Seat's money saving brakes

Car manufacturers sometimes have a hard time relating the latest money-saving technology in their cars to their customers every day lives. Seat Germany may have managed it with the help of Grey Worldwide Dusseldorf.

To demonstrate how their new "Brake Energy Recovery System" which saves the energy normally lost during braking and reuses it when the accelerating, they fitted out one of their Seat Alhambra's as a taxi, added some cameras and a special glitch with the meter.

A clever marketing ploy to show consumers how they can save money, the video is definitely one to watch.

See it below.

Volkswagen takes to the skies for parking

This amazing feat of engineering is Volkswagen's temporary vertical parking lot at their production facility in Wolfsburg, Germany.

16 storeys high, the silos are composed of glass and galvanized steel and are illuminated by night. A conveyor belt system transports finished cars directly from the adjacent manufacturing plant to the towers' basement and then lifts them into position via mechanical arms that rotate and run along a central beam.

Each silo can hold up to 400 cars at a time and deliver, with fitted number plates, around 600 vehicles to customers each day as well as acting as part of VW's Autostadt visitor attraction.

Find out more on DesignBoom

Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain

German artists Heike Mutter and Ulrich Genth have completed designs for “Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain” in Duisburg, Germany.

The walkable, large outdoor sculpture Tiger & Turtle – Magic Mountain is currently in construction on the Heinrich Hildebrand Höhe in Duisburg Wanheim (D). It overtops the plateau with the artificially heaped-up mountain by 21 metres so the visitor can rise by more than 45metres above the level of the landscape and enjoy an impressive view over the Rhine.

The curved flight of stairs inscribes like a signature on the landscape and plays upon the iconic nimbus of the classical roller coaster. Visitors climb the roller-coaster-sculpture on foot via differently steep steps. So the sculpture subtly and ironically plays with the feelings of promise and disappointment, mobility and standstill, just like a real roller coaster. Visitors happen to briefly meet with oncoming visitors on the steep 1 metre wide corridors. LED-lights are integrated in the handrails and highlight the flight of stairs so the sculpture is accessible at night, too.

To read more visit Contemporist. Photography by Eichental.

Good design that transcends time

When good design is good design, it transcends time. For a stunning example of this look no further than the 1972 Munich Olympic Stadium in Munich. 

For more images, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons, along with additional detail, visit arch daily