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The London Design Museum invited cultural commentator and philosopher Alain de Botton to interview John Pawson about his current project Plain Space, previous projects and his minimalist approach to design.

And yay, the good people of the Design Museum shared a video of the interview. Two beautiful minds interacting, it doesn’t get any better than this!

→ Watch the video on Vimeo.

Instapaper 2.3 for iPhone and iPad now available - Instapaper Blog:

Major update to my favorite iPhone and iPad app with a ton of useful new features. Here is the one I have been waiting for:

The list now indicates approximate article length and progress with a row of dots, similar to how it’s done on a Kindle’s home screen. The more dots, the longer the article is, and darkened dots indicate approximately how far you’ve read in the article.

Often times I have longed for a way to help me decide what to read based upon the available time I have. This will go a long way towards that.

I recently tweeted the joys of less vs. more, and someone replied that “less is better” doesn’t apply to having money to pay for bills.

Ah, true. Except that it’s not true: having more money isn’t better. Having less money means you’re forced to make a choice: is it better to have a lot of bills and not make ends meet, or go into debt … or is it better to cut back on bills?

Fewer bills is better, in my experience. It means less stress, less hassle to pay bills, less work required to pay them, more savings, simplicity.

It means having less in your life, but that’s not a bad thing. Less in your life means finding creative ways to be happy.

Some examples:

• Cable TV: cutting this bill means you can read books or go outside or play board games.
• Credit card: Eliminating credit means you only buy things when you absolutely need them and have the money.
• Auto: getting rid of your car means finding alternate transportation — walking and cycling are much healthier, and much cheaper. You also cut out the gas bill, insurance, auto maintenance and repairs, cleaning costs, registration fees, parking fees, toll fees and more.
• Restaurants: eating out less means cooking more, which can mean fresh food cooked simply and healthily.
• Coffee: cutting out on drinking mochas and cappuccinos means drinking water or home-made coffee or tea, which is healthier and cheaper.
• Heating/cooling: you might not be able to kill this bill, but you can cut back by heating or cooling small spaces instead of the whole house, or dressing warmer.
• Power: cut back on electricity use, unplug things when you don’t use them.
• Mortgage: sell the house, rent a smaller place, get rid of most of your possessions so you don’t need so much space. You’ll also cut out homeowners taxes, fees, maintenance costs, and more.
• Phone: cut out the landline or the cell phone. You also might not need a data plan.
• Gym: workout at home or outside for free.
• Magazines/newspapers: info is available online. Read books from the library instead.
• Trips/vacations: have fun near your home.
• Housecleaning/yardwork/landscaping: Do it yourself if you currently pay someone, and get healthier doing it.
• Daycare/private schools: Public schools can be great, homeschooling is free if you can manage it.
• Movies/DVDs: Be selective, and find free forms of entertainment instead.

I could go on, but you get the idea. Cutting back on bills means being creative, but it also means a simpler, healthier life in many cases.

One is an extensive lighting collection designed by the brothers Matthias, Simon and Jürgen Frech for their company FSING.

The collection consists of ceiling lamps, floor lamps and table lamps, but the most interesting piece for me is this wall lamp. It has been reduced to the essential, using aluminium composite sheet of just 4mm thick, hiding all electric systems perfectly.

Most of all I like its lightness, and how it uses the wall to expand the light and create a warm ambient.

Apple: Their Tablet Computer History – liquidpubs’ blog:

This is a treasure trove of early prototype pictures and history of the devices and ideas that eventually led us to the iPad of today. I’m actually floored by how many of these are new to me because I thought I had seen them all. I’ve been a fan of Apple’s moves in the space since before I owned the first Newton.

This link is a day wrecker for any true fan. Consider yourself warned. (via MacStories)

What Simplicity And Minimalism Isn’t About…| Simple. Organized. Life.:

In tune with my last post.

Minimizing bicycles is one of my favourite thought experiments, so imagine my delight when I just ran into this prototype for a foldable city bike: Full Circle.

It was Korean designers Sang-hyun Jeong and Jun-tae Park’s submission for the Seoul Cycle Design Competition 2010.

The design is truly minimalist: symmetrical, built from two circles, two vertical lines and one horizontal.

The simplistic exterior contains all necessary technical stuff to make it a functional bicycle, and on top of that highly foldable. The design shows so many interesting solutions and ideas; look at the pedals for instance. Quite the engineering feat!

(Also very beautiful are submissions Bike 2.0 and Neo Essence. Yummie yummie ;-)