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Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

A Silver Lining: 14 Cloud-Shaped Homes, Furnishings & Decor Designs

12 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Design & Furniture & Decor. ]

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Floating on air, flickering with lightning, providing a pillowy soft surface or gently raining water down on plants, these cloud-shaped home accents and architectural designs are downright heavenly. A bluetooth speaker magically levitates above its base, a lamp provides motion-activated thunderstorm shows, a concrete display base makes toilet paper commercials literal in their comparisons and a house in Australia takes on a highly unusual silhouette.

Levitating Cloud Speaker by Richard Clarkson Studio + Crealev

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A cumulus cloud hovers over a wooden base, floating up to two inches above the surface, bobbing back and forth. That cloud is actually a speaker, and it levitates using the power of magnets. ‘Making Weather’ blends Crealev’s magnetic levitation technology with Richard Clarkson’s artificial cloud designs for an eye-catching product that flickers with ‘lightning’ when you play music.

Knitted Cloud Stools by Studio Joon&Jung

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Chunky skeins of wool get hand-knitted into soft, cloudily masses made to sit atop wooden stools. Say the designers, Joon+Jung, “Cloud Stool is inspired by the flexibility and softness of the cloudscape. It can be singular or become a group as a human being. It gives the illusion that it’s alive, by using irregularity, flexibility and subtle differences in tone of perception. Conclusively, the form interacts between objects, and people could explore with it.”

Concrete Cloud Toilet Paper Holder

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This might just be the most clever display of backup toilet paper ever created, yet it’s so simple. A curving concrete base lets you stack the rolls into a cloud shape, fitting up to 14 rolls for the large size, and it’s also available in a smaller size for space-challenged bathrooms.

Cloud House by McBride Charles Ryan

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This modern home addition by McBride Charles Ryan expands the back of an Edwardian house in Victoria, Australia, with a glazed end looking out onto a long, narrow lap pool. “The new living addition faces due south while allowing controlled north sun into the living area and providing effective cross ventilation,” say the architects. “The form of the ‘cloud’ conforms to setback regulations without appearing obviously determined by them. The extrusion creates a dramatic interior language where walls merge seamlessly with the floor and ceiling. While the geometry is playful, the extrusion is essentially a contemporary barrel vault. It is our hope that this cloud has a ‘silver lining.’

Le Nuage by Wout Wessemius

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Puffs of ultra-realistic clouds glow as if caught by rays of sunlight, illuminated from within by energy-efficient bulbs and hung from the ceiling. ‘Le Nuage’ by Netherlands-based designer Wout Wessemius is a particularly striking version of the ‘cloud lamp’ phenomenon that swept through the industrial design world over the last few years.

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Floating On Air 14 Cloud Shaped Homes Furnishings Decor Designs

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Life After Death: Organic Burial Pods Turn Human Bodies into Living Trees

12 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Culture & History & Travel. ]

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Amidst a huge array of natural burial initiatives and urban cemetery alternatives, the Capsula Mundi stands out as a sustainable solution that serves wishes of the deceased as well as the land of the living.

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Italian designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel developed this solution in part to challenge constrictive existing laws surrounding burials in their home country.

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Essentially, a body is interred in an organic and biodegradable burial capsule situated beneath the seedling of a chosen tree. Instead of filling graveyards with caskets and stone monuments to the deceased, this system would populate parks with living memorials – trees over tombstones. In turn, family and descendants can come to visit and care for the plants in honor of their loved ones.

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Many other “green” burial solutions are generally not as ecological as they would first appear. Cremations, for instance, generate huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the burning process. And, of course, traditional burials are not very sustainable – chemicals, caskets, concrete, stone and space are all wasted in an effort to preserve something that will inevitably return to nature, one way or another.

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More from the project website: “Capsula Mundi is a cultural and broad-based project, which envisions a different approach to the way we think about death. It’s an egg-shaped pod, an ancient and perfect form, made of biodegradable material, where our departed loved ones are placed for burial. Ashes will be held in small Capsulas while bodies will be laid down in a fetal position in larger pods. The pod will then be buried as a seed in the earth.

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“A tree, chosen in life by the deceased, will be planted on top of it and serve as a memorial for the departed and as a legacy for posterity and the future of our planet. Family and friends will continue to care for the tree as it grows. Cemeteries will acquire a new look and, instead of the cold grey landscape we see today, they will grow into vibrant woodlands. The project is still in a start-up phase, but encouraged by worldwide enthusiasm for our concept, we are working to make it become a reality.”

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Zaha Hadid’s Legacy: Proposal for London by the Architect’s Final Students

11 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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The legacy of famed architect Zaha Hadid continues to unfold months after her death at age 65 as a long list of her final projects continue in various stages of development, from those currently under construction to concepts that may forever remain unbuilt. But even putting aside the many outstanding and unrealized designs remaining on her firm’s docket, Hadid’s influence on modern architecture lives on through the work of her students at the Yale School of Architecture.

