To the question "Do you know what you are?" Frank Zappa answered: "You are what you is… You ain’t what you not. So see what you got…" etc…The funny thing is that these days the answer is shifting towards what you (we) are not and how we can get what we don’t have. Reminds me of another song called Desire by Tuxedomoon: "Makes you go where you can’t go. Makes you want what you can’t have, Desire."

I am not trying to be the anti-capitalist moralist here. However these thoughts came into my mind after seeing this commercial in the train the other day:

Are people fueled by a new form of self-expressionism, something that requires a great number of credit cards? I shop therefore I am?

Here’s a sneak preview of our latest design, the new Ernst & Young TAS office. The rest of the office should be ready by the end of the year. More pictures (with furniture) to follow…

Self-made objects is a site with projects by Roger Ibars. Roger studied Interaction Design and displays a fantastic sort of homour in re-manufacturing everyday objects using joysticks as a control unit.

"He illustrated this research by publishing the book "Self-made objects", a collection of daily objects that experience their functions. These objects investigate a new area for interaction design where things take control of their functions and therefore use themselves. The user, left behind from this interaction, can only interact witn the objects with empathy."

Great website, beautifully designed.

I uploaded some pictures at we love sheds which was picked up by Shedworking. Amazing to see that there are blogs devoted not only to sheds but also to working in them. It seems that Mahler wrote most of his compositions in sheds.
Other famous shedworkers include Mark Twain, Dylan Thomas, Roald Dahl, Arthur Miller and Peter Gabriel. Peter Gabriel has teamed up with Solid State Logic to create studio sheds for those who want a shed like Gabriel instead of creating their own. Here you can watch why Peter Gabriel likes working in a shed.

When we were expecting our first baby I bought a book called 10,001 baby names. For most high rise buildings here in Tokyo the owners (or whoever stick a name to the building) seem to have a list of 5 or 6 words that they then add the location of the building.

The words are:

Garden

Hill(s)

Park

Tower

City

Throw these words in a pot and you get:

Akasaka Garden City

Park Axis Aoyama 1-chome Tower

Roppongi Hills

Atago Green Hills

How very unoriginal. The list could go on for ever it seems. 4-5 story buildings are called Towers, and grey concrete buildings called Park or Garden.
Interestingly enough, sometimes a building is called after a location where it is not even build on.

Bored at the office? Join the bureau of interruptions to create a bit of colour in your office life, as they will:
"harness interruptive technology to expose the secret possibilities of the workday… Our promise is to create interruptions that challenge the needs of our users and the social and economic conditions of the modern workplace… we create surprise, the kind that slices through the banal and opens up new places for your mind to wander… In short, we hope to invigorate some of the time you spend at work in order to create new experiences and possibilities outside the flow of capital."

We have started advertising in the NKK (Dutch Circle in Japan). There will be a series of 4 ads and this is one of them:

The office opening party was a great success. Thanks for all who visited us, the flowers, the champagne, the wine, the tulip bulbs and all the presents we received! Thanks also to all the VDAJ staff working tirelessly: pouring drinks, serving food and preparing for weeks for this. Pictures below. (We started taking pictures late and forgot taking more during the evening, so these are only brief snapshots) The music playlist you can be found here