This vase is a radio. This radio is an elegant vase. Both are beautiful lies, because it is yet another heartbreakingly unavailable prototype and you can't actually put flowers into it. Designed by Celia Torvisco and Raphael Pluvinage, the Hibou Radio is a smooth and tactile radio with a subtle and conductive paint job.

The ceramic base is screen printed with palladium in carefully arranged patterns, allowing you to control power, volume and channel with gentle finger swipes. While the materials and techniques involved are pointedly oldschool, the tactile interactivity feels like modern tech objects anyway. If you don't naturally want to touch this thing I don't know who you are anymore.

The shape is a little like a funeral urn crossed with a discarded shuttle tank, positioning it well as a Design Object worth noticing. Its pronounced new/old vibe is understandable: as they describe it "this project was...imagined during a workshop entitled 'Craftsmanship and Modernity' in partnership with 'Sevres – Cite de la ceramique'..." Clearly I am very astute. I am also very likely to be disappointed, because despite their care in craftsmanship and ingenuity I cannot have this thing.

Pattern tests in Beta

Final pattern tests in ceramic

Point to where it hurts. Longing is such sweet sorrow.

Check out their other projects and email them excitedly, demanding consumer satisfaction.

Via Protein