It takes a truly inspired design to get us excited about reusing jam jars, but Jorre van Ast’s plastic tops, for Royal VKB, have us dutifully soaking our Bonne Maman containers in the sink.

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Our July issue is hitting newsstands and subscriber mailboxes as I write this and the issue includes a feature article on the legacy of Buckminster Fuller. A few weeks ago, our editors participated in a series of lectures and events sponsored by the Buckminster Fuller Institute, including the awarding of the first annual Buckminster Fuller Challenge prize, which was sponsored by Metropolis. At a conferring ceremony at the Center for Architecture in New York City on Monday, June 23rd, the BFI honored ecologist John Todd for his innovative approach outlined in his paper: Comprehensive Design For A Carbon Neutral World: The Challenge of Appalachia.

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While running errands in the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn, near my apartment, I often pause to contemplate Brooklyn Plaza Medical Center’s baffling logo. What the heck is it? My best guess is a smiling fish head. See the bulging eyes? The fins? The cartoonish smile? Others I have shown it to have seen a Koala and a crab. No one could begin to speculate as to why this was an appropriate logo for a medical center.

Yesterday the mystery was finally solved.

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Li Edelkoort stands in the background above. Photo from Rossana Orlandi.

Some surprising news: Li Edelkoort, chair of the Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands for the past ten years, is resigning this Fall.

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This past weekend Governors Island was host to FIGMENT, an interactive cultural gathering with something for everyone. Over 10,000 people streamed onto the island between Friday and Sunday, to paint faces, play mini-golf, dance, make and enjoy art, and revel in the great outdoors.

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Collaborators test out their inflatable structure before installing it inside the gallery.

Just one month after receiving the top prize in Metropolis’s 2008 Next Generation ® Design Competition, Eric Olsen was on the scene again, this time in downtown San Jose, California. Collaborating with Ga-Ga / Jordan Geiger, Thomas Stephen Bates, and Stijn Schiffeleers, Olsen helped create an inflatable structure that took over a vacant retail space and challenged visitor’s relationships with time and place in cities.

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And the winners are … Honolulu, Minneapolis, and Portland.

When Monocle published its list of the top 20 most livable cities last year, only one American metropolis made the cut: Honolulu, Hawaii (which, let’s be honest, barely qualifies as an American city.) Now the magazine has released its second-annual ranking—expanded to 25 cities—and added two from the U.S. mainland: Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Portland, Oregon. Surprised?

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This item just flashed on my computer screen: LiUNA, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, will soon be airing ads on CNN and MSNBC, in the Washington D.C. area. The ads are obviously targeted at lawmakers and the campaign, “Build America So America Works,” focuses on our desperate need to upgrade and build anew such essentials as schools, bridges, and dams. The ads’ underlying message: jobs for LiUNA members (500,000 out of America’s 10 million construction workers).

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Intel’s laptop is just 0.7 inches thick

I’ve developed a bit of a complex over my iPod recently. When I ponied up the money for it several years ago, I felt ahead of the curve. Riding the subway the other day, a guy whipped out his razor-thin version and—I swear I’m not making this up—pointed at mine and said, “I remember those.”

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