The object of my guestimation
July 7, 2006
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The Design Habit estimation tool by Srishti Bajaj, photo courtesy of the designer and used entirely with permission
It’s about ‘this much’, you gesture wtih your fingers, and the person you’re talking to is supposed to get a sense of what you’re talking about. We’re all wired differently. I’m an eyeballer and gesturer. London-based designer Srishti Bajaj has developed a tool to connect the gesturer with the measurer, and estimation tool. Last week I re-ran into her work, a collection of objects that are inspired by or refer to eating habits.
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The Design Habit estimation tool by Srishti Bajaj, photo courtesy of the designer and used entirely with permission
- Design Habit website and portfolio
- Three Vices reviewed at We-Make-Money-Not-Art
- Equalizer knife at Designboom
debra at 17:27 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
Wasteware, it’s everything but the squeal in food recycling
July 4, 2006
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Rhubarb and carrot waste formed into little bowls for cherries and berries.
Man and Humanity masters graduate Matthijs Vogels has developed a beautiful but extreme way to eliminate food waste by turning it into plates and bowls. At last week’s Design Academy Eindhoven MFA show, Vogels exhibited a concept restaurant in which all food waste would be recycled into sensual tableware as well as gas fuel for the cooking. Vegetable, fruit, tea, coffee and packaging waste is churned up, moulded under pressure and formed into any shape. The new material, which I am calling wasteware, is reusable, reminiscent of Indian leaf plates and bowls in its simplicity. Wastewear plates and bowls are fully compostable, easy to manufacture anew (even onsite), and are extremely sensually textured, reflecting the materials from which they are made. The material is so pretty that you would be tempted to use the bowls as a storage space for other precious things aside from food. It is as sturdy as a low-heat fired ceramic.
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In Vogels’ recycling restaurant concept, SPROUT, guests would receive a small vessel made out of the waste/leftovers from their meal in combination with the restaurant’s leftovers including the composted plates. This souvenir of waste serves to remind guests of the circular system of waste, compost, growing food.
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Matthijs Vogels’ recycling concept, this bowl is made out of leek waste. (Please read more… )
debra at 12:30 | Comments (4) | post to del.icio.us
John Arndt’s
Kitchen of Terrestrial Mechanics
June 29, 2006
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If Mother Nature had designed a kitchen…
The Kitchen of Terrestrial Mechanics uses natural phenomenon normally taken for granted like gravity, evaporation, plant growth, static electricity, decomposition and digestion as mechanical elements in a holistic kitchen design. Water dripping off freshly cleaned dishes falls like raindrops onto the herbs growing below the dish rack. Unglazed ceramic food containers become cooler when they get wet from the drops of water from freshly washed dishes above. The water evaporates, cooling the interior of the container. Composted material is thrown into a garbage disposal governed by worms, to be turned into the rich castings that will grow the next month’s fresh herbs all over again. Nature’s mechanisms are integrated to create a flow of process uncommon in conventional kitchens.
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In fact ‘Flow’ is the name Arndt gave to the family of products that work best as parts of the larger system. For the kitchen to work for you, you must use it. This may be the only kitchen you will ever meet that actually depends upon you to feed it, water it, let it grow, harvest it, eat it, get it really dirty, create some garbage in it and wash it for it to function optimally. This may be the only kitchen you will ever meet that will miss you when you’re gone and will wilt if you go away on an extended holiday, hungering for your return. The Kitchen of Terrestrial Mechanics is definitely Nature at its most gratifying.
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debra at 18:14 | Comments (0) | post to del.icio.us
