Tag Archives: Milan Design Week 2018

Nendo puts imagination and delight into container lids!

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Saying goodbye to the age old screw-on lids, Nendo’s Air Lids base themselves on physics and human behavior, looking peculiar yet playful, and delighting users with their functionality and inventiveness, as they challenge your notion of what lids should look and behave like. The result is an incredibly creative sets of reimagined lids, based on human needs like measured pouring, scooping, pinching, etc.

Crafted from fluoroelastomer, a food-grade material that feels “silkier” than regular silicone and has high elasticity while being chemical and stain-resistant, the air lids invoke actions like pinching, pushing, scooping, pulling, etc. The Pick-Up Lid lets you grab a pinchful of seasoning from the glass receptacle without making any contact with the food, while the Pinch Lid reveals a small scooping spoon when pressed. There’s also a Press Lid that opens up a diaphragm to allow easy pouring. A Pull Lid allows you to temporarily open the top of a bottle by relocating the sphere closing it, and a personal favorite is the push lid, that uses displacement to pour liquids such as oil out of a container without as much as even lifting the container, or wasting a single drop of oil!

The Air Lids were showcased at the Milan Design Week in 2018 and aim to highlight and symbolize a relationship between human and object. Rather than taking tha status quo for granted, Nendo’s Air Lids are much more experience driven and generate a variety of emotions from the user, from curiosity to awe to eventual delight, staying with the users in their memories long after they’ve finished interacting with them!

Designer: Nendo for Daikin

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Lamps inspired by movement, designed for movement!

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Inspired by an Israeli Dance, the Horah lamps look like they’re molded by the wind. Showcased by Israeli design team Raw Edges at the Milan Design Week, the installation comprises multiple lamp units that are each made of curved glass leaves. Each lamp is a different shape and size. A motor within the lamps gently rotates these beautifully sculpted leaves, making it look like they’re catching a breeze, while giving the entire installation space a feeling of constant movement. The Horah lamps are inspired by a traditional dance of the same name, where people got together in a circle and moved and danced together. That movement in unison is what the Horah aims at capturing, and does quite well! Designed in partnership with Venetian company Wonderglass, Raw Edges aims to move on to turning these lamps from installation pieces to actual products.

On show at Spazio Krizia throughout Milan Design Week, the 30 lamps are dotted across a large platform that curves across the gallery.

Designer: Raw Edges

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Wishlist: Assisted Cooking Concept Kitchens From Electrolux (Part 2)

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Showcasing their creative bent with amazing concepts, Electrolux is out to woo you with their innovative Assisted Cooking Concept Kitchens at the EuroCucina 2018. You can view Part 1 here. In the words of Simon Bradford, “a range of explorative kitchen concepts that demonstrate assisted cooking to help people get the most from their kitchen experience,” are being showcased.

With moving times, home appliances are being integrated with IoT and are minimal in design. There is a shift in the role of materials as well and an increase in interaction between the chef and the product. As we witness various new ways that technology has entered our kitchens – in the form of Alexa or Google Home, it’s important to see how appliance makers adapt to the innovations.

Part 2 features the remaining four of the eight inspiring kitchen concepts.

Designer: Electrolux

The Electrolux IceCaddy makes and stores 4kgs of pure transparent ice cubes. The intuitive sensor detects when you are running low on ice and automatically make some more. Designed to be perfectly crystal clear chunks, the cubes of ice add a dash of sparkle to any drink.

The Electrolux AirGarden is a stylish and innovative ceramic hood. Its designed to keep the kitchen air fresh and doubles up as a handy storage unit. It also features a handy herb garden for you to pluck from, keeping ingredients near!

The Electrolux Clean Cut Knife and Board Washer is perfect for lazy chefs. The concept provides maximum hygiene and blends effortlessly into the existing work surface. What we love is the ease of operation and that you can clean something as intense as a chopping board and knife, in a jiffy.

The Electrolux FlexiBurner gas hob lets you place any size pan anywhere on the hob surface and the burner adapts the flame accordingly. What this means, is that you can use any-size pan and have optimal heat for them. Many dishes require a certain kind of utensil to cook in, and often we get restricted because of the hob configuration. The FlexiBurner removes this problem completely.

If you are presently in Milan, then do drop by EuroCucina 2018 and see these concepts in-person!

Rietveld’s Beugel Chair gets a contemporary tribute

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Probably the most innovative and avant-garde designer of his time, Rietveld’s furniture designs were ground-breaking both visually and from a production stand-point. Even 90 years later, his chairs look as fascinating as they did back in the 20s and 30s. Ninety-one years after Rietveld’s Beugelstoel chair was designed (and produced in 1930), Cassina pays tribute to the chair with a modified version that makes the chair a slight bit sleeker and lighter by using 15mm tubing instead of the original 18mm. It also boasts of “a more ergonomically correct line, conferred by the use of state-of-the-art 3D technology”. Made from two bent pipe structures with a simple molded plywood seat joining them, the Beugel Chair of 2018 pays homage to a designer whose vision was truly a century ahead (in his 130th birth year), and a chair that was arguably the first to use thin, bent metal as a structural base.

Designer: Gerrit Thomas Rietveld (Redesign by Cassina)

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Wishlist: Assisted Cooking Concept Kitchens From Electrolux (Part 1)

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An ardent supporter of concept design, Electrolux has charted a special course in the world of appliances and their future. The fame, creditability and glory that the Electrolux Design Lab Awards had brought into the lives of young designers, can be seen in the way the winners have charted their course, after an internship with the appliance giant. Nostalgia aside, I’m pretty excited to showcase the Assisted Cooking Concept Kitchen, which the company is showcasing at the EuroCucina 2018.

Their stellar portfolio includes ovens with responsive glass that turns transparent when someone is close by and shows milestones within the cooking process; work stations that have clever integration of chopping boards and knife cleaners; intuitive refrigerators and innovative ceramic hoods, amongst other things.

Part 1 features four of the eight inspiring kitchen concepts.

Designer: Electrolux

The Electrolux Serve and Preserve is a combination refrigerator with three-compartments and it includes a freezer, a fridge and larder. The good part of the design technology is that it continuously optimizes the temperature to keep food the freshest. It has pull-out pantry shelves for easy access, making the fridge the most efficient appliance in this form.

The Electrolux VisualGarden refrigerator gives easy viewing access to the fruits and vegetables compartment. The proximity sensors light up the tray, so that you are encouraged to cook healthy. The crisper slides out so that you can dig into the vegetables tray easily.

The Electrolux FlexiChill will make wine enthusiasts very happy! The concept allows you to enjoy a glass without having to finish the entire bottle. The preservation technology dispenses argon gas in to the bottle, removing oxygen exposure and thus maintaining the wine for longer. Moreover, the temperature of this section is optimized to keep the wine fresh for longer.

The Electrolux SmartOven includes SenseOven and SenseOven 2.0

The SenseOven – featuring two touch sensors on a handle that work the automated door, so that you can operate it with ease and focus more on your dish rather than the oven mechanism.

The SenseOven 2.0 – Featuring a responsive glass technology with sensors to intuitively know when someone is close to the oven, the glass of the oven automatically becomes transparent so that you can peek inside and keep an eye on the dish. The technology helps during the cooking process and provides temperature and time support for many dishes. The glass turns back to normal black and blends into the kitchen space when not in use.

​Part 2 of the Electrolux kitchen innovations is just round the bend; stay tuned. In case you are in Milan right now, do look them up at the EuroCucina 2018, which is a part of the Milan Design Week 2018 and say ‘Hi!’ to Tom for us!