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During their semester-long project at Zaha Hadid’s final studio course, a group of students envisioned a striking new development for London’s Bishopsgate Goodsyard, a flowing white complex in the architect’s signature biomimetic style. Consisting of a high-density residential tower, a mid-rise block and a train station acting as a bridge between the two, the proposal adds some height and visual interest to the largest undeveloped piece of land remaining in central London.

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Lisa Albaugh, Benjamin Bourgoin, Jamie Edindjiklian, Roberto Jenkins and Justin Oh present a futuristic network of  gleaming white structures with a skeletal appearance, as if someone took the carcass of some extinct megabeast and reassembled it into a deconstructed approximation of a Gothic cathedral. The spaces between the rib-like columns are filled in with wavy walls of glass decorated with veinous ribbons of gold.

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Viaducts at the base act as access points to a series of public spaces, including a park landscape, connecting the various functions within the complex. All of the different elements that would normally be contained within a traditional tower core are instead spread into individual ‘strands,’ like the elevators, stairs and mechanical systems, freeing up the tower’s center for unusual cross-views out of all that glass.

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It would seem that the proposal is pure fantasy, given that the developers of the site, Hammerson and Ballymore, have already produced their own proposal. But Londoners have made it clear that they aren’t too keen on that design, with over 11,000 residents signing a petition against it. Critics argue that the developers’ proposal “would result in unacceptable and avoidable significant negative impacts” to the neighborhood.

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The Power to Change: 12 Brilliantly Reclaimed Energy Stations

11 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Public & Institutional. ]

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As cities grow and their power needs change, the historic and often surprisingly beautiful structures holding turbines, generators, coal and gas are decommissioned, becoming prime candidates for redevelopment. A recent wave of power stations built at the turn of the 20th century, packed full of period details, have been transformed into cultural centers, hotels, apartments and more, including London’s stunning Battersea Station.

Power Plant to Cultural Art Space by Renzo Piano, Moscow

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A historic power plant on the banks of the Moskva River in Moscow will become a new cultural center, transformed as part of a larger contemporary art site by architecture firm Renzo Piano Building Workshop. The main building was built between 1904 and 1907 and will be extensively renovated to add lots of glass, while the original towers remain intact to provide natural ventilation.

Battersea Power Station to Residential Tower, London

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A pair of twin coal-fired power station buildings set on the edge of the Thames River in London were decommissioned way back in 1983, but are considered such an important landmark in London, they’ve been preserved, awaiting the perfect redevelopment plan that takes advantage of their beautiful Art Deco interior fittings and decor. One of the largest brick buildings in the world, Battersea Power Station has been the subject of many proposals, including turning it into an eco-dome or an amusement park, all of which have ultimately fallen through. The latest places the original building at the center of a mixed-use complex by architects Norman Foster and Frank Gehry, which includes both luxury residences and affordable homes, a hotel, a gym, and a series of shops, cafes and restaurants.

Brick Power Station to 5 Star Hotel, South Africa

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Decommissioned since 2001, this old power station on Thesen Islands in South Africa once used waste timber to power huge turbines, which supplied electricity to nearby Knysna and Plettenberg Bay. Now, it’s part of the 5-star, 24-room boutique Turbine Hotel by CMAI Architects, redesigned to keep as much of the original structures and equipment intact as possible. Mechanical equipment, operating panels, piping and the original turbines are all incorporated into the new complex, and things like gauges and dials were worked into various parts of the hotel. The entire development scheme is considered a ‘living museum,’ where guests can clearly see what it used to be while experiencing it in a new way.

Coal-Burning Power Plant to College Learning Center

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A coal-burning power plant in a small Wisconsin town will become part of Liberal Arts institution Beloit College as a leaning and wellness center. With Chicago-based Studio Gang Architects at the helm, the project will preserve the industrial feel of the site while offering a coffee shop, conference hall, lounges, lecture hall and theater as well as a competition swimming pool, 3-lane track, 10,000-square-foot fitness center and 17,000 square-foot gymnasium. It’s set to be finished in 2018.

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The Power To Change 12 Brilliantly Reclaimed Energy Stations

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Rolling Landscape: Driverless Geodesic Garden Hits the Streets of London

10 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Conceptual & Futuristic & Technology. ]

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As robotic cars take to the streets, designers are beginning to see possibilities for urban mobility that go beyond human and cargo transport. What if plants, for instance, could be moved around automatically, seeking out sun, filtering dirty air and providing fresh greens within cities?

Inspired by Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic domes and Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, the Interactive Architecture Lab at the University College London has designed and built Hortum Machina B (the last letter short for Bucky).

