Bandai's anniversary move was to take parts away: 116 down to 64, and the whole thing onto a finger. Three decades in, the appeal is still that it needs you.
Thirty-six dollars buys the part that lasts. Fourteen buys three of the part that wears out. A Swiss designer decided in advance which was which.
Adding a button is cheap. Taking one away cost Sigma a redesign, a supply chain decision, and seven hours of machine time per camera body.
A sintered mineral filter handles both pour-over and gongfu tea, and nothing in the set wears out. The sharp edges are doing real work.
The calmer-phone category usually works by subtracting software. Side Technologies moved the decision into a component you hold in your hand.
Camphor, saltpeter and sal ammoniac sealed in alcohol, growing crystals a Royal Navy admiral swore could read the coming storm. Science calls it a slow thermometer, and two centuries of windowsills have disagreed.
Three thousand answers, sealed on the board at build time, with no way to add a three-thousand-and-first. The ceiling is the design.
ECAL and Google asked design students to reimagine the phone around daily rituals. One student made a bird.
A handmade web cemetery, complete with handwritten obituaries for ICQ, Songza, Microsoft Tay, Clippy, and a long list of services and devices that quietly stopped existing. The joke is funny. The premise underneath, that objects deserve a death, is the part to sit with.
Atsuhiko Misawa and Koji Tanada share KAAT's first-ever sculpture show, carving deer and children from single blocks of camphor wood. The technique is older than most countries. The argument is current.
Delcy Morelos hand-built an earthen pavilion the length of a basketball court inside the Barbican's concrete Sculpture Court. The walls are clay, hay, and antifungal spice, made to live and breathe through the summer.
Sterling silver yo-yos, stone dice, a toad-shaped ring toss. Georg Jensen's new games collection treats dents and scratches as proof of life, not damage.