The glasses feature one-piece frames of printed polyamide with flexible joints instead of hinges. "It's the first pair of glasses that I know about that is one component," says Arad. "It's monolithic."

The frames are the latest concept designed by Arad for new brand pq eyewear, of which he is co-founder. Yet he says the fact that they're printed is uninteresting: "Who cares?" he says. "What we care about is does it work well? Does [printing] give you freedom to do things you can't in other techniques? Not the fact that it's printed."

Arad was an early pioneer of 3D printing as a way of making finished products rather than prototypes. His 1999 show Not Made by Hand, Not Made in China, which featured lights, jewellery and vases, was several years ahead of other designers' experiments in with a technology that at the time was called "rapid prototyping".

"There was a lot of excitement in the technology," says Arad. "It was obvious that it would be embraced by lots of people, and then that technology would be less exciting. You could do more exciting things but the technology would be, and should be, taken for granted."

Arad compares the one-piece construction of the printed eyewear with the multi-component, hand-assembled A-Frame glasses he recently designed for pq.

"If you ask my studio to send you a movie of how say [the A-Frame] glasses are made you'll see there's so much manual work around it and so much fiddling," says Arad, explaining that the glasses require a skilled workforce to assemble. "I don't want to take the jobs from these people, but [printing] is a different way of doing something."

Arad helped come up with the pq logo and brand name, which refers to the spectacle-like forms of the letters p and q. "It's a new brand that we started from the ground up," Arad explains. "We had to invent a name for a brand of eyewear, we had to do the logo. [It's called] pq because when you write p and q you draw glasses, and they are palindromic, so you can look at it from [the other side]."

The glasses are featured in Print Shift, our one-off, print-on-demand magazine about 3D printing.

The products were launched at luxury eyewear store Punto Ottico in Milan during Milan design week. We travelled to the opening in our MINI Cooper S Paceman. See more Dezeen and MINI World Tour reports from Milan.

The music featured is a track called Where are Your People? by We Have Band, a UK-based electronic act who played at the MINI Paceman Garage in Milan.

The post "It's the first pair of glasses
that is one component" appeared first on Dezeen.

Here are some photos of the latest collection of Sire spectacle frames, which are made of water buffalo horn.

Designed by Zurich studio Aekae and manufactured by Swisshorn, the frames are made by hand from thin laminated layers of horn.

Aekae showed the first six Sire frames on Dezeen back in 2009 and have since expanded the range to 18 frames for sunglasses and correctional lenses, all with the same distinctive gap between the lenses at the nose bridge.

Check out our top ten stories about spectacles and shades here.

Stills are by Sandra Kennel. Portraits are by Nadine Ottawa.

Here are some more details from Aekae:

SIRE - handcrafted natural horn eyewear

Origin

A Sire was a Gentleman of rank, a Nobleman of certain esteem. He was a man of authority, a Cavalier, a Knight. It was from the 13th century on that Sire was used as a title to address someone of high regard.

And as such, a Sire had the ambition to only wear what was of refined quality and unique appearance, whereat he would always find it made by the hands of the best craftsmen.

At SIRE we aim to pursue those traditions and cater to them with craftsmanship, sharp designs, and fine materials – to be worn by Noblemen and Gentlewomen.

Crafting

Each single piece of SIRE eyewear is handcrafted out of natural horn in collaboration between Aekae and Swisshorn.

A small manufacturing company in the midlands of Switzerland, Swisshorn has been working with the high-value material for years. It produced numerous prototypes of SIRE spectacles before the first line had been launched.

Designing the eyewear, Aekae builds on the tradition of using natural horn as a working material for premium objects. The spectacles’ open part just above the nose has made for a capturing feature ever since the first pieces.

By bringing together their respective skills and impressions, Aekae and Swisshorn create something truly noble and unique.

Natural Horn

SIRE spectacles are hand crafted into exquisite eyewear from water buffalo horn. This mighty animal is South-East Asia’s most common livestock and can grow horns up to two meters in length. And once a water buffalo has deceased its horns can be used in creating long lasting products.

Swisshorn hand selects every single piece of horn used in manufacturing SIRE spectacles. Because it is a natural material, each piece of horn differs in color and pattern – and therefore makes each frame unique.

Manufacturing

Take something rough and turn it into something smooth and elegant. This is what happens in the process of making SIRE eyewear. And it happens in numerous steps, almost entirely by hand.

Initially thin layers of horn are laminated to plates from which the frame of the spectacle is cut out of. In several steps the frame and its earpieces are crafted and polished. After they’ve been brought into perfect shape the separate pieces are put together. With the use of a laser each frame then receives its individual number of reference that is unique to every single SIRE frame.

