-heralded return to the magazine market he helped shape, and is being greeted in the same way as Tom Ford's return to fashion. Like Ford, Brûlé is nothing if not confident and ambitious.

Squarely-aimed at the globe-trotting professional, I have a copy of Monocle in my hands and it is heavyweight, both intellectually and physically. It's as thick as a paperback and the sober cover hints at the clean, easily-navigable design inside, divided into sections A-E: Affairs, Business, Culture, Design and Edits.

No quick read this, with several, varied high-brow articles on things like the Scottish computer games industry, a brand-briefing on Swiss retailer Coop and a 17 page-long look at the Japanese Navy. The writing's tight and intelligent though, and coupled with some decent photography, it has the feel of a quality Sunday newspaper. No surprise, that's where the editor has come from.

Towards the back, things lighten-up and we're back in, dare I say it, traditional Wallpaper* territory. There's a sexy section called Inventory offering tips on what to buy this month, as well as a specially commissioned manga pull-out called Kita Koga, printed in the authentic, Japanese back-to-front format.

At first glance, I really like Monocle. I like the matte paper, lightly-peppered with blue-chip advertisers; the quirky choice of serious topics (which, admittedly, sometimes skirt close to pretentiousness); the simple, eye-pleasing layout; the companion website for subscribers that's set to expand on stories in the print-version, complimenting them with video and audio, rather than merely being an internet signpost. The whole thing feels like a quality package, and is worth casting more than one eye over.

Monocle launches in print and online 15 February 2007, and costs £5, $10 or €12. Subscriptions are £75 for ten issues and website access.

MINI Motorby Billboard

by Tim Yu

MINI of BMW is using advanced technology to communicate directly with drivers through talking billboards called MINI Motorby. Instead of seeing billboards with the same mind-numbing casino ad, these boards feature a changing array of unique, personal and unexpected messages which are triggered by the MINI owner utilizing Radio Frequency Identification Technology (RFID)—the same kind used in passports and credit cards. The billboards generate customized content to owners carrying active RFID tags in real-time, using information provided by the owners. Messages will be spelled out in lights on billboards in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Miami locations.

Future locations can be found at MINI.