Tag Archives: Dining

This modular terracotta clay pot keeps food cool without any electricity for refrigeration!

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The Terracooler is a modern interpretation of the traditional Zeer pot or pot-in-pot refrigerator, an evaporative cooling refrigeration device that has been used for centuries and is still used today in countries across the globe, such as India and Nigeria.

Zeer pots, or pot-in-pot refrigerators, carry a rich, enduring history. Dating back to as early as 3000BC, Zeer pots have been used in the kitchen as evaporative cooling refrigeration devices across the globe for centuries. Comprised of two clay pots, the porous outer pot is lined with wet sand and surrounds a glazed inner clay pot where food items can be stored for refrigeration.

Requiring no electricity whatsoever, Zeer pots only need a source of water and some dry air to keep produce and other food items cool. Reinterpreting the Zeer pot for modern use, London-based designer Ellie Perry created the Terracooler, a tri-tiered pot-in-pot refrigerator that fits right at home on the kitchen counter.

Like many designers today, Perry felt compelled to design her Terracooler after learning that 10% of household energy is taken up by domestic refrigerators. However, in the UK, where Perry is based, 14 million tons of food waste is accumulated each year. The Terracooler was designed by Perry to make sense of that perplexing ratio.

Inspired by the modern use of Zeer pots in countries like India and Nigeria, Perry devised sketches and models before taking to CNC milling to produce a wooden model of her Terracooler. Using the wooden model as a plaster mold, Perry slipped cast from the mold to create a version made from terracotta clay.

Using the traditional build of pot-in-pot refrigerators, Terracooler is formed from three tapered, double-sided slip cast pieces with built-in handles. The handles stem from both sides of each individual pot and also work as spouts for water to pour through and provide evaporative cooling. With a vertical, modular design, Terracooler fits snugly on any kitchen counter and can be disassembled for access to the food items inside each pot.

Designer: Ellie Perry

 

This automated mushroom chamber uses smart technology to grow and harvest your own mushrooms at home!

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Mella is a household mushroom fruiting chamber that uses smart technology to automatically grow and harvest a variety of mushrooms.

Over the past couple of years, our homes have become test kitchens for everything from colorful sourdough bread to dalgona coffee. Now it’s time to make some counter space for an at-home smart mushroom fruiting chamber.

Mella, an innovative new kitchen appliance from FirstBuild, a co-creation community backed by GE appliances, uses smart technology to grow and harvest your own mushrooms at home.

Smart technology has made mealtime simpler than ever. With smart technology, we can program our appliances to do the hard parts for us. Mella’s automated programming brings just the right amount of fresh air and humidity into the fruiting chamber to allow mushrooms to mature at the right time and speed, growing into full-size, edible mushrooms. With automated technology running the show, seasoned mycelium harvesters and recreational growers can sit back and enjoy the show.

Located on the outside of Mella’s chamber, the water basin can easily be refilled to funnel in just the right amount of water to combine with fresh air and become humidity for optimal mushroom-growing conditions. Then, the hygrometer indicates the humidity levels inside the chamber so that users can always keep tabs on the best conditions for harvesting mushrooms. Four LED lights also pour light into the chamber to ensure the mushrooms receive the necessary amount. Finally, a WiFi-compatible program controller allows users to adjust Mella’s settings as they see fit to help mushrooms grow.

Summing up Mella in their own words, the team behind FirstBuild notes, “Made for those mad about mushrooms Mella controls and automates the inputs necessary to grow delicious, edible mushrooms in the comfort of your home.”

Designer: FirstBuild

 

Heinz designed the perfect roller-squeezer to extract 100% of the ketchup from their sachets

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The handly little EDC device comes in the iconic shape of the Heinz ketchup bottle and sports a cutter that slices off a corner of the sachet, and a squeezer that lets you extract every last drop of ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, relish, or hot-sauce from those single-use plastic sachets.