Finally, the lenses are inserted. Here the open nose part takes advantage of the material's natural flexibility. To secure the glass, a special thread is pulled through the opening at the nose.

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Reykjavik fashion designer Sruli Recht has designed a limited-edition white larch cane and hand-cut Carrara marble eyeshades for the blind.

The cane is bleached in the sun, hand-carved and tipped with rubber, while the eyeshade frames are made of hand-carved cherry wood.

Each accessory is made in an edition of five pieces as part of Recht's Spring/Summer 2011 collection called Cast By Shadows.

More about Sruli Recht on Dezeen »

Photographs are by Marinó Thorlacius.

Here is some more information and a poem from Recht:

Limited Non-Products from the new collection of Sruli Recht for Spring and Summer 2011, Cast By Shadows.

SR302 - Qanah - Beam of Balance: is an aerodynamic hand carved white cane for the visualy impaired, shapped as the wing struts of the early aircrafts. Made from Larch, the cane is sun bleached, rubbed down with black horse hide, and tipped with rubber.
Edition of 5

SR303 - Stone Blind: is a pair of frames for the visually impaired, hand carved and bent from Cherry wood with hand cut Carera marble lenses.
Edition of 5

The man who heard it all, everything... when it happened

He knew the sound of anything hitting the floor

He could tell you exactly what had fallen
from anywhere, and to the ground.
With his ears, he could hear the specific sound of every object in the world, and the impact it made, in its termal dance with gravity and the Earth
A pen, a coin, or your heart. If it could fall, he could tell you what it was.

And he would always find something in that exact moment it was lost… but never in the minutes there after, nor the second before.

For everyone has lost something they once had.
Once held in regard, and now supported by a surface

He swore:
“what I hear, is what I heard.
Always after, and never before.
Evermore.
Evermore.”

Photographer: Marinó Thorlacius
Model: Helgi Hjörvar
Stylist: Megan Herbert

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Industrial designer Yves Béhar of fuseproject has created a range of spectacles that will be distributed free to children in Mexico. Update: this project is included in Dezeen Book of Ideas, which is on sale now for £12.

The VerBien ("see well") project is designed to overcome the stigma of wearing glasses and help the estimated half a million Mexican children with poor eyesight who enter the school system each year.

The glasses, produced by Mexican eyeglass manufacturer Augen, feature two-part plastic frames that are "almost unbreakable".

Here's some text from fuseproject:

SEE BETTER TO LEARN BETTER: YVES BÉHAR DESIGNS EYEWEAR FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD

Yves Béhar and his fuseproject design team that created the One Laptop Per Child XO Laptop will  launch a new program in partnership with the Mexican Government to design and give away free eyeglasses to disadvantaged children in the states of Mexico on a yearly basis.

The glasses have been designed specifically for children, with a particular attention to the design increasing adoption and persistence by hanging the perception of being a handicap and stigma, a very real issue in Mexico. “Similar to the OLPC philosophy, I want to design products that are suited to the children’s specific needs, life and environment,” explains Béhar. “The children receiving these glasses need frames that are durable, ergonomic and have key customization elements like shape and colour that make wearing the glasses fun and personal.” From advanced plastics that are almost unbreakable and the lightest engineering plastics in existence,to the two‐part design that provides both a unique assembly system that simplifies logistics and means that  children can choose two‐colour frames, this eyewear is specifically re‐thought for children and  their lives. The glasses have been designed to be fun and fashionable, to avoid the children having any stigmas about wearing glasses.

The proven research behind this give away program has shown that many students’ grades drop dramatically during scholastic years due in large part to problems with their vision. 11% of children in classrooms were not learning simply because they could not read blackboards or books. The proportion of children in need of lenses at or above 0.75 correction can be as high as 60‐70% in some schools in poorer states such as Morellos, Sonora and Chiappas. Half a million new children with the need for corrective eyeglasses enter the school system every year in Mexico. The aim of “See Better to Learn Better” is to provide a solution to children in families that cannot afford the high cost of an eye exam and eyewear.

Yves Béhar designed a flexible collection of glasses using a unique construction system which not  only addresses the need for fit, durability and simple manufacturing, but also enables easy customization of the eyeglasses for individual  users. The top and the bottom of the frame is split in two halves, allowing for easy assembly of the lenses inside the frame without using a traditional heating process (which is a costly option in the field). These frame options are achieved through high-tech manufacturing located in Mexico, where the nose bridge is sonically welded, creating a connection between the top and bottom frame, after the easy insertion of the lenses (the ends of the frames remain open at this stage) and then the glasses are closed with a simple hinge screw.

