WHAT WE DO IS SECRET

Where Passion Comes First

A wind tunnel by Renzo Piano, assembly lines by Jean Nouvel, and a restaurant by MDN (Marco Visconti & Partners) - Ferrari has invested more than €200,000,000 since 1997 for the renovation of their facilities in Maranello, Italy.

In the early ’80s, I took a job at Nissan’s assembly line for the export model of Nissan Z-car in Hiratsuka, Japan. Day and night shifts alternated each week. My job was to grind off hundreds of rough edges created by spot welding on the body of Nissan 280ZX, wearing a protective full suit connected to an air hose. I had approximately 150 seconds to run around the body of a car, which was moving towards the next section of the line, removing all the rough edges using a relatively big air grinder and having two air hoses around myself, one attached to the hood covering my entire head and the other connected to the grinder. I would get yelled at by a supervisor once in a while for making a small scratch on the unpainted hood. If I had a day without making a scratch on any of the 170 car bodies that went through the line, the day was glorious. I’m sure things at Japanese car manufacturers have become safer and nicer since then.

I remember that my coworkers on the same assembly line were talking about retirement often. Everybody was trying to find a way to get out of there as early as possible since stamina and speed were the first things you needed to end each day safely. The chatting took place during the 10-minute break or lunch break, in a small booth next to the line or at a huge cafeteria without sufficient light. Everyday when I walked through the enormous dark facilities to get to my assembly line, I wondered how a company like Nissan, which was exporting nice cars to the United Arab Emirates and North America, could let their workers be in an overly depressing environment.

Looking at these images of the new facilities of Ferrari makes me want to work in their assembly line again. It’s utterly glorious.

Image gallery and article @ Car Body Design

building in motion

Rotating Tower, designed by Italian architect David Fisher, is expected to move from design to reality in less than two years.

THE LEVEL TUNNEL by Hussein Chalayan

Julius Popp’s Bit.Fall

Just take a look at this.

Here’s the artist.

Related link: Design and the Elastic Mind

resort under water

The world’s first 40 feet underwater hotel is set to open early 2009. The 24 suites and luxury apartments will be set up on Fiji.

Poseidon Undersea Resort

A HUNT FOR HIGHTECH

“In a world…
where nature and science have emerged, where technology breathes and where living without it is impossible.

This futuristic world is the inspiration for a collection of imitation fur, for the fashion industry. ‘Future fur’ shows that it is more interesting to imitate an imaginary world…”

Car of the Year

Maserati Gran Tourismo

Striking isn’t it ? Now who would have thought Maserati could have
pulled an amazing thing like this from out of no where. I mean when was
the last time they had a car this good. Hmmm, lets try to remember. Nope
can’t, must have had something to do with the fact that it was before I was
born.

OK so just what exactly makes this car so great. Well just look at it. It’s just
drop dead gorgeous from top to bottom, front to rear. This is the Gisele
Bündchen of cars. You want to touch it, sit on it and well.. just have fun
all day long in it. Heck and who could blame you.

What’s that you say ? It’s bound to be high maintenance. Well no actually.
It’s made with the same love and care that all new Ferrai’s are made with.
What.. you laugh. It’s still Italian and is bound to leave you at the side of
the road stranded just like Gisel would. I beg to differ and I’d even put a
good wager down that your Mercedes would let you down first. So who’s
for boring Teutonic German cars when you can have a sexy Italian that you
can live with everyday of the year. Sign me up for the Maserati… OK wait,
I still need to win the lotto first. Well I can dream can’t I ?

Norman Foster goes 360°

This is fun - and it’s done beautifully.

Photography by Will Pearson