Tag Archives: dish rack

This portable dish rack can collapse down to 1.2 inches in just a second

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It’s easy to take for granted how much space things take up in the kitchen until you find yourself suddenly running out of places to put stuff. Some kitchen appliances and furniture might be non-negotiable, but other tools and fixtures could probably do a bit of rethinking. Some of them might be redundant, while others don’t even have to be out of the closet all of the time, especially when they’re not in use. A dish or draining rack, for example, doesn’t serve a purpose once all the tableware has been stored away, but most of them still take up precious space anyway. Not to mention, you can’t easily bring a dish rack with you when you go camping because of their very fixed forms. This rather novel rack, however, fixes all those problems by implementing a collapsible design that will let you easily put the draining rack away once its job is done.

Designers: Sugata Mono Studio for Ishikawa

Click Here to Buy Now: $68 $75 (10% off at checkout). Hurry, Easter sales end in 48 hours.

Truth be told, there aren’t a lot of things in the kitchen that can be put away after use aside from tableware, utensils, and cookware. That’s why there’s always a need to optimize the space being occupied by tools and equipment, which requires a bit of creative thinking and design. You won’t always be drying wet plates and pots, for example, so having a permanent draining rack might not be the greatest idea for some kitchens. In theory, it’s something that you should be able to take out and put away as needed, just like other tools, but the convention just so happened to use rigid designs made of plastic, metal, or wood.

This collapsible draining rack throws that convention out the window to save you space in the kitchen and make it more convenient to have meals outdoors. It uses a patent-pending spring system that gives the rack an accordion-like design, allowing you to expand it to a full 14″ (36cm) length or shrink it down to just 1.2″ (3cm). The best part is that the mechanism is so easy and smooth that you can do that in just a second.

It’s a simple design change, but one that has massive implications. You don’t have to reserve space in your kitchen for a draining rack and can use any flat surface as an ad hoc area. Once you’re done, simply collapse the rack and then shove it in a drawer. It also means it’s easy to transport so you can have the same experience while camping outdoors. The rack is so light and slim that you can actually carry it in your pocket. You don’t even need a flat surface since the rack’s design lets it conform to curved or uneven objects like tree trunks and boulders.

Despite that form-changing design, this collapsible draining rack is still made for durability and reliability, with SUS304 stainless steel parts that are resistant to rust and scratches. The shape that each wire rod takes is intentionally simple to reduce the chances of dirt accumulating in hidden nooks and crannies. And if you’re not that confident in your manual washing skills, the collapsed rack can just as easily be cleaned inside a dishwasher. Whether you’re drying plates or pots indoors or outdoors, this accordion-like collapsible draining rack delivers a simple yet effective tool that gets out of the way once its job is done.

Click Here to Buy Now: $68 $75 (10% off at checkout). Hurry, Easter sales end in 48 hours.

The post This portable dish rack can collapse down to 1.2 inches in just a second first appeared on Yanko Design.

Flat-packed dish rack has a beautiful but questionable design

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Flat-packed furniture and products have become popular these days because of their simplicity and their economy of space. If needed, you can easily disassemble some of these products and move them to another location without taking up too much space in transport. Of course, you won’t be moving a table or chair around that much, but smaller items are free game. Some furniture might even be designed to be portable from the get-go, easily folding or collapsing when it’s time to pack up and go. At first glance, this set of minimalist dish racks seems to be made exactly for that purpose, but its choice of material might make one wonder if it was really designed to hold wet tableware in the first place.

Designer: Ernest Perera

Dish racks are designed not just for holding plates, utensils, or drinkware, though there might be a few that are indeed made for that purpose only. In most cases, however, they’re also meant to help dry this tableware by letting water drip off them. This is the reason why most drying dish racks are made from stainless steel, coated metal, or even plastic, materials that don’t get easily ruined by water or moisture.