This new construction of the frames provides children with unique choices of numerous colour and shape configurations for the eyewear frames. The design consists of five different frame options in three different sizes (for face and age variations), in seven different colours, resulting in many unique and iconic combinations. Children are able to pick colourful, unique versions of the glasses, and hence make them a point of pride rather than a visible handicap. "When kids choose for themselves what fits and looks unique to them, it completely changes the stigma of wearing glasses, they receive custom glasses that they feel they have designed and are truly personal to them," says Yves Béhar. The glasses are distributed by local and visiting optometrists employed by the organisation; they travel to the school classrooms, test the children, and then place the order with the factory. A couple of weeks later, the personalised glasses are given to the children in the schools, free of charge.

The new eyeglass designs give children a tool for learning and self-expression, and promote the altruistic cause to others by bringing greater visibility to the program. Discussions to expand the program to other countries and regions in need are taking place.

The manufacturing partner in the program, Augen, is based in Mexico and is the 10th largest producer of lenses in the world. Augen and Yves Béhar/fuseproject partnered in building a unique custom-made product for this cause. In the last 12 months, brand new injection machines, assembly and logistics were put in place in Ensenada to produce the glasses locally. Mass production of the glasses with the first phase being given away in April 2010 is underway. This partnership resulted in a 50% reduction in manufacturing cost from currently imported frames, a feat that will improve the viability of the program and support its expansion.

The visual identity and messaging development is another reflection of the mission and the design of the glasses. A unique book within an eyeglass shape was designed to guide providers and children through the selection process, as well as a new logo/identify both visualising the relationship between vision and education. Lastly the key message of the brand is "See Better to Learn Better" (Ver Bien Para Aprender Mejor) further cementing the vision behind the program.

"This project follows our philosophy that design should continue to make a difference beyond the commercial world, and that non-profits do need emotional appeal and efficient solutions just as much as for-profit companies. Design can make a tremendous difference and we believe this is a responsibility that the industrial profession carries: to bring transformative solutions." Yves Béhar

See also:

.

Reykjavik Eyes spectacles	SIRE glasses by Aekae	Clever Little Bag by Yves Béhar for Puma

Yves Béhar is included in our book, Dezeen Book of Ideas. Buy it now for just £12.

The post VerBien by Yves Béhar appeared first on Dezeen.

Zurich and London designers Aekae have designed a collection of glasses made of water buffalo horns.

The range of eyewear, called SIRE, consists of three pairs of sunglasses and three pairs of correctional frames.

Each piece is made of several thin layers of horn, which are laid in alternate directions to increase stability.

The range is manufactured by Swisshorn Eyewear and is being shown at the SILMO Eyewear and Optics Exhibition in Paris this week.

Photos are by Nadine Ottawa.

Here's some more information from Aekae:

--

SIRE handmade natural eyewear

In the ancient days a sire was chosen for his character and skill.
The SIRE collection takes this tradition into the future, using only the finest materials and the best manufacturing techniques to create exclusive optics with outstanding character.

Each single piece of eyewear is handcrafted out of natural horn in a collaboration between aekae and Swisshorn.

aekae's aim to introduce new ideas into the very traditional market of natural horn optics is visible in the design: the open nose part involves a new construction and a strong visual element. The experience and knowledge of the small manufacturing company Swisshorn has gone in to numerous prototypes in the past two years. Finally, the SIRE collection of three sunglass- and three correctional frames is beeing presented for the first time in Paris from the 17th to the 19th of September at SILMO.

manufacturing process:

Each SIRE natural horn spectacle consists of up to seven thin layers of horn. The core plates of horn fibers run in opposite directions known as the ”Triplex Safety System”, which is considered to offer the highest standards in quality, stability and resistance to deformation. The only waste in the production are horn splinters, which serve as natural plant nutrition. At the end of the manufacturing process every frame is polished carefully by hand, to make the natural horn structure visible.

about natural horn:

The water buffalo is a domesticated animal throughout Asia, comparable to our cattle. It is normally trained to plow and harvest fields, and is vital in the rice plantations. Besides also supplying milk and leather, the horns, which can reach two meters in length, are later used for exclusive natural products.

SIRE spectacles are hand crafted into exquisite eyewear from this raw material. Only a small part of it can actually be used to produce an eyeglass frame.
Our manufacturer Swisshorn selects only the finest horn pieces, and continues to craft them into beautiful horn spectacles. Due to the characteristic patterns and colors of the raw horn, each product is always a unique piece. It takes the best and most experienced craftsmen in this field to create a SIRE frame.

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