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An aluminum core houses the technology’s robotics, monitoring plants on the periphery and changing rotation and position to accommodate their needs. On-board water storage supplies moisture for growth while the ball stays in motion.

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This novel mobile ecosystem is solar-powered, so its search for sunlight fuels not only the plants on board but the system itself. With efficient water reclamation, the garden could stay on the move indefinitely.

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The internal computer system not only keeps the plants healthy but serve as part of a larger set of smart-city initiatives. For instance, sensors can detect and seek out areas with poor air quality, letting the plants provide filtration on demand.

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The sphere could also roll itself through urban food deserts, allowing people to pick edibles as it winds its way through a city. Of course, this shape may not be the most efficient manifestation of the idea, but as a conceptual model could inspire similar and more sustainable typologies.

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Presumably, in a future world of autonomous vehicles, there will be both mechanisms and space to accommodate driverless gardens as well as cars. Freed-up streets could be used to transport all kinds of things, not just conventional goods and people but also micro-ecosystems and other stuff we have yet to think of. For now the, the robotic garden has been tested in London and remains prototype. It might not be as productive per square foot of space as many new urban farm designs, but perhaps it makes up in novelty and mobility what it lacks in terms of strict productivity.

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Dear Dairy: 12 Delicious Displays Of Milk Crate Art & Design

10 Oct

[ By Steve in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]

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Milk crates are like jumbo LEGO bricks: they’re colorful, lightweight, plentiful, and can be arranged in an infinite number of artful configurations.

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Looking a little like a gargantuan game of true-life Tetris, this monumental milk-crate magic carpet by local artists Philippe Allard and Justin Duchesneau won the Prix Art Public at Montreal’s Gala des arts visuels in 2012. Dubbed “Courtepointe” or “Quilt” in English, the installation was set up at the disused Darling Foundry which has housed and hosted artists studios and an art gallery since the early 2000s. Credit Flickr user taoquay for the above images snapped on July 24th of 2012.

Lactose Lighthouse

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Sculpture By The Sea, held annually in Bondi and Cottesloe, Australia, are said to be “the largest free to the public art exhibitions in the world”. The 2004 edition held along the scenic Bondi to Tamara clifftop walk featured a titanic tower of red and black milk crates built in the form of a lighthouse. No sea cows were harmed during its construction.

Crate Habitat For Humanity

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Featured as part of the 2015 London Festival of Architecture, the Art|House was a pop-up commission located in Powis Square. The structure was built using approximately 4,000 milk crates.

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Designed by Jo Hagan and Use Architects/The Institute Of Light, the house was constructed in such a way that the component crates can either be re-introduced to perform their original purpose or packed down, delivered to any new location, and reconstituted as a sustainable shelter. Wonder what happens when it rains, this being England and all.

Branching Out

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By now you might just assume Australia is the center (or “centre”, as the Aussies spell it) of the milk crate art universe, and that assumption would be correct. It would seem the ground down under is already saturated with milk crate artworks so there’s now nowhere to go but up – as in the suspended crate man from Footscray, a suburb of Melbourne, snapped by Kham Tran of Kham’s Blog in September of 2011.

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Dear Dairy 12 Delicious Displays Of Milk Crate Art

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Art of Deception: NYC Monument to Giant Octopus Attack Misdirects Tourists

09 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

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Visitors to Battery Park in Manhattan will find memorials to fallen soldiers, sunken sailors and 400 passengers who perished when a Staten Island ferry was attacked by a giant octopus.

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This last event, however convincing (thanks to 250-pound cast-bronze sculpture and plaque), is entirely fictional, part of surprisingly elaborate hoax. That would be hard to guess at a glance, though, given the thought and craft that went into this fake memorial and the other materials that were designed to bolster its credibility.

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Artist Joseph Reginella invented the scenario, crafting a website, a mock documentary, news articles and fliers to complete the deception. The monument even directs people to the Ferry Disaster Memorial museum. It also weaves in real-world facts, like the name of the ship.

He had the idea while taking the ferry himself. When his won asked whether there were dangerous creatures waiting below, he invented the story, then spent months elaborating on the fabrication.

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To keep the city from taking it away, he has moved the memorial from place to place. To add credibility, he made the day of the event the same as the assassination of President Kennedy, something that would plausibly overshadow such a massive historic disaster.

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Real Scale Revealed: Digital Mashups Show Off Oversized Wonders

08 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

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When you see the Burj Khalifa photoshopped into New York City’s skyline, glimpse a B-2 bomber on an NFL football field or spot the largest scorpion that ever lived creeping up next to a cat, you get a better sense of just how big these things are. Kevin Wisbeth, who created the YouTube series ‘A Quick Perspective,’ offers up a bunch of digitally altered images mashing together various images and objects to give people a real sense of scale.

