Biker Kid

Before Tony Anthony started Anthony Brother’s Refrigeration Co he worked as an engineer at Northrop where he learned all he needed to know about cast-aluminum. After WWII there was a shortage of steel but an abundance of cheap recyclable aluminum thanks to the decreased demand for airships. 

In 1949 Tony Anthony designed the ingenious Convert-O-Bike that can easily be transformed from a tricycle to a bicycle. When the kid is old enough you simply remove the rear axle, detach one of the rear wheels and fit that in the rear fork. 

The Convert-O-Bike is a made with a solid cast-aluminum frame that prevents it from rusting thus making it last a lifetime. The introduction in the late 1940s and the early 1950s proved to be perfect timing. The American housing market started booming and the Convert-O-Bike turned an immediate success becoming a regular feature in the American suburbia. 

Time To Go Yachting

The Unique Circle Yacht is a yacht concept designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2013 for the Hamburg based shipbuilders Blohm+Voss. The design is informed by “fluid dynamics and underwater ecosystems, with hydrodynamic research shaping the design of the hull”.

The exoskeleton-like exterior is very much in line with the architecture of Hadid and resembles natural underwater structures.

Zaha Hadid (or Dame Zaha Hadid after she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2012) was an Iraqi-British architect and designer born in Baghdad in 1950. After studying at the American University in Beirut, Lebanon she went to London to study architecture. In London she met architects Elia Zenghelis and Rem Koolhaas with whom she collaborated before starting her own company Zaha Hadid Architects in 1979.

Her first major built project was the Vitra Fire Station constructed in 1989–93 in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Built project because most of her work in the 1980s were thought to be too radical to be built and Hadid started being known as a paper architect. After the work for Vitra that soon changed and Hadid was finally the sought after architect she deserved to be.

Zaha Hadid was an incredibly decorated architect. She was awarded the Pritzker Prize in 2004 as the first woman, in 2010 and 2011 she was awarded the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture. In 2014 she won the Design Museum Design of the Year Award and in 2016 she became the first woman to receive the RIBA Gold Medal.

Dame Zaha Hadid unexpectedly passed away in a Miami hospital in 2016 at the age of 65.

Jaguar E-Type

The story of the Jaguar E-Type starts in 1957 when Malcolm Sayer made a prototype called E1A.

Malcolm Sayer was an aircraft engineer turned automotive aerodynamist. Mr Sayer spent twenty years working at Jaguar Cars and developed not only the E1A and the E-Type, he also made the early style guidelines for the Jaguar X-JS. Thanks to his career as an aircraft engineer he was one of the first apply streamlined aircraft aerodynamics to cars.

The E1A was slightly smaller than the E-Type with a 2.4-liter engine compared to the final 3.8-liter. The E1A was designed with an independent rear suspension, a feature so great Jaguar used it in its models for 4 decades.

Before the launch in 1961 the car had been refined and made larger due to the importance of the American market.

When the Jaguar E-Type was launched at the Geneva Auto Salon in 1961 it completely stole the show. Even Enzo Ferrari called it the most beautiful car in the world. It wasn’t only the design that made the car so popular, it retailed for a mere £2097 for the Roadster and £2196 for the Coupe, half price compared to its competitors. So the fact that the promised top speed of 150 mph for the standard production cars was a bit of a stretch didn’t seem to bother the customers.

The Jaguar E-Type was continually developed and updated and stayed in production until 1975 when it was replaced by the XJ-S.

Amazing Islands

The first three in a new series of illustrations of the most amazing islands from around the world showing the beautiful patterns of topographic lines.