The Aurea collection of dryers and racks, however, is noted to be made from “stratify wood,” which might be a translation error for layered wood veneers. Whatever the correct translation might be, the choice of wood remains an odd one. Even with some coating, the wooden surface would still stain and be damaged over time, especially when repeatedly exposed to liquid.

It’s a shame, though, since the Aurea racks are quite visually and mechanically interesting. At first glance, they almost look like cardboard cutouts, except they’re made of wood, of course. That wouldn’t be far from the truth, though, as the pieces do seem to have been cut out in such a fashion to provide insets and gaps for putting plates in, holes for wine bottles, and protrusions for cups. There is also a variety of color options offered, including ones that try to emulate natural wood grains.

The racks also assemble like those wooden model toys, and their construction looks simple enough to assemble and disassemble repeatedly. This makes them ideal for use in outdoor trips or camping, except for the fact that they might not be able to weather the wear and tear of such use cases, not to mention constantly getting wet from holding wet plates and cutlery.

The post Flat-packed dish rack has a beautiful but questionable design first appeared on Yanko Design.

This dish rack holds and waters your plants for you!

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There’s nothing we love more than everyday lifestyle items with a twist! And if we get to save some water along the way, and grow a few greens… well, Milan based DesignLibero’s ‘Fluidity’ allows us to do just that! Created by designer Ekaterina Shchetina, Fluidity serves a double function. A comely white dish rack by day, the multipurpose dish rack has an alter ego; it serves as a planter, or to be precise there are two built-in planters on its sides. Fluidity is designed in such a way that the run-off water from the freshly washed dishes trickles down to the roots of the plants, irrigating and nourishing them. The base, thanks to its fluid form, allows the water to be directed to the plant containers. Perforated at the bottom, the containers are filled with clay pellets and coconut fiber, to control the water environment of the plants and to keep the drainer base free from water residue.

Taking into account ‘smart’ designs and space-saving, DesignLibero has come up with a mini-masterpiece allowing us to grow fresh herbs, while our dishes water them! With the hectic and frantic lives, we live today and our busy schedules consuming all our time, Fluidity enables us to add some greenery to our little kitchen, helping us to cultivate a small garden with minimum effort!  Minimalistic and compact, Fluidity is a perfect fit for our bustling kitchens!

Designer: Ekaterina Shchetina for DesignLibero

This self-drying dish rack uses an organic mineral to instantly evaporate water

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The Dorai Dish Rack comes from the same guys who invented the Dorai Bath Stone that could instantly dry your feet in the time it takes to step on a mat and step off it. Building on this quick-drying aspect that is slowly becoming the company’s specialty, this is the Dorai Dish Rack. It uses a special fossilized-algae base that absorbs water at lightning speeds, drying your dishes out without creating a puddle of water, detergent, dirt, leading to mold and bacteria buildup at the base of the rack.

The Dorai Dish Rack is a radical rethinking of the age-old dish rack that we’ve been blindly accepting for centuries. While old dish-racks rely on water dripping off the dishes and onto your kitchen countertop (you could add a kitchen towel, but we all know that doesn’t help), Dorai comes with its proprietary Diomat built in. This Diomat is made from a rare-earth-mineral better known as Diatomaceous Earth, that forms from the fossilized remains of tiny aquatic organisms. Diatomaceous Earth has the ability to instantly absorb and dissipate water or moisture, accelerating evaporation while preventing mold and bacterial growth. Using this feature as its core strength, the Dorai Dish Rack allows your wet pots, pans, bottles, wine glasses, knives, and cutlery to drip directly onto the Diomat. Within seconds, the water is evenly dispersed across the mat and evaporates instantly into the air. Designed in aluminum, the Dorai Dish Rack is lightweight and resistant to rust. It comes with the ability to dock glasses, cutting boards, and even your knife-block, giving all your cutlery and crockery enough space to dry to perfection. The Dish Rack is collapsible, letting you to store it in narrow spaces when not in use, and the Diomat is removable too, allowing you to clean the mat and the rack periodically, keeping your entire kitchen space dry and sanitary.

