UNStudio goes Playful
Ben Van Berkel designs colourful tableware and ‘Doraff’, a playful hybrid seat, for Italian design brand Alessi.
Colourful, smooth and safe would just be some of the adjectives that identifies ‘Doraff’, a playful hybrid seat, alongside a polished steel cutlery set and a sustainable, shatterproof melamine and bamboo tableware set by UNStudio.
According to Ben van Berkel: “Design is the perfect vehicle to help children explore the world while having fun safely. When conceiving products for children, different, more playful ideas start to rise to the surface. You start to approach the design through the mind of a child. How do children experience objects, shapes, textures and colours? How will this product stimulate the child’s imagination? Or how could you improve the design to encourage play, learning and creativity?”
Doraff is a new type of playful furniture that combines the shapes of a dog and a giraffe into a versatile, multi functional object for children. At once a table, a chair, a chaise longue and a helping hand to reach high places, Doraff also stimulates the child’s imagination during play. Children can imagine they are riding a giraffe or playing with their dog, or they can easily flip over the lightweight figure to use the differently sized surfaces to play games, read, eat from or simply climb on.
Available in a variety of colours, the robust Doraff is a 100% recyclable thermoplastic resin chair, a hybrid of a furniture piece and a toy, as well as a design object that can be used in a variety of locations.
Ben van Berkel: “I have always enjoyed the playfulness of how children perceive and explore the world around them; how the scope of their imagination allows them to think beyond rational boundaries, and how this liberation from logic enables the most creative and wonderfully irrational ideas and perceptions. This is often coupled with intense curiosity, as they try to understand where their imagination ends and ‘the world of the adult’ begins.”
All on the Table
Giro Kids Collection comprises a children’s cutlery set and tableware. The cutlery originates from the Giro cutlery collection designed by Ben van Berkel for Alessi and allows children to mimic adults by using the same utensils as they do, while also helping them to learn how to use, hold and balance their cutlery correctly. Made from polished steel, the twist in the handle enables grip and balance for both right and left-handed children.
The shatterproof Giro Kids Collection tableware uses bright and contrasting colors that have an instant appeal to children. Expanding upon the primary colours usually used in children’s products, the tableware set comprises a plate, bowl and cup in colours ranging from Coral Red and Azure Blue to Nectarine Orange and Minty Green – from which children can make combinations, or claim their favourite as their own.
The gentle curves and wide edges enable easy grip, while detachable anti-slip rubber rings anchor the tableware to any surface, helping to avoid messy mealtimes. BPA-free and made from melamine and bamboo, the Giro Kids Collection tableware provides safe and highly sustainable children’s tableware for any occasion.
UNStudio
Doraff: Ben van Berkel with William de Boer, Luca Takacs, Edward Drabovitch and Alexandra Gurita
