Named after its creator’s progeny, the Kirivan may be the most impressive mobile home ever made, using cutting-edge technologies to blend the best elements of a luxury motorhome, zombie apocalypse vehicle and high-tech hideout.

Inspired by the birth of his daughter, innovator and inventor Bran Ferren began this incredible multi-year project in anticipation of future travel. The resulting adventure vehicle is designed to drive for up to 2,000 miles without stopping for supplies and features a pop-up penthouse for use as Kira’s personal retreat.

As Wired reports, the vision involved “a mix of high-powered machinery, bomb-shelter self-sufficiency, and luxe-life accoutrements. It would be a mobile, malleable five-star fortress. It could form the centerpiece of his and Kira’s exploration of the world and be her ride into the future.” (infographic diagram below by Bryan Christie Design)

So how does one man find the time, skills and money for such an ambitious undertaking? Ferren is the former head of research and development for Disney’s Imagineering department, for starters, and currently heads Applied Minds, a design and technology company that has done work for everyone from General Motors to the US Air Force. All of this shows in the design, which reflects a hybrid of engineering strategies appropriated from the design of land, air and even space vehicles.

A futuristic marvel with endless technological surprises, this all-terrain vehicle is designed to climb 45-degree slopes, use thermal imaging for road analysis, deploy advance drones to scout out obstacles ahead and so much more. On the flip side of its amazing array of safety features are a range of luxury ones as well, including comfortable seats, a full kitchen and bathroom and other amenities that provide for far more than mere survival. Of course, it is also a work in progress – there no doubt this creative dad will evolve ever more functionality as his child grows older as well.

There has been a lot of competition to design and execute the first prototype of a 3D-printed architectural structure, including complex concepts for houses inspired by nests and möbius strips. But it looks like that honor goes to Smith | Allen, an Oakland, California-based duo of designers who have created the Echoviren Pavilion.

The airy white pavilion consists of 585 interlocking components made of plant-based bio plastics, printed over 10,800 hours, mimicking the look and feel of its setting in a redwood forest. Measuring 10x10x8, the structure was assembled in four days.

The bioplastics will enable the pavilion to eventually decompose naturally within the forest, just like the trees that grow all around it. That process will take 30 to 50 years. It will also become a habitat for insects, moss and birds during its time in the forest.

The Echoviren Pavilion was made using 7 of the Type A Machines Series 1 printers. The team actually used these small-scale printers to create large bricks with which to build, leading some critics to state that it’s not a truly 3D-printed structure, printed in much larger parts to create the whole. The true test of 3D architecture will come when larger printers are used to lay out the material for the components, layer by layer, but the Echoviren Pavilion is still a beautiful example of what 3D printers can do.

Digital photography innovations have led to cameras that can capture images at the speed of light, see the world from the compound eye of an insect or describe scenes via speech for the visually impaired. Some of these strange and amazing digital cameras will even remember your preferred settings using iris recognition software, spit out descriptive text with the help of virtual workers around the world, or activate only at the touch of strangers.

Touchy Camera for Social Anxiety

The wearer of this odd-looking camera helmet is entirely in the dark – literally – until touched by another person. When continuous physical contact is maintained between the camera, ‘Touchy’, and an outside person, the eye-hole shutters are activated. This gives the wearer back his or her own vision, and captures images every ten seconds. The creators note that we’re all separated into social bubbles, avoiding connection with strangers. “However, technologies like internet social networking or the mobile phone loosens social boundaries, hence dehumanizing physical communication. to a certain extent, it generates social anxiety such as the one experienced in the ‘hikikomori’ and ‘otaku’ cultures in Japan. Touchy criticizes this phenomenon and suggests a solution by transforming the human being into a social device: a camera. the touchy project investigates how such a device improves social life, presupposing that a camera is a known tool for sharing memories, valuable moments, enjoyment, emotions, beauty and so forth’.

Iris Camera

Iris is an eye-tracking camera that you control by blinking and squinting. It uses biometric technology to recognize users’ faces through their unique iris signatures, automatically loading their preferred settings including aperture, ISO and screen display. Zoom in and out by widening your eyelids, and take a photo by holding your gaze before double-blinking.

Panoramic Camera Ball

This incredible throwable camera captures photos of scenes from thirty-six individual lenses to create a continuous spherical landscape. The modules are mounted in a 3D-printed enclosure resembling a soccer ball, which is padded with foam and contains an accelerometer that helps predict rise time to the highest point of a throw. At that point, the exposure is triggered. Once the ball is caught, pictures are downloaded automatically via USB and shown in a spherical panoramic viewer so you can explore the full representation of the scene.

Descriptive Camera

Imagine having an army of virtual slaves at your command who help you organize your photo collection by printing a description of what each picture contains. That’s essentially what the Descriptive Camera by Matt Richardson achieves, taking advantage of people who perform menial online tasks for a few pennies at a time via the Amazon Mechanical Turk API. You take a photo and a worker receives it instantly via IM, typing up a description that the camera will then print on a receipt. The whole process takes three to six minutes, and the quality of the description may vary. One example: “Looks like a cupboard which is ugly and old having name plates on it with a  sturdy lamp attached to it.”

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Photofuture 13 Innovative Intelligent Digital Cameras

A hot black cuppa bean-infused water was only the beginning, but beyond Espressos, Americanos, Cappuccinos, Latte art and creative coffee mugs lies a world of stimulating design ideas for the caffeine-dedicated aficionado. Some are a bit green yet and perhaps worth roasting a while longer, but others are already rich with promise.

