Tag Archives: bowl

Gustaf Westman’s Curling Bowl Turns Olympic Gold Into Your Snack

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There’s something delightfully unexpected about watching a designer take a winter sport and turn it into a snack vessel. But that’s exactly what Swedish designer Gustaf Westman has done with his latest creation, the Curling Bowl, and it might be the most charming thing to come out of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics.

Westman, who has built a reputation for his inflated, chunky aesthetic that makes everything look like it’s been puffed up with joy, found his inspiration in an unlikely place. When his fellow Swedes, siblings Rasmus and Isabella Wranå, took gold in the mixed doubles curling event against Team USA, Westman did what any designer would do: he celebrated by creating something new. The result is a glossy, sky-blue bowl that perfectly captures the rounded silhouette of a curling stone, complete with that distinctive elevated handle.

Designer: Gustaf Westman

The Curling Bowl isn’t just a literal translation of sports equipment into home decor. It’s smarter than that. Cast in high-gloss pastel blue, the piece softens the compact mass of a traditional curling stone into something that feels approachable, almost huggable. The handle, which on a real curling stone helps players grip and release with precision, here doubles as both a functional grip and a built-in tray. It’s the kind of thoughtful design twist that makes you wonder why no one thought of it before.

What makes this piece particularly clever is how Westman transforms the essence of the sport itself. Curling is all about precision, friction, and those hypnotic sweeping gestures that look like someone’s desperately trying to convince the ice to cooperate. Westman takes that same energy and translates it into the domestic ritual of snacking. Reaching for popcorn from the Curling Bowl mimics that poised grip before a slide. It’s sport as metaphor for hosting, and it works surprisingly well.

This isn’t Westman’s first rodeo with playful design. Since establishing his Stockholm-based studio in 2020, he’s developed a signature style that’s immediately recognizable. His work features tactile curves, surprising color combinations, and shapes that look almost cartoonish in their exaggerated proportions. Whether it’s his wavy mirrors, chunky desks, or blob sofas, there’s a consistent thread of joy running through everything he creates. His pieces don’t just sit in a room; they announce themselves with cheerful confidence.

The collaboration with IKEA last year for a holiday collection showed Westman’s range. Working with pastel pinks, dusty blues, cherry reds, and emerald greens, he created tableware and home objects that challenged conventional holiday aesthetics. The collection was playful without being childish, bold without being overwhelming. It’s that same sensibility that makes the Curling Bowl work. It’s fun, but it’s also genuinely functional.

The timing of the Curling Bowl’s release feels intentional. Dropping it during the Winter Olympics taps into that collective sports enthusiasm that sweeps through social media every few years. But unlike official Olympic merchandise that often feels corporate and forgettable, this piece has staying power. It’s the kind of object that will still feel relevant long after the closing ceremonies, because it’s not really about the Olympics at all. It’s about taking something ordinary (a snack bowl) and making it extraordinary through thoughtful design and a healthy dose of whimsy.

What’s particularly refreshing about Westman’s approach is his willingness to be unserious in a design world that can sometimes take itself too seriously. There’s a playfulness here that feels genuinely joyful rather than forced. The Curling Bowl doesn’t pretend to be solving major design problems or revolutionizing how we think about tableware. It’s just a really well-designed bowl that happens to look like a curling stone and makes you smile when you use it.

For anyone who’s been following Westman’s work, the Curling Bowl feels like a natural evolution. It has his signature inflated geometry, his love of glossy finishes, and his ability to take everyday objects and inject them with personality. For those discovering him for the first time, it’s a perfect introduction to a designer who understands that good design doesn’t have to be austere or minimal to be meaningful. Sometimes it can just be fun, functional, and finished in the perfect shade of pastel blue.

The post Gustaf Westman’s Curling Bowl Turns Olympic Gold Into Your Snack first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Ceramic Bowl Has Secret Compartments for Pistachio Shells

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Eating pistachios or olives usually means improvising a discard situation. Shells end up on napkins, side plates, or scattered across the coffee table, and by the time the bowl is empty, there’s a mess to clean up. Shared snack bowls at parties have the same problem: fresh food mixed with scraps, and everyone reaches in with uncertain hands trying to avoid the pile of pits someone left on the edge.

