Dornob | Design Ideas Daily

Tiny Pre-Fab Modular Rooms Add Up to a Stackable Home

Posted: 26 Jun 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Even in the smallest of homes, there are typically separate spaces for living, sleeping, and cooking. The Micro-House from Studio Liu Lubin was designed to give residents just enough space for their indoor movements like sitting, standing and lying down.

Each modular Micro-House is shaped a bit like a plus sign, with the interior shapes meant to act as simple furniture. Each Micro-House is a multi-functional (though, by most standards, incredibly small) home.

Although the individual unit can be used as a single room, multiple Micro-Houses can be grouped together to make a larger home or even a multi-family home. The units are light and easily moved, and once in place they can be assembled by hand.

The Micro-House, made of the ultra-light and very strong Fiber Reinforced Form Composite Structure, were designed to give private housing options in crowded Chinese cities. With a Micro-House community, the lines between shared and private housing would be blurred, but each unit would at least offer a tiny getaway with space for not much more than one person.

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Right-Angled Staples: Simple Twist Reinvents the Stapler

Posted: 25 Jun 2013 04:00 PM PDT

Like coffee mugs or or door knobs, staplers are one of the most ubiquitous design objects and frequently tackled by people trying to make small improvements.

Already, there are industrial-strength versions and all kinds of other variants, so it should be surprising, in retrospect, that no one came up with this particular idea sooner.

42 Design presents the 90-degree stapler, making it easier to align the stapler with corners, but also preserving those same corners that are often dog-eared from use over time.

The catch? If there is one, it may be this: a more clunky delivery device and a stapler shape that is a bit more awkward. That said, with a bit more design work, these could be turned to the designers’ advantage through further ergonomic thinking.