If you’re a bit of a condiment aficionado, the Heinz Packet Sauce Roller might just be the perfect everyday carry. It’s small, straps right to your keychain, and lets you efficiently sauce your burgers, hot dogs, corndogs, or any street/restaurant food that needs smothering in sachet-based sauces/chutneys/gravies.

Using the Heinz Packet Sauce Roller is pretty simple. A slot near the ‘cap’ of the device lets you elegantly slice a corner off so you’re not fiddling with your fingers or teeth to rip open the sachet at the risk of getting ketchup everywhere. The other larger slot lets you slide the sachet in backwards, and the keychain-grip lets you rotate a set of rollers that squeeze every ounce of sauce from within the packet, reducing wastage and increasing sauce-age.

For a price of $5.70 I’d go ahead and argue that this product is really a nifty little marketing gimmick that you could probably buy if you really wanted to show off to your friends, although you’d just be better off skipping it. It would be nice if the folks at Heinz chucked in a bottle opener too, or made the slot wider so I could use the roller with toothpaste tubes as well (like Alessi’s toothpaste-squeezing buckle)… but all-in-all, it’s just a quirky little gizmo that has comic appeal more than anything else.

Designer: The Kraft Heinz Company (Heinz)

Tokyo’s hotel designs new pandemic-era dining experience with transparent lanterns for guests to enjoy a face mask-free dinner!

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The Tokyo Lantern Dinner at the Hoshinoya ryokan in Otemachi, Tokyo provides transparent lanterns made from vinyl for dining guests to experience group dinners without wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Across the world, we’ve seen how the industry of design has impacted our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. From transparent dining pods to no-contact food trucks, designers have made eating out possible over these past three years. Even in 2021, COVID-19’s effect on dining out has stuck around and different versions of what we call the ‘new normal’ are still making rounds. At Hoshinoya, in Otemachi, Tokyo, a new dining experience called the ‘Tokyo Lantern Dinner,’ brings lanterns for each guest to use as transparent partitions against COVID-19 during group dinners.

Designed for dining guests to feel free and unmask during dinner, the lantern partitions were conceived by Hoshinoya for their familiarity with Japanese culture and customs. From the top of each lantern, soft, warm light pours over your head and meal, illuminating your facial expressions during conversation as well as the food on your plate. Produced by the long-established lantern store Kojima Shoten in Kyoto, each lantern measures 75-cm in diameter and 102-cm in height, leaving more than enough room to enjoy your meal without fear of splashing the transparent vinyl covering, which reaches 0.15 mm in thickness.

The designers behind Hoshinoya’s Tokyo Lantern Dinner created the experience to provide a space where loved ones who were kept apart due to the pandemic can meet and enjoy a quality meal together like we could before 2019. Limiting the dining area to 40-sqm, fresh, ventilated air is poured into the room 5.5 times per hour, around 11 times more than the average public setting in Tokyo.

Interested guests of Hoshinoya can make reservations for the Tokyo Lantern Dinner and dine with loved ones staying outside of the ryokan for ¥30,000 ($264.10) per group and ¥21,780 ($191.70) per person, The price includes a multi-course meal from a set menu called “Nippon Cuisine ~Fermentation~.” As described by Hoshinoya the menu contains, “A wide variety of fermented foods such as seasonings, soy sauce, and miso, which have been popular in Japan since ancient times, [as well as] preserved foods such as pickles and salted fish.”

Designer: Hoshinoya

Meet the hug cup, an evolution of the traditional tableware that allows you to easily hold your warm mug on those chilly days!

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Hug Cup is an innovative reinterpretation of the traditional ceramic mug, replacing the conventional side handle with a central grip tunnel that serves as an internal handle for those living with joint pain or osteoarthritis.