CALYRA treats that mess as part of the design brief rather than an afterthought. It’s a ceramic food and waste server that combines a main serving space with dedicated discard areas in a single form. The two pieces nest together symmetrically, both during use and when tucked away in a cupboard, so pits and shells have an obvious home from the start instead of wandering around the table.

Designer: Christina Tran

Picture a casual evening with pistachios on the coffee table. CALYRA’s larger basin holds the fresh snacks, while two smaller cavities collect empty shells and pits as you work through the bowl. Instead of juggling an extra plate or folding a napkin into an improvised waste pouch, everything stays within one footprint. When you’re done, you can carry the whole situation to the sink in one trip.

Once the food is gone, the two pieces nest into a compact stack. The cut-out legs and curved profiles lock into a stable shape that’s easy to store in a small cabinet. That symmetry means you can carry it as a single object from the cupboard to the table and back again, even when your hands are already full with wine glasses or a tray of something else that needs attention.

CALYRA’s smooth ceramic surfaces and rounded interiors make it simple to rinse or wipe clean, with no tight corners for residue to hide in. The neutral form and color let it move between different foods and settings, from solo snacks at a desk to shared tapas at dinner. It behaves like regular tableware, just with the added intelligence of a built-in waste plan that most bowls quietly ignore.

The concept focuses on the unglamorous part of eating, the shells, seeds, and pits that usually get handled as an afterthought. By folding that step into the serving piece itself, CALYRA turns a small annoyance into a smoother gesture. It’s the kind of quiet improvement that makes you wonder why most snack bowls still pretend the messy part doesn’t exist, as if ignoring it makes it less of a problem when you’re trying to enjoy pistachios without turning your table into a shell graveyard.

The post This Ceramic Bowl Has Secret Compartments for Pistachio Shells first appeared on Yanko Design.

Bowl-shaped chair concept offers geometric beauty at the expense of ergonomics

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Just like a table, the most basic requirements for a chair are quite simple. It needs to be strong and stable enough to actually sit on, but comfort and convenience seem to be more open to interpretation than any other design element. Some brutalist designs look a little painful to sit on, meeting only the bare minimum of a chair, while others let your body literally sink inside its plushy cushions and make it difficult to pull yourself out quickly. And then there are designs like this concept that espouse simplicity and minimalism to convey a sense of beauty, but the end result, while visually successful, also raises concerns about its actual usefulness and comfort.

Designer: Mauricio Coelho

A chair isn’t a simple form that can be expressed in a single shape. After all, there are a few interconnecting planes needed to give it legs and an actual seat. A backrest is common but not obligatory, and armrests are even more optional. The Oco chair concept comes close to that simplicity of form while still providing a visually interesting piece, and it accomplishes that by employing a shape you wouldn’t always associate with a chair.

Bowl-shaped chairs are uncommon probably for a reason. A hollow half-sphere might not be the most comfortable thing to sit in unless you fill that space with cushions like what the Oco chair does. With extremely thin planes for legs, the bowl almost looks like it’s floating in mid-air. Made using carbon steel and fiberglass, the chair brings structural stability while also providing some subtle material details, like the wood-like grains of the spherical body.

But while it is indeed a sight to behold, closer inspection might make you rethink the comfort it promises. The thick cushions do look plus, but they might not provide enough support for the person’s back. Or at the very least the back cushion doesn’t have enough height to support someone leaning back, forcing them to sit upright without proper support, straining their body over time.

The bowl’s edges are also left exposed, which could scratch, cut, or press on a person’s skin, especially on the back of the legs and forearms. A few slight modifications, like lining the edges with soft fabric or changing the angle of the bowl could help improve the ergonomics of the design without ruining the simple geometric beauty that this concept wishes to convey.

The post Bowl-shaped chair concept offers geometric beauty at the expense of ergonomics first appeared on Yanko Design.