A VOXEL GRAPHIC INTERPRETATION
ボクセルグラフィックの解釈
8-Bit Retro features voxel graphic interpretations of 100 great inventions, iconic designs and historical moments from 1901 to 2000. All models and renders were made in free 3d graphic software Magicavoxel by Ephtracy. From the design perspective, the overal goal is to represent real world objects with a minimum amount of voxels. I wish you great joy during the time travel with the 8-Bit Retro.
1903| POWERED FLYING APPARATUS
動力飛行装置
The Wright Flyer was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot onboard. Designed and built by the Wright brothers, this powered flying apparatus made its successful debut take-off in late 1903 near Kill Devil Hills, USA. The flight of the Wright Flyer marks the beginning of the 'pioneer era' of aviation.
The aircraft's design was based on experience gained from testing model gliders designed by the Wright Brothers. The primary construction material used was spruce wood. The aircraft featured a canard configuration for its aeronautical wing arrangement, with the main wing and the supporting lifting-canard wing having an unstaggered biplane design with multiple-bay support. The wings were designed with a 1-in-20 camber.
Unable to find a lightweight and powerful automobile engine for the task, the Wright Brothers commissioned their employee, Charlie Taylor, to build a new design from scratch: a lightweight 9 kW gasoline engine. The engine's rotational speed was transmitted by a sprocket chain drive to the twin inversely operating propellers.
The pilot flew while lying on his stomach on the lower main wing with his head toward the front of the craft to reduce drag. He steered by moving a cradle attached to his hips, which in turn pulled wires to warp the wings and turn the rudder simultaneously.
1915| MILK CARTON
ミルクカートン
In 1915, the US Patent Office granted John R. Van Wormer, a toy manufacturer from Ohio, USA, a patent for his waxed cardboard milk carton. His invention particularly addressed containers made of paper. He spent a decade developing both the product and the market, including a machine designed to form, fill, and seal the cartons. The established dairy industry opposed him with bans and court battles due to their investment in glass bottles.
In 1928, the American Paper Company purchased the brand and the packaging rights but failed to design a capable production automat. Therefore, the tool and machine manufacturer Ex-Cell-O Corp. acquired the Pure-Pak® rights and started redesigning the machine. Finally, in the early 1960s, engineer Mario Lepore from Detroit, Michigan, developed a production automat to fold and seal a gable-top paper carton with high quality.
While serving the same purpose as the first-generation cardboard cartons, their modern counterparts come with improved materials and in a wide variety of shapes and colors. A well-designed carton can enhance the value of the contents inside. The color can be associated with a specific flavor, such as pure milk, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate, or kefir. Supporting illustrations can emphasize the primary purpose, which is milk for newborn children, or indicate the concentration of specific characteristics like fat content and flavor intensity. By avoiding the use of letters and instead relying on visual illustrations, these designs can assist illiterate individuals in identifying the right product through trial and error.
1929| BRNO CHAIR
BRNOチェア
The development of the Brno chair is closely linked to Villa Tugendhat in Brno, Czech Republic. Villa Tugendhat is one of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe's most significant designs and a genuine landmark of modern architecture. It emerged in parallel with the Barcelona Pavilion, and just like the Pavilion, Mies van der Rohe not only designed the building but also the furniture.
In keeping with the sophisticated elegance of the house, the chair is designed with extraordinary grace and comfortable padding, yet it does not disrupt the purist impression of the overall design. Following the puristic formal language of modern minimalism, the Brno chair is reduced to its essential elements, creating a stunning aesthetic context. It features clean lines, with a steel frame bent into a C-shape from the middle of the back, curving around the front edge of the seat to create arms, and then extending back under the seat to form a cantilever. The seat and back are upholstered in leather. There are two versions of the chair, one with a tubular steel frame and the other with a flat steel frame. The original metal was polished stainless steel, while some modern examples are chrome-plated.
Minimalistic industrial design is well-suited for remodeling real-world objects using atomic cubes (voxels). Utilizing voxels for shaping helps break down the fundamental design elements of the desired object. This modeling approach enhances the understanding of its pure function and opens new perspectives for design optimization, such as further minimizing a future design by substituting unnecessary rounded shapes. This can have a significant benefit for potential manufacturing processes.
1949| INTERLOCKING PLASTIC BRICK
インターロッキングプラスチックブリック
The LEGO company was founded in 1932 by Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund, Denmark. In the late 1940s, Ole Kirk Kristiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk were introduced to plastic cubes that had been invented by the Briton Hilary Fisher Page (Kiddicraft). Christiansen began to redesign these cubes, and in 1949, LEGO introduced its first building set featuring the iconic "Automatic Binding Brick," which quickly became popular.
In the late 1950s, Christiansen contacted Fisher Page to inquire if he had any intellectual property claims related to the design of the interlocking plastic brick. Fisher Page did not make any such claims, as he didn't see commercial potential for the bricks after experiencing no success with the product. In 1981, LEGO purchased the intellectual property rights and trademark from the descendants of Fisher Page, and by 2015, LEGO had become the world's largest toy company in terms of revenue.
The LEGO brick serves as a prime example of robust industrial design. The modular brick design is characterized by the use of primitive geometry (the cube), a limited color palette, and a standardized physical interface (cylindrical nub) for connecting bricks. This combination of geometry, color, and interface provides a high degree of creative freedom when designing objects made of interlocking plastic bricks.
1967| BIGMAC
BIGMAC
The Big Mac was created by Jim Delligatti, an early Ray Kroc franchisee who operated several restaurants in the Pittsburgh area. It was invented in the kitchen of Delligatti's first McDonald's franchise, located on McKnight Road in suburban Ross Township. The Big Mac had two previous names, both of which failed in the marketplace: first, the Aristocrat, which consumers found difficult to pronounce and understand, and then the Blue Ribbon Burger. The third name, Big Mac, was coined by Esther Glickstein Rose, a 21-year-old advertising secretary who worked at McDonald's corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Illinois.
