Humanitarian three-ways, or what Polish astronomy has to with the future of civilization.
We fully endorsed Emily Pilloton’s vision that design can empower people and change the world. But there’s often a disonnect between the world-changing products and technologies that get dreamt up, and the actual ability to fund them and get them in the hands of those who need them the most.
No more. At least not if it’s up to Kopernik, a revolutionary new social platform that connects breakthrough technologies with the people and communities whose lives they will better the most, harnessing the power of crowdsourced microfunding.
The name, of course, comes from Copernicus, the Polish Renaissance astronomer who busted the geocentric model of the universe and completely changed the way people perceived the way around them — an aspirational metaphor for Kopernik’s ambition to revolutionize how people see and understand the biggest challenges the world faces today.
From a rollable water container for women in East Timor, to self-adjustable glasses (remember those?) for refugees without access to eye clinics, to computer training for Sierra Leonean youth, Kopernik lets development groups write short proposals and submit them to the public for crowdfunding. Sort of like a humanitarian Kickstarter, which then does a three-way connect with individual supporters, technology provider companies, and the local organizations who seek those technologies.
Founded by a team of United Nations and World Bank expats, Kopernik is planning to expand beyond crowdfunding proposals and into developing their own products with DIY and open-source instructions that local communities can use to build technologies.
Because the only kind of design revolution that’s going to stick is one where grassroots empowerment lets people take ownership of the very solutions that are changing their lives.
Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
Elegant anarchy, retrostalgic modernism, and what short circuits have to do with multitasking.
Last year, we did a spotlight feature on five brilliantly innovative bookshelf and bookcase designs. The piece enjoyed unprecedented popularity, so we decided to go and look for more. Today, we return with five more such pieces of book-storage innovation — and an irreconcilable desire to own them all.
PUCKMAN
We have a soft spot for what we call “retrostalgic modernism” — the nostalgia-driven trend of retro revival bent through the prism of modernist aesthetic sensibility. Bonus points if it lets odd bedfellows like video game geeks and design aficionados unite. Naturally, we love this Puckman bookshelf by (of course) Italian design studio Ginepro.
And it’s even in our favorite color.
SHORT CIRCUIT
We raved about this Short Circuit Bookshelf by Philadelphia-based designer Alexandra DiCairano some time ago on Twitter.
It’s a slick design-driven metaphor for the incredible capacity of circuit boards to hold information with extreme minimalist and efficiency — a place where you can proudly place A Brief History of Time and Helvetica side by side.
SWOLLEN WALL
From French architect and designer Paul Coudamy comes this fabulous, space-age-meets-Scandinavian-minimalism Swollen Wall bookcase.
Designed to articulate the different living spaces of the apartment, Swollen Wall runs floor-to-ceiling from the bedroom to the office, through the hallway, offering various pockets of display and storage for books, speakers, posters, vases and other home decor objects.
We love the contrast between Swollen Wall’s fluidity and the inherent angularity of traditioal living spaces. There’s something elegantly anarchist about it.
THE BOOK
Granted, this project by designer Isabella Vaverka is closer to experimental, exploratory art than to literal bookshelf industrial design — but that makes it all the more enticing. Part rebellion about the commodification of books in the digital age, part celebration of her personal collection, the project shifts focus away from books’ content and towards their history and the designer’s personal relation to the objects themselves.
The result: An bookshelf adapted to Vaverka’s own collection of literature, which we find to be a beautiful embodiment of the age of hyper-customization.
TIME-SHELF
Multitasking may be a bad idea when it comes to the brain, but it’s a win for objects. Like this delightful, colorful Time-Shelf by Belarus-born, Paris-based designer Dzmitry Samal, which combines two simple functions in a playful way: time-telling and book-storage.
We don’t normally feature concept designs, but this one is so ingenious it’s only a matter of time until it hits the production line. And we’ll be waiting at its end, open-armed and drooling.
Brain Pickings takes over 200 hours a month to curate, edit and publish. If you find joy and inspiration in it, please consider supporting us with a small donation — it lets us know we’re doing something right.
Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
We fully endorsed Emily Pilloton’s vision that design can empower people and change the world. But there’s often a disonnect between the world-changing products and technologies that get dreamt up, and the actual ability to fund them and get them in the hands of those who need them the most.
From a rollable water container for women in East Timor, to self-adjustable glasses (remember those?) for refugees without access to eye clinics, to computer training for Sierra Leonean youth, Kopernik lets development groups write short proposals and submit them to the public for crowdfunding. Sort of like a humanitarian Kickstarter, which then does a three-way connect with individual supporters, technology provider companies, and the local organizations who seek those technologies. 
Founded by a team of United Nations and World Bank expats, Kopernik is planning to expand beyond crowdfunding proposals and into developing their own products with DIY and open-source instructions that local communities can use to build technologies. 
Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.
PUCKMAN
SHORT CIRCUIT
SWOLLEN WALL
THE BOOK
TIME-SHELF
Help
Brain Pickings takes 200+ hours a month to curate and edit. If you find any joy and value in it, we would really appreciate a modest donation.
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