Athens BenchMark Competition: restyling the livingroom of Athens.

Sometimes good things comes from the goverment it self!

In this case the non-profit organization "The World of Athens" with the support of the "City of Athens" organized and opened for entries the international design competition "Athens BenchMark".
The competition is divided in two different sections with of course different prizes.
The first is about designing a full manufacturable bench for the city of Athens. One of the winners will be selected for production and distributed to the streets!
The second is to envision the future bench.

So all of you out there feeling urban-designing are welcomed!

Below competition's terms and rules. In the site you will also find a Greek version of them.

"Athens BenchMark" International Design Competition - Entry Terms & Conditions_EN
"Athens BenchMark" International Design Competition - Technical Specifications_EN
"Athens BenchMark" International Design Competition (Future Bench) - Entry Terms & Conditions_EN
"Athens BenchMark" International Design Competition (Future Bench) - Technical Specifications_EN

link:
"Athens BenchMark" - International Design Competition.

Dromeas - 5th International Office and House Furniture Industrial Design Competition.

Dromeas, one of the biggest home and office furniture manufacturer here in Greece, announced the "5th International Office and House Furniture Industrial Design Competition".
The competition is fully organized by the company and, I can say, with a good amount of prizes.

Below you can find the competition call brochures (in english and greek) but also links to the official site.
Good luck to you all!!

WARNING:
There is an error about the deadline date in the english version of the announcement.
The correct deadline date is: 29/01/2010.
Dromeas - 5th International Office and House Furniture Industrial Design Competition. (EN)
Dromeas - 5th International Office and House Furniture Industrial Design Competition. (GR)

links:
dromeas - official site
dromeas - competition announcement (greek version)
dromeas - competition announcement (english version)

AliasStudio Tutorials: How to Design to Volume.

Designing plastic bottles, which can have wildly creative shapes, need to conform to many technical requirements and in particular a specified volume. The design process ends up being very iterative, so this tutorial shows you how to accurately calculate volumes for your design and provides some tips to speed up the iterations.
AliasDesign_How to Design to Volume

Manufacturing Methods: Die Casting.

Molten aluminum, magnesium or zinc alloys are injected into the water-cooled dies under high pressure. The dies open and the part is ejected. The flash is removed, usually by a trimming die, and finished.

There are two types of machines: cold chamber and hot chamber.
In a cold chamber process, the molten metal is ladled into the cold chamber for each shot. There is less time exposure of the melt to the plunger walls or the plunger. This is particularly useful for metals such as Aluminum, and Copper (and its alloys) that alloy easily with Iron at the higher temperatures.
Instead in a hot chamber process the pressure chamber is connected to the die cavity is immersed permanently in the molten metal. The inlet port of the pressurizing cylinder is uncovered as the plunger moves to the open (unpressurized) position. This allows a new charge of molten metal to fill the cavity and thus can fill the cavity faster than the cold chamber process. The hot chamber process is used for metals of low melting point and high fluidity such as tin, zinc, and lead that tend not to alloy easily with steel at their melt temperatures.

Process properties:
Advantages:

• high production, good tolerances, low part price, good surface finish.
• thin walls.

Disadvantages:

• limited to nonferrous metals and fairly small parts.
• expensive tools, long lead time, required draft angles.

Typical Parts:

• automotive parts, industrial tool and motor housings, plumbing fixtures.
  

AliasStudio Tutorials: Performance Tips.

In this tutorial is shown how to make a few setups to make AliasStudio interact much better with our workflow...


link:
in full resolution (1024x764).