The Big Mac made its debut at Delligatti's Uniontown, Pennsylvania restaurant in 1967, selling for 45 cents. It was designed to compete with Big Boy Restaurants' Big Boy hamburger, with Eat'n Park being the Pittsburgh area's Big Boy franchisee at the time. The Big Mac quickly gained popularity and was added to the menu of all U.S. restaurants in 1968.
The Big Mac consists of two 45.4 g beef patties, "special sauce," iceberg lettuce, American cheese, pickles, and onions, served in a three-part sesame seed bun. On October 1, 2018, McDonald's announced that it would remove all artificial preservatives, flavors, and coloring from the Big Mac.
The Big Mac is recognized worldwide and is often used as a symbol of American capitalism and indulgence. The Economist has used it as a reference point for comparing the cost of living in different countries, known as the Big Mac Index, because it is widely available and comparable across markets. This index is sometimes referred to as Burgernomics. It's important to note that the Big Mac is a product with regional variations. In the United States, the Big Mac contains 550 kcal (2,300 kJ), 29 grams of fat, and 25 grams of protein.
1970| Cubic Radio
キュービックラジオ
The Sony TR-1825 was released in 1970, coinciding with Sony Corp. becoming the first Japanese company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange in the same year. The body of this small battery-driven radio is divided into two parts. Sliding both cases reveals speakers on its front and controls on top for adjusting volume and frequency.
This cubic radio aligns with the contemporary Zeitgeist of minimalism, in line with iconic products from BRAUN. A special version of this radio was released to pay tribute to the World Expo in Osaka, where it was distributed to exhibition visitors as a gift.
1973| 33 Thomas Street
33 Thomas Street
33 Thomas Street is a 168-meter-tall skyscraper located in Lower Manhattan, New York City. The building stands as a formidable example of the Brutalist architectural style. It functions as a telephone exchange and wire center building, housing three major 4ESS switches used for interexchange telephony, as well as switches for competitive local exchange carrier services. The building has also been identified as the likely location of an NSA mass surveillance hub codenamed TITANPOINTE. Designed by architect John Carl Warnecke, it was completed in 1974.
Due to its purpose of housing telephone switching equipment, the average floor height is 5.5 meters, considerably taller than that of an average high-rise building. The floors are also exceptionally strong, designed to support live loads of 200 to 300 pounds per square foot (9.6 to 14.4 kPa). The exterior walls are windowless to safeguard the expensive equipment and are constructed with precast concrete panels clad in flame-treated textured Swedish granite faces. The building features six large protrusions from the rectangular base, which house air ducts, stairs, and elevators. Additionally, there is a series of prominent ventilation openings on the 10th and 29th floors.
William H. Whyte noted that it boasts the tallest blank wall in the world. Often described as one of the most secure buildings in America, it was designed to be self-sufficient, with its own gas and water supplies, power generation capabilities, and protection from nuclear fallout for up to two weeks following a nuclear blast. Its architectural style has received praise, with The New York Times stating that it is a rare building of its type in Manhattan that "makes sense architecturally" and "blends into its surroundings more gracefully" than many other nearby skyscrapers.
1985| AUDI SPORT QUATTRO S1 E2
AUDI SPORT QUATTRO S1 E2
The Audi Sport Quattro S1 E2 was introduced at the end of 1985 as an update to the Audi Sport Quattro S1. The car featured an inline five-cylinder engine that officially generated a power output of 353 kW. The turbocharger utilized a recirculating air system, aiming to keep the unit spinning at high rpm, whether the driver closed the throttle during cornering or on gearshifts. This allowed the engine to quickly regain full power after resuming full throttle, reducing turbo lag. The actual power output was 368 kW at 8,000 rpm.
In addition to the improved power output, an aggressive aerodynamic kit was added, featuring distinctive wings and spoilers at the front and rear to increase downforce. The car's weight was 1,090 kg. The S1 E2 made its debut at the 1985 Rally Argentina and found success in the rally circuit, winning the 1985 San Remo Rally. The S1 E2 marked the final Group B car produced by Audi, as the works team withdrew from the Championship following the 1986 rally in Portugal. The final factory cars in 1986 were rated at 441 kW. In 1987, the car achieved victory at the prestigious Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.
2000| G4 CUBE
G4 CUBE
From a financial point of view, the G4 Cube was a failure. However, in terms of its visionary design, the G4 Cube was ahead of its time. The self-explanatory simplicity of the design influenced future Apple products. Jonathan Ive was highly inspired by the minimalistic industrial design language of BRAUN products designed by Dieter Rams. Ive praised Rams for his designs that are 'intuitively pure, perfectly proportioned, coherent, and effortless.'
The efforts to miniaturize computer components and adopt Rams' design philosophy paid off in future computers like the flat-screen iMac G4 or Mac Mini. The translucent cube shape returned with the design of Apple's flagship store on Fifth Avenue in New York City. Capacitive touch reappeared later in the iPod and iPhone lines, while the Cube's vertical thermal design and lattice grille pattern were incorporated into the 2013 and 2019 versions of the Mac Pro.
Minimalistic industrial design is well-suited for remodeling real-world objects using atomic cubes (voxels). Using voxels for shaping helps break down the elementary design elements of a desired object. This modeling approach supports the understanding of the 'design follows function' philosophy introduced by Dieter Rams in the 1960s. It also opens up new perspectives for design optimization, such as further minimizing a future design by substituting unnecessary rounded shapes, which can significantly benefit potential manufacturing processes.