Kitchen cups and mugs have been endlessly reimagined through design over the years. The cup’s simple form makes room for innovative design across industries, from ceramic to inclusive reinterpretations. Designer and ceramic artist, Eszter Imre offered their own take on the conventional ceramic mug, casting a center finger tunnel that makes holding the cup feel like you’re hugging warm tea and makes holding the mug easier for those who struggle with holding a mug’s traditional side handle.

Imre’s Hug Cup was created to drill home the designer’s belief that, “we give special attention to things we use in our everyday life. We like to have a personal relation to the objects we touch closely, such as a cup.”

The internal handle is a unique take on the mug’s traditional side handle, allowing users to securely grip Hug Cup while feeling the warmth of the liquid contents inside. Describing the mug in their own words, Imre states, “The whole cup creates an intimate tunnel through the cup itself for your finger, you may enjoy the heat of your beverage without burning your palm.”

While Hug Cup’s innovative handle is playful, it is also a solution-based design. For those living with joint pain, more specifically osteoarthritis, gripping mugs is a feat on its own. The central tunnel on Hug Cup allows users to hold onto the mug without altering the way their hands naturally fall. By simply sliding your thumb through the internal handle, half the battle is won. In creating Hug Cup, Imre notes, “It’s a fun, engaging object that wouldn’t make you feel like an outcast from society due to your special needs.”

Designer: Eszter Imre

This meal kit and food service ensures you have a home cooked meal for all your dietary needs

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Yumme is a meal kit and combined digital food service that makes eating homecooked meals feel less like a priority and more like a given.

Fitting a homecooked meal into your schedule is difficult when you live and work in a big city. Cramped city living spaces sometimes make the act of cooking feel like moving through a laser beam security fence and finding the time to go shopping for after-work cookouts can get overwhelming.

Food delivery services and meal kits can be convenient solutions, but there aren’t many healthy or nutritious options on those menus. Coming up with a health-focused meal kit and combined digital food service, a team of designers conceptualized Yumme.

Designed to function primarily as an IoT household product, Yumme is a smart food tray that analyzes the nutrition facts and calories of each food item that makes up your meal.

Conceptualized in three different forms, Yumme’s plate options vary depending on the user’s diet. The first tray comes with five different food compartments for users who’d like to explore the full spectrum of a balanced meal.

Embedded sensors are located inside the food tray to analyze each meal’s contents. Split into two parts, Yumme’s top lid is made from Tritan, an eco-friendly and heat-resistant material, while its bottom module is coated in silicone to avoid slipping.

Another food tray features only three compartments for users with a more limited diet. Finally, a third food tray split into two layers hosts compartments for four different food items and keeps a portable size to bring lunch with you on the go.

Yumme comes with an accompanying app that tracks and analyzes your every meal so you can always stay on top of your health. While tracking your own meals, you can connect with other Yumme users through the integrated social aspect of Yumme’s application.

In addition to the three different food trays available from Yumme, the designers included utensils and a carrying case to make enjoying a homecooked meal as accessible as possible, no matter your schedule.

Designer: Hyogyeong Kang, Younghyun Na, and Dayoung Lee

Each food tray’s top lid is built from Tritan BPA plastics to ensure heat resistance and easy cleaning. 

Utensils and an accompanying carrying case make bringing food on the go as easy as making it with Yumme.

With magnetized utensils, storing all the appliances that come with Yumme is easy as ever. 

Yumme’s accompanying app tracks and analyzes the information of each meal to share with other Yumme users or to keep for your own information. 

These solar-powered camping accessories create the perfect glamping experience through their sleek, modern design

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For eco-conscious travelers and adventure seekers who want their environmental footprint to be minimal, this collection of mindful camping accessories is the way to go.

Camping is gaining a lot of traction globally. According to surveys, the glamping and camping industry in the US alone is likely to grow up to 2.07 and 4.6 billion by 2026. In such a scenario, designers are toiling with ways to give avid campers various reasonable options to enhance their experience. There has thus been a considerable rise in the camping accessory with sustainable design bent, and the Shinola Camping Accessory Set titled Elves is just an extension of the collective idea.