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“These are all concept images that don’t seem appealing enough for a video,” he says – but the results are stunning nonetheless, starting with the 1,729-foot Willis Tower (the second-tallest building in the United States) placed inside the Mir Mine, one of the deepest mines in the world (pictured top.) The second depicts the 882-foot-long Titanic atop the deck of the U.S.S. Ronald Reagan, which measures 1,092 feet in length.

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The Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis, or Breathing Scorpion, was a prehistoric arachnid that grew up to 24 inches long, or about the size of a contemporary house cat.

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The M-1 Rocket motor, designed in the ‘50s, was never actually built – but if it had been, it would have boasted a diameter large enough to fully cover a Smart Car with two feet left over on either side.

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The Dionysus asteroid, which is part of the Apollo asteroid belt and contains resources estimated to be worth $ 2.6 trillion dollars, “wouldn’t even surpass the bridge span” of the Golden Gate Bridge if placed above it.

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The Burj Khalifa pokes into the sky above Manhattan, easily surpassing One World Trade Center by almost 1,000 feet and the Empire State Building by 1,300 feet. It’s currently the tallest structure in the world at 2,722 feet tall.

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“Although the Death Star doesn’t exist in reality, it’s truly the biggest and most bad-ass machine ever conceived. The Death Star’s estimated width is around 99 miles across, or around 1/4 the length of Florida.”

See more of the images on Imgur.

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Hybrid Graffiti: Black-and-White Stencils Bring Colorful Tags to Life

06 Oct

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

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Nearly photo-realistic figures stenciled in place make bright surrounding tags all the more vibrant in this series of street art juxtapositions by artist Martin Whatson of Norway.

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The characters, generally rendered in black and white, are sized and scaled like residents and passers by in the built environment. The tags, rich and overlapping, look more like what most people would call “graffiti.” The anti-artist Gray Ghost comes to mind, famous for painting over the works of other artists, like Banksy.

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On their own, each component is somewhat predictable, but in their interactions these works come to life. The characters look through windows surrounded by color, or sweep up street graffiti, or pull back walls to reveal it. The tags, in turn, add light and life to the scenes, points of color in a drab and dreary city.

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Much of his work breaks this format as well, but generally still finds itself at the interaction of urban spaces and imaginary worlds. Below, a figure painting clouds on the wall gives depth and dimension on both fronts: the clouds seem to go back and the painter appears to stand out.

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More about the artist and his approach: “Martin has a continuous urge to search for beauty in what is commonly dismissed as ugly, out of style or simply left behind. He looks for inspirations in people, city landscapes, old buildings, graffiti, posters and decaying walls. This interest for decay has helped develop his style, motives and composition and he enjoys creating either unity or conflict between materials, backgrounds, motives and human intervention” (via Colossal).

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GeoOrbital Wheel: Tron-Inspired Add-On Makes Any Bike Electric

06 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

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Make any bicycle an electric bike in 60 seconds simply by replacing the front wheel with ‘GeoOrbital,’ a gadget made by a team of engineers from SpaceX and Ford. Available in two sizes to fit 95% of all adult sized bicycles, the GeoOrbital is the simplest electric conversion kit yet, letting you keep that comfy bike you love while adding speed and power for faster commuting. Just snap off the front wheel of any bike, install the electric wheel in its place and you’re good to go.

Creator Michael Burtov says he got the idea while watching the science fiction film Tron. The glowing rims of the motorcycles in that movie are empty inside, representing what Burtov saw as a whole lot of wasted space. What could be put there instead? As it turns out, his answer is a futuristic spin on the orbital wheel, with an aerospace-grade aluminum unibody, a brushless DC motor, a Li-ion battery and a flat-proof tire.

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No tools are needed to install it, and everything you need to power your bike is included in the wheel. That means when you go to lock up your bike, you can take the GeoOrbital with you for security and peace of mind. It’s been tested on hundreds of bikes in all different styles, even vintage models from the ‘60s and ‘70s, and is available in 26-inch or 700C (28 and 29-inch) sizes. It takes 3-4 hours to recharge, features built-in regenerative braking and reaches up to 20 miles per hour without pedaling. When pedaling, you can hit 30mph on the 26-inch and an incredible 50mph on the 700C.

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The only part of the GeoOrbital that isn’t built into the wheel is the thumb-activated throttle, which you clip onto your handlebar. Boost yourself up hills or accelerate past clogged traffic when you want the power, or turn it off and pedal when you don’t. The wheel charges via USB, and when you’re riding, you can use the outlet to charge a phone or power a speaker.

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After a wildly successful Kickstarter, the GeoOrbital is now available for pre-order to the public for $ 799.99, $ 150 off the retail price, with expected delivery in February 2017.

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