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Andrew Kim's square Coke bottle design
CCS student Andrew Kim's Coke bottle redesign is an ambitious take on the iconic bottle, going square in the name of eco-friendliness. The new bottle shape would take up far less space in shipping pallets per bottle, and a push-up in the bottom large enough to accommodate the cap of the bottle beneath it would enable stacking. Said cap is offset for better drinkability.
Another interesting design feature is that underneath the label, the bottle is ribbed so that it can compress like an accordion, taking up even less space when it's time to go into the recycling truck.
As a former structural package designer myself, my first thought was that the strength needed for stackability wouldn't jive with a crushable bottle, but then I realized the bottle could be designed so that it's strong when surrounded on all sides--like when they're being shipped en masse--but collapsible when the bottle is alone, absent the pressure of surrounding bottles. Good stuff, and even more impressive considering Kim is a freshman!
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Do a quick search on why you shouldn't and you get quite a few hits on the fact that this was missinformation that has no scientific evidence to support it. In fact the research institute stated as being the ones who say you aren't supposed to have actually denied that this info came from them, and have stated it IS okay to reuse the bottles.
It's true that many food and beverage brands are (already)converting to square or rectangular packs for just the reason you understood... better case packing efficiency, lower carbon footprint. This a hugely popular trend now, but we haven't seen it in CSD. The reason is that it simply won't stay square.
Pressurization will inevitable make a square bottle round. Fill a Fiji bottle with fresh Coke, cap it, shelf it and you'll see this in action. And remember that because you opened and poured, there's significantly less carbonation in that bottle than in a freshly filled pack.
An off-set neck design, though not impossible to blow, couldn't move through Coke's system at the speed or volume with which their product is run. This would drastically slow down line time.
IF these variable didn't exist, the idea is totally noble and sound. But they do, and that's the challenge in CSD design (or, conversely, in hot-fill design where you are contending with vacuum rather than pressure).
Ignoring all of this though... from a branding perspective, it might be nice to work the waist into the proposal, as it's a huge part of their identity. You could build a waist into the lower mid-section of the design. The cross-sections of the bottle's major areas of width would still be square, so you'd get the sustainable benefits of the square while still honoring their brand equity.
I think they look very interesting lined up. With the asymmetrical neck, it provides plenty of options for playing with its orientation on the shelf for visual effect. It's a very clean, streamlined, modern design.
However, I do agree that, while it's distinctive, it's not very "Coke." It incorporates the Coke swish, but other than that, it could be any brand and any sort of liquid. Coca-Cola has built a lot of brand equity with their contoured bottles, and their energetic, fun-loving sort of image.
I think it could be an excellent option for a high-end beverage, perhaps one of those boutique waters, an exotic juice, or some sort of smoothie. If it weren't something you would buy from a vending machine, the non-standard form wouldn't be an issue. For that type of product, a highly distinctive presence on the shