2 microscopic technologies to look at food. The first technique is Scanning electron microscopy of hydrated specimens. It was done using small specimens (less than 4 mm in diameter) placed directly in the well of the cooled microscope stage maintained at +1°C and a pressure of 0.6 Torr in the chamber. The cut surface of each specimen was sealed with colloidal graphite to prevent water loss. The image of cauliflower at left was obtained at 0.6 Torr and 1°C.
The second technique is Confocal Laser Scanning Microscopy. The microscopic structure of food significantly affects its processing characteristics, flavour properties and texture. Food microstructure studies thus provide a key to understanding, and therefore controlling, food behaviour. Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) is one of the most useful microscopy techniques for studying the microstructure of a wide variety of foods, in particular dairy products. A primary feature of the CLSM is its ability to "optically section" through samples, giving a 3-dimensional view of a food product with minimal sample disturbance. The second photo is of Milk chocolate Dual-stained image showing protein (green), fat (blue), cocoa solids (red). and sugar crystals (dark green/black). Sugar crystal sizes range from 5 to 25 µm.
Hard as it may be to believe, there are still those of us that haven’t purchased a Nintendo Wii. Those poor souls may still be wondering what sort of new gameplay the console is supposed to bring them. Well, you should check out this video for an upcoming family oriented title called “Cooking Mama: Cook Off”, a game originally developped for the DS, but which is now being entirely re-written for the Wii.
“There are new foods, new modes, and multiplayer, all wrapped around the crunchy center of the Wiimote.”
As the title indicates, the whole point of the game is to cook. You get to slice, dice, chop and sautee all your ingredients, in the quest of the perfect dish. Or something like that.
Point is, there’s a video after the jump, if you’re so inclined. The game should be out in April, for $50.
The quality of porcelain is best reflected through its fine and thin character. By using moulds you hardly get this quality out of porcelain. Marcel Wanders developed a technique to produce porcelain objects without the use of plaster moulds. A natural sponge is taken and dipped under fluid porcelain clay, the clay impregnates the sponge and after drying the porcelain impregnated dry sponge is burned in a regular ceramic oven. The sponge totally disappears and the porcelain perfectly copies the fine shapes of the sponge. In this way we create a product which is industrially reproducible but different every time and which has the ability to show the best porcelain has in it. The same process is developed further on to make products by using pre-shaped artificial foam and make porcelain objects out of these, the foam bowl is a first example of the great possibilities with this technique. This vase is developed in a project for Droog Design and Rosenthal.
The WET Lamp is an elegant and playful series of glass lamps with an alluring water-submerged light bulb at its center. Putting an exposed light bulb in water certainly raises some eyebrows, but it also creates an intriguingly simple dimmer switch. When a thin silver rod is slid into the water, the WET Lamp turns on and becomes progressively brighter as the rod is submerged.
How could someone wrap up Takeshi Ishiguro’s work in one sentence? The former product designer for IDEO now works on his own back in Japan, dedicating his full time to experimental technology, conceptual products and beautiful installations. Our favourite star goes to the leaf bowl.
In 2002, Ned Kahn worked with the staff of Technorama, the major science center in Switzerland, and their architects, Durig and Rami, to create a facade for the building which is composed of thousands of aluminum panels that move in the air currents and reveal the complex patterns of turbulence in the wind.
:: Fragmented Dunes ::
A wind-animated shade screen for the new performing arts center that consists of thousands of 9-inch squares of perforated aluminum mounted on low friction hinges so that the entire surface of the facade responds to the wind. Each moving panel is perforated with thousands of different sized holes that, when viewed from a distance, create a photographic mosaic of sand dune images. When sunlight passes through the screens, intricate shadow images of the dunes are projected onto the walls and floor of the lobby. The design evolved from a collaboration with BOORA and DWL Architects and the engineering firm Paragon.
People wrote about Behrokh Khoshnevis’ awe-inspiring, rapid-prototyping “robo builder” in 2005 when it was still a work in progress. But now, the University of Southern California professor’s contour crafting machine will be put to the test; it’s scheduled to erect its first house in California within the next few months. The two-story house will built in less than 24 hours out of only concrete and gypsum — and without the help of a single human hand. Khoshenevis’ groundbreaking robo-builder has caused some raised eyebrows and dropped jaws within the architectural community, as the machine provides a new model for construction that drastically cuts building timelines, material, manpower, and most importantly, waste and carbon emissions.
Food for design is honoured to be a part of the programm of the 10th anniversary of The Contemporary Flemish Wine Institute®, the n°1 wine school of Belgium.
We would like to invite you for an unforgettable wine & food experience:
“A WORLD OF PINOT NOIR”
when: Friday the 16th of March 2007 where: Campus Ter Groene Poorte in Brugge – see www.evw.be program:
10.00h Science in service of our Belgian gastronomy by ir. Bernard Lahousse – www.foodfordesign.be
11.30h The Influence of pinot noir on the human body by prof. dr. Nicolai Worm – www.logi-methode.de
13.00h Molecular gastronomy demonstration lunch by Peter Coucquyt – Flemish Culinary Institute
15.00h ‘A World of Pinot Noir’ symposium moderator: Jancis Robinson MW - www.jancisrobinson.com with winemakers from Australia, Belgium, California, Chile, Germany, France, Italy, New-Zealand, Austria, Slovenia & South-Africa
17.00h Open tasting with 100 pinot noir wines from the whole world & pinot noir business discussion lounge
17.30h Food hackings
18.30h presentation of the FAITH fund by creator Beyers Truter, pinotage winemaker and president of the Pinotage Association
19.00h Village of taste: 10 cooking islands where the young generation of Belgian chefs create sublime recipes with contemporary equipment, linked to the pinot noir wines of the world.
in collaboration with www.khbo.be & www.tergroenepoorte.be
fund raising: Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and associated alcohol abuse may be sensitive topics for some but it is important to talk loudly about it and to help in every way possible. The Faith Fund aims to do just that. And it needs your assistance to do that. The EVW® supports the Faith Fund with the total turnover of this day, and the help of many sponsors.
For people who want to know what is going on in Belgium regarding molecular gastronomy, this is an event you can't miss. As it is an international event the language spoken during the lectures will be english or french.
An other humble masterpiece by Fulguro.A folded aluminium sheet, shaped as a leaf, used for collecting rain water. It can be stuck directly into flower pots or in a watering can. Thermolacquered aluminium.About 50cm x 40cm x 30cm
Marc Fornes is currently working in London for Zaha Hadid Ltd as a project architect for the MIDR "Mediatheque de Pau" (developed in collaboration with Alvin Huang and Vincent Nowak. He graduated of the AA DRL (jan04) and is currently teaching assistant at the Royal College of Arts (London) regarding Rhino. We love his work and approach.Take your time to check his blog and his code recepies.
The example above: In mathematics, a Voronoi diagram, named after Georgy Voronoi, also called a Voronoi tessellation, a Voronoi decomposition, or a Dirichlet tessellation (after Lejeune Dirichlet), is special kind of decomposition of a metric space determined by distances to a specified discrete set of objects in the space, e.g., by a discrete set of points.
We got a lot of possitive comments on the MG seminar. For the people who couldn't attend the seminar; all lectures and demonstrations were filmed. Clicking below directs you the movies made during the seminar. So you can see the lectures of professor Peter Barham and professor Jorge Ruiz and enjoy the live demonstrations of the chef Sang Hoon of L'air du temps and chef Kobe of In de wulf
Fab@Home is a website dedicated to making and using fabbers - machines that can make almost anything, right on your desktop. This website provides an open source kit that lets you make your own simple fabber, and use it to print three dimensional objects. You can download and print various items, try out new materials, or upload and share your own projects. Advanced users can modify and improve the fabber itself.
Fabbers (a.k.a 3D Printers or rapid prototyping machines) are a relatively new form of manufacturing that builds 3D objects by carefuly depositing materials drop by drop, layer by layer. Slowly but surely, with the right set of materials and a geometric blueprint, you can fabricate complex objects that would normally take special resources, tools and skills if produced using conventional manufacturing techniques. A fabber can allow you explore new designs, email physical objects to other fabber owners, and most importantly - set your ideas free. Just like MP3s, iPods and the Internet have freed musical talent, we hope that blueprints and fabbers will democratize innovation.