For more flexibility, there’s the Dorai Dish Pad, a foldable mat that you can open out on counter-tops to lay out wet utensils onto. Centered around the quick-drying Diatomecious Earth baseplate, the Dorai Dish Pad comes with a silicone outer, giving the pad its hinged, flexible nature, as well as a food-safe, toxin-free construction. Designed to be quick-drying, reusable, sustainable, and healthy, the Dorai Dish Rack and Pad give our hand-washing and drying practices a much-needed upgrade.

Designer: Aaron Nelson

Click Here to Buy Now: $39 $65 (40% off). Hurry, only 6/195 left for the Dish Pad.
Click Here to Buy Now: $69 $89 (22% off). Hurry, only 57/100 left for the Dish Rack.

Dorai Dish Rack

Dorai Dish Pad

Dorai Self-Drying Dish Rack & Pad

Their self-drying dish rack uses Diatomaceous Earth, an organic material that evaporates instantly.

How it Works

Diatomaceous Earth, or grass of the sea, is a naturally occurring mineral that is made from the fossilized remains of tune aquatic organisms. When moisture hits the surface, the material attracts and binds bacteria and parasites, causing them to dry out and die. Water rapidly eveaporates from the product through millions of pores.

Dorai Dish Rack

Dorai Dish Pad

Below: Features

Built in cutting board holder and add-on protective knife block.

Padded hooks for wine glasses, baby and sports bottle.

Food-safe, antimicrobial Diatomaceous Earth ‘Diomat’ base.

Collapsable rack and foldable pad for easy storing.

Click Here to Buy Now: $39 $65 (40% off). Hurry, only 6/195 left for the Dish Pad
Click Here to Buy Now: $69 $89 (22% off). Hurry, only 57/100 left for the Dish Rack

Let this miniature cityscape dry your dishes

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inception_dish_rack_1

Inspired by the Christopher Nolan movie that’s famous for its spinning top and incredibly fluid cityscapes, the Inception Dish Rack is a silicone-molded model of a city, complete with buildings, skyscrapers, and roadways. This plot of land, however, isn’t completely ornamental… because it’s in-fact built for docking wet dishes!

The dishes sit between buildings, looking almost like UFOs colliding into earth (but that’s a separate franchise), and dry out, because they’re stacked vertically. The silicone construction makes the Inception Dish Rack easy to fold up and stash away when not in use, or drape over the side of the sink so the water gathered in its ‘roadways’ can trickle out, finally leaving your miniature city dry and ready to use again. Oh, it works just as marvelously as a letter-holder too!

Designer: Luca Nichetto for Seletti

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Manhattan Skyline Dish Rack

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inception dishrack Manhattan Skyline Dish Rack
Taking a cue from the movie Inception, Luca Nichetto created this sweet dish rack that is modeled after the Manhattan skyline. Unlike the movie, New York City won’t fold up onto itself here. Actually on second thought, since it is made of silicone rubber, you can sort of fold it up.
manhattan skyline dishrack Manhattan Skyline Dish Rack
So it does fold up, but unlike Inception, there’s no Leonardo DiCaprio and you won’t feel like you just took acid (unless of course you actually did just take acid and you happen to know Leo. Can we be friends too then? You sound cool). It will however dry off your dishes as they wedge themselves amongst the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan. You could also use it as a mail holder or desk organizer like this:
manhattan dish rack Manhattan Skyline Dish Rack
As far as I can tell it’s a pretty accurate scale representation of the buildings in NYC- for reference that stepped building just in front of the letters is 30 Rockefeller Plaza and the pyramidal topped building on the right is World Wide Plaza at 50th and 8th. NYC knowledge bomb dropped, son. These would go great thematically with your set of New York Skyline Chairs and Empire State Building Cat Scratcher. (h/t)

Manhattan Skyline Dish Rack
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