The camping gear comprises solar-powered independent items that are designed primarily for conscious travelers who want to camp in the wilderness with little or no impact on the environment whatsoever. The highlight of the gear is the smokeless camping fire pit, which is portable, lightweight, and easy to set up. Other accessories comprising the Elves include a coffee brewer, tableware, and hanging lights.

Made with the idea to give your camping a glamping lift – sans environmental impact, the glamorous camping accessories have a sensory appeal and are all powered by clean energy. Yes, everything from the tripod-style fire pit to the drip coffee brewer and the hanging pendant lights to tableware is powered by the sun. The reimagined camping gear is made in a way that it can charge by the day and emit by night providing you an exciting experience out in the wilderness.

The S’more pit comes complete with an area to roast marshmallows, while the hanging lights create an interesting ambiance at the campsite and also light the way in occasional night walks to the loo. Featuring solar panels on the upper curved surface, the tableware diffuses light from within, and the coffee brewer keeps its station lighted while and after your cup of Joe is served. The entire set of accessories is inspired by minimalism, celebration, and environment, and that symbolism is carried beyond the looks.

Designer: Simpo Design

This coffee-grinder’s retro-inspired form harks back to the golden age of Italian automotive design

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Look at the Niche Zero and tell me it doesn’t possess the soul of a Vespa! The beautifully curvilinear design of the Niche Zero coffee grinder isn’t a result of function, but rather of expression. Inspired by old-timey automobiles (and even appliances), the Niche Zero coffee grinder celebrates the bold, beautiful design languages of icons like Piaggio, Fiat, Alessi, and Olivetti.

The Niche’s commanding presence in your kitchen is a stark deviation from most burr grinders that look to be compact, sleek, and portable. Designed by UK-based brand Niche Coffee, Niche Zero is a specially designed single-dose grinder that refreshes you with not just a cup of coffee, but also with its eye-catching design. The grinder, which comes in either white or black, features a gently curved metal body, retro-style switches, and wooden accents and stubby legs that make it look warm and approachable. On the inside, the Niche Zero comes with 63mm conical steel burr grinders with a step-less adjustment system that gives you precise and complete control over your grind size. Load the coffee beans into the hopper, secure the safety lid, and flip the antique toggle-style switch on the side and the Niche Zero begins whirring to life, delivering a single dose of ground coffee powder that you can then use with your espresso machine, French press, pour-over, cold-brew carafe, or any style of coffee-brewing apparatus you may have!

The Niche Zero measures a little over 12 inches in height (311mm) and boldly sits on your kitchen counter almost like a sculptural piece. It operates at 72 decibels too, which some might consider just a tad loud (if you’re one of them, maybe invest in a hand-grinder).

Each Niche Zero comes in either Pure White or Midnight Black (both equally classy colors, although the white one looks less visually heavy) with oak wood accents. The grinder comes along with a 58mm grind cup (perfect for most portafilters), a wooden-handled cleaning brush, a user manual, and a socket driver.

The grinder itself is incredibly easy and intuitive to use. The safety lid on top helps secure the beans while the machine is operational, and a step-less adjustment disc on the inside even comes with a marked guide that lets you calibrate your grind-size to suit the kind of brewing you plan on doing (finer grind for Espresso, coarser grind for a French press). A single switch on the side lets you turn the Niche Zero on or off, and the grinder’s direct outlet path ensures that no bits and specks of coffee dust remain behind inside the machine. However, a nifty little accompanying brush lets you clean out your Niche Zero every couple of uses.

Designer: Niche Coffee

This food storage concept features an intuitive control design so we can always keep our leftovers!

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ODNY.BOX is a food storage concept with an intuitive control dial and a minimal aesthetic for users to store any type of leftover, from hot baked cookies to cold Greek yogurt.