While several commercial systems are available, their price range - tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands of dollars - is typically well beyond what an average home user can afford. Furthermore, commercial systems do not usually allow or encourage experimentation with new materials and processes. But more importantly, most - if not all - commercial system are geared towards making passive parts out of a single material. Our goal is to explore the potential of universal fabrication: Machines that can use multiple materials to fabricate complete, active systems.
Plants have genes, Animals have genes. Have you ever wondered if products have them? If products have genes, then the methods of design in nature may be applied to products. Genometri is a Singapore based design technology company that just does that. It has developed a generative design technology that allows designers to create 1000's of design variations based on their original design. It is able to explore a huge range of possibilities that is not possible other wise. Texture and color may also be explored. This technology gives designer unprecedented power of exploration creating variations that are significantly distinctive.
"If evolution could create a chair... Trees have the ability to add material where strength it is needed. But bones also have the ability to take away material where it is not needed. With this knowledge the International Development Centre Adam Opel GmbH, a part of General Motors Engineering Europe created a dynamic digital tool to copy these ways of constructing used for optimizing car parts. In a way it quite precisely copies the way evolution constructs. I didn't use it to create the next worlds perfect chair but as a high tech sculpting tool to create elegant shape with a kind of legitimacy. The chair is the first in a series and the process can be applied to any scale until architectural sizes in any material strength..."
A new project by Joris Laarman for gallery Barry Friedman Ltd new york & droog, Bonefurniture.
Researchers have invented a new plastic material that can change into three different shapes based on heat. The chemical engineers from MIT and the Helmhotz Association of German Research Centers demonstrated a plastic tube with three "programmed" diameters (4.5 mm, 6.9 mm, 5.8 mm) that are selected by altering the temperature.
From the MIT News Office: An "intelligent stent" made of the new class of plastics could assume three different shapes to facilitate medical procedures: It would assume a handy oval shape for insertion, then a fully inflated round shape for temporary use inside a blood vessel, duct or other cylindrical organ, and lastly, a compressed cylindrical shape for easy removal.
The triple-shape-shift from shape A to B to C could also have applications in industry. In factories, changeable plastic fasteners could be implanted in, or attached to, one part, then heated to extend an arm to another part. With further heating, the fastener would change shape yet again to lock itself in place. In effect, it would be an automated form of self-assembly.
Food for design wants to be an open source for design, food and science cross-over. We are not interested in creating hypes, but in long term co-operations, where everyone benefits. Promoting quality and collective creativity are the things that count... So please take a seat and have a bite! Best view [res: 1024 x 768] x [browser: firefox]
_ random newsletter
_news
_m[eat]ing 003
17.03.2007::MATERIALS ::
Food for design was invited by the Meat & Fresh expo and will install a creative food laboratory at the rambla during the fair,
where people can find inspiration towards form and taste.
[+ more]
_m[eat]ing 002
18.11.2006::MATERIALS ::
A feast of surfaces, textures, colors and other sensorial elements, using a large palette of food materials.
The objective is to inspire new uses for food materials and provoke new applications within a design context.
[+ more]
_seminar
20.09.2006::MG SEMINAR IN BELGIUM ::
This seminar [ 20 november 2006 ] is organised by the innovation and knowledge centre of food for every one who is interested in food science, technology and cooking processes. This can be chefs, scientists, recipe developers, foodies,...
The guest speakers tell and demonstrate how food science and technology can inspire gastronomy...
[+ english][+ dutch]
_manifesto 001
03.02.2006::FOOD for design::
The first aim of this project is to explore and understand the physicochemical properties of materials / ingredients and apply this under-standing when designing.
_manifesto 002
28.01.2006::food for DESIGN::
A different way of thinking : abandoning the role of "creator" and "descending" to the role of a participant playing within the rules of an experimental process.
All experiments come into being as a result of self-formation processes.
_manifesto 001
22.01.2006::food FOR design::
In exploring the materials the main focus lays on the food as in exploring the structure the primary focus lays on the process.
The goal of this cross-fertilisation project is to add more senses / experience to design, it is a way of sustainable, random, natural thinking to in-spire others, giving food for the future.
