Active Blast Defence System (ABDS™) Aps. holds the patent on an innovative, but classified, product that offers life-saving protection against improvised explosive devices (IEDs). ABDS recently signed a cooperative agreement with TenCate Advanced Armour Denmark to develop the system from scale models to full-scale demonstrator—and TenCate will have the right of first refusal to acquire [...]

B & D Upholstery, Reading, Pa., received a platinum award in the antique chair division of the Upholstery Journal 2010 Design and Craftsmanship Awards for its classical, yet funky, chair designs. Business owners Brenda Drey and David Blimline reworked frames of two antique chairs, then added new springs, eight-way ties, tufting over two-inch foam, new [...]

Restaurants, food service industries and other businesses with cold storage feel a chill when energy bills arrive each month; the necessity of constant movement between refrigerated areas and work locations leads to a constant drain on power. Curtron Products, Pittsburgh, Pa., developed a swinging solution to the problem—the new Polar-Pro™ Gravity Hinge flexible swinging door, [...]

The College of Textiles at North Carolina State University (NCSU), Raleigh, N.C., is one of the largest learning centers for textile design and manufacture. The college recently upgraded its technology by implementing the Vector cutting system, produced by Lectra, headquartered in Paris, France. Lectra makes hardware, software and CAD/CAM programs for working with soft fabrics, [...]

Greenhouses and nurseries propagate plants in small plastic cups that contain, and sometimes constrain, growing root systems. Fiber Dynamics Inc., a High Point, N.C., company that manufactures dry laid, chemically bonded, thermally point-bonded and melt-blown nonwoven fabrics, saw a better solution. Using a chemically bonded nonwoven fiber coupled with a biodegradable binder system and an [...]

Structural engineers Price & Myers, London, England, wanted to design a striking but efficient pavilion for the 2010 London Festival of Architecture, and the Hy Pavilion got right to the point. The tensioned structure consists of two intersecting hyperbolic paraboloids—or hypars—made of timber edge beams positioned at right angles to one another. Black cords strung [...]

The sixth annual Last Supper Festival in September 2010 drew 1,200 consumers to the 3rd Ward courtyard in Brooklyn, N.Y., for an art, music and food event on—the act of consumption. Artists from many nations provided multimedia art and performance experiences, including art exhibits, films, new media, writing, music and “edible installations from creative culinarians” [...]

More than 100 students entered the National Wildlife Federation’s Eco-Schools USA contest, vying to win the competition’s grand prize: a 10-by-10-foot PowerMod self-sustaining solar tent donated by FTL Solar LLC, Austin, Texas, manufacturer of the photovoltaic tensile structures. The oldest school in the U.S., Boston Latin School, won the “green wishes” prize, presented at a [...]

Fabric artist Suzanne Meyer-Pistorius of Blu Girl Art, Springfield, Mass., describes her unique chair designs simply: “The only thing all of the chairs in our constantly changing collection have in common is … they have a past.” Her one-of-a-kind chair designs consist of antique or vintage chair frames that are repaired, refinished and re-upholstered with [...]

Genesis Plastics Welding and PolyOne GLS Thermoplastic Elastomers have collaborated on a new RF welding technology which enables non-halogenated and non-plasticized GLS Versaflex™ TPEs to be RF welded into any two-dimensional shape or configuration, including mandrels. The ecoGenesis™ technology enables non-phthalate, low dielectric loss material to be RF welded. Applications include infusion kits, blood transfer [...]