What would life be like without leftovers? There’d be no post-Thanksgiving triple-decker sandwiches, no cold pizza, sadly baked ziti for breakfast would have to go too, and no more half-soggy, half-crunchy nachos. In a few words, life would be a slow death without leftovers.

Okay maybe not, but I’d need a second to bounce back. Outfitted with an intuitive layout and glossy aesthetic, ODNY.BOX is a food storage concept from Yoonji Park designed so we’ll never have to consider what life would be like without leftovers.

Inspired by the bulbous shape that water makes when it drops on flat surfaces, the glass lid of ODNY.BOX comes together as half of a globe and almost curls under the platform where food is kept to ensure sealed storage. The seasons have an effect not only on the food we eat but also on how that food is kept for tomorrow. During the winter months, the hot food we order or cook at home is subject to cold temperatures, while during the warmer months, perishables like produce are the first to go bad.

Park aimed to build ODNY.BOX with an intuitive control panel so that a plate of lasagna could be just as easily stored as a bowl of fresh fruit. Comprising just one single dial, the control on ODNY.BOX gives you three options for storage: room temperature, cool, and warm. When users would like to store food items like bananas or breakfast croissants, turning the dial to its room temperature setting would suffice. Then, when a bowl of ice cream or a side of french fries needs some storage, users can adjust the dial to its cold or hot settings, respectively.

The inner platform where food is stored also detaches from the base to function as a free tray for transporting plates of food or just keeping dishes steady on a flat surface. The overall design of ODNY.BOX is clean and minimal, considering even a micro organizer for the product’s wire to tuck into and stay out of the way.

Designer: Yoonji Park

This UberEats delivery scooter comes with an incredibly clever 3-axis gimbal to keep your food intact in transit

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The Uber Balance may seem like a clever fusion of a scooter and the stabilizer rig often used with video cameras, but honestly, it’s an extremely natural pairing if you ask me. Gimbals/stabilizers have been used on boats and yachts to prevent them from tipping over on rough waters, and even if you look strictly at the domain of dining and hospitality, bartenders have perfected the ability to perform tricks while flipping bottles, trays, glasses without getting your drink to tip over. The initial spark for the idea’s always been around, but Korea-based designers, Min JU Kim and Hyeonji Roh decided to put the concept together, creating Uber Balance, a fleet of delivery scooters for Uber Eats, equipped with 3-axis stabilizers that ensure your food reaches you in one piece.

There’s a simplicity in the Uber Balance’s design that’s worth admiring. The all-black scooter is retrofitted with a slim, lightweight gimbal that helps to stabilize the food box in the middle. The stabilizer sits where a pillion-rider would, making the scooter a single-seater that’s big enough for the driver, and has ample space at the back to store food parcels in a heat-proof box, keeping them warm through the journey of the trip.

The stabilizer on the back of the scooter neutralizes any bumps in the road or sudden swerves the rider may make to deliver your food to you on time. It swivels on different axes, keeping the food upright while the rider makes their way from the restaurant to your home… and from someone who’s seen his fair share of completely botched cakes/cupcakes, absolutely upturned pizzas, and Indian gravy dishes with spills and leaks, the Uber Balance may sound like a lot of effort, but it serves a pretty elementary purpose – to bring food to you the way the restaurant intended.

At the center of this stabilizer unit is the redesigned food box, which comes with a pivot-and-slide door that doesn’t need to open 180°. Given that the stabilizer’s rings would come in the way of a traditional hinged lid, this current mechanism is perfect for allowing delivery agents to quickly store and retrieve their food parcels, no matter how big they are. The lid obviously locks too, to prevent accidental opening and theft.

While Uber Balance is currently just a conceptual vehicle, what it proposes is pretty unique and game-changing. Food delivery has absolutely taken off in the pandemic, and by redesigning the way the food is delivered, Uber Balance aims at providing customers with a better user experience by giving them food that’s been transported with care… the focus being on the last two words.

Designers: Min JU Kim & Hyeonji Roh