I don’t know that a PC could ever really live up to the beauty an precision that comes from the design by dictatorship efforts of Apple…and maybe it doesn’t have to. There’s way more to the PC vs. MAC war of cultures than hardware aesthetics and software functionality. The PC seems to (somewhat) appeal to the fiddling and upgrading type and there is some value in that. You can basically assemble your own computer off the shelf from a checklist of items.

If you happen to crack open a standard PC tower though, you’ll notice it’s mostly air in there…making you wonder if perhaps you could use it to store your flair collection or to keep those breakfast muffins warm. So if a PC is really just the sum of it’s parts, who says it has to be a big bulky mass of metal and plastic bits? Core 77’s  Greener Gadget competition asked entrants to envision greener solutions to life’s everyday problems. I personally think that if you really, really want to be green you should probably not go through the trouble of designing and manufacturing stuff that the average person doesn’t actually need, even if it’s made from biodegradable plastic; currently there’s no such thing as environmentally benign design and the energy needed to create many of these things often comes from some dirty coal burning plant somewhere. Then again you do need to start somewhere. Therefore the Recompute cardboard computer entry caught my eye. I don’t think it’s something you’d see from Dell anytime soon, but nonetheless it offers a cheap yet functional solution and allows you to upgrade or repair the computer’s components as needed. The use of cardboard is clever too as it actually dissipates processor heat better than the typical metal or plastic, and it also eliminates wasteful, complex and power-hungry manufacturing processes that are usually needed to manufacture the average tower casing.

It’s pretty much as simple as it comes without compromising ease of use or for that matter the aesthetics…there’s definitely beauty in honesty. Unfortunately Recompute didn’t win the competition, that honor was given to some gimmicks that fall into the aforementioned category of things-that-need-not-be-made, but it did get an honorable mention. Tip of the hat to designer Brenden Macaluso.

via Leon Fitzpatrick, 9 April 2009 11:15am | |