Wall-Mounted Coffee Maker with Integrated Cup

Not enough space on your kitchen counter? No worries: Song Ah Lee is developing a wall-mounted coffee maker for one (custom cup included) that blends into the background but remains handy for refills.

Handspresso Portable Car-Ready Espresso Machine

No time to wait around while your morning roasts warms up? Consider brewing coffee right on your commute, instead, with Handspresso, sold as the world’s first car-worthy espresso machine – just stick to using it at stop signs and lights, please.

Coffee-Warming Stir Stick Keeps Beverages Hot

All of these are well and good for getting your caffeinated brew going in the morning, but what happens when the heat starts to dissipate? An obvious but elegant solution when you cannot refresh is to rewarm, with something like this mobile reheating stick by Hyewon Lee.

Lockable Coffee Cup to Keep Coworker Hands Off

Now you have made your coffee, kept it hot, and are at the office … where suddenly you cannot find your workday mug. Clearly you forgot to pick up the Lock Mug with a hole specially keyed so that only you can use it!

Dissolving Coffee Stick Makes Instant Even Easier

State fairs are known for putting just about anything on a stick, but coffee sounds a bit far-fetched … at first. Heo Jeong Im took up the challenge, though, and combined instant coffee packets with stir spoons to invent what he has dubbed the Cappuccino Coffee Stick. As you stir to mix your brew, the mass of coffee crystals dissolves, leaving only your stirrer behind.

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Brewed Fresh 10 Hot Coffee Centric Designs Prototypes

From their earliest mention in ancient Egyptian inscriptions to the modern trestle and refectory styles we know so well, tables have come a long way. Today, new materials and design methods are injecting further creativity into modern tables – but are they having an identity crisis? These 16 table designs look like they are eager to be something else.

(Image: via John Nouanesing)

Old furniture can always be reinvented with a fresh, bright lick of paint. This table picks up the concept and runs with it – giving the illusion of a board dripping with a river of fresh red paint. Designer John Nouanesing hides function (the table legs) within illusion – it is likely a great deal sturdier than it first appears.

(Images: via Absolut Form and Amy Youngs)

Here is another table that seems to dispense with legs. Danish designer Essey’s Grand Illusion appears to be a tablecloth hovering in mid-air – but the clue is in the title. It is made from 3mm-thick acrylic, firm enough to magically suspend your coffee cup (David Copperfield would approve). More practically, for those with a penchant for countertop composting, the Digestive Table offers an earthier alternative – at its heart is a contained ecosystem to process food scraps and create rich fertilizer for indoor plants.

(Images: via Architecture MNP and Fernando And Humberto Campana)

A table that thinks it’s a cutlery drawer – called Precious Famine, this arresting web of metalwork is made of Christofle silverware. Don’t drop your spoon on this table – you’ll never find it again. In a similarly reflective mood, the Brasilia table appears to be salvaging Art from seven years of bad luck, by forming a mosaic of mirror shards. The inspiration is the chaotic jumble of stone that form the foundations of Brazil’s capital city.

(Images: via design boom and Anyroom)

These tables don’t want to keep still – or so it appears. The r.n.i. tables of Korean designer Chul An Kwak are modeled on running horses, but there’s a frond-like hint of the deep sea in those trailing legs. Anyroom’s Dance table looks similarly intent on being elsewhere, but more sedately, like a caterpillar.

(Images: via Julia West Home and James McAdam)

Surely we are now on firmer ground now, with this bedside table like a low dresser, and this tall table fit for a lamp? Not when the former folds out into a sofa (as easily and simply as sliding out a drawer) and the latter is a piece of furniture fit for an ancient Celtic warrior. James McAdam has designed the table as a response to the security fears of around half of Londoners, but it’s bound to hit a chord with the inhabitants of other thriving cities.

(Image: via Tineke Beunders)

In Japan, a third of a million people are gainfully employed in sending tiny steel balls bouncing around vertical tables. That seems to be the inspiration behind Marbelous, perhaps the world’s first piece of Pachinko furniture. Watch as the balls wind their way through the tabletop, corkscrew down the legs and collect in the feet (and be sure to watch out for any that have escaped onto the floor).

(Images: via design mong and Lee Stoetzel and Link Studios)

Not content to be just a table, the House On The Table wants to be your entire office. The draught round your legs may be disconcerting, but otherwise this table offers all the basics of a modern workspace, bookcase and all. Lee Stoetzel’s creation looks like it belongs on your shelf, but it is actually a table in disguise – whilst the Stink tree table (yes, that’s the name) cunningly masquerades as an ex-table. However, a closer look reveals that crack running through its centre is a beautifully crafted tree.

(Images: via Because We Can and CNET)

Perhaps modern technology is more to your liking – in which case, these tables are sure to please. The Wave is a coffee table inset with a network of motion-sensitive LEDs: wave your hand over its surface, and a ripple of light will follow your motion. A table to make the most of your best glassware. The HP Labs Misto table, on the other hand, thinks it is your computer screen, allowing you and your loved ones to view photos and movies and play games on its touch-sensitive surface.

(Image: via lovegrove and repucci)

And lastly, a table with a sense of real grandeur. The Concerto Table looks for all the world like a super-modern Grand Piano … until dinnertime, at which point drawers slide out to reveal your best silver cutlery. It’s also designed to be a musical centerpiece, thanks to the built-in housing for an iPod. But, sadly, there are no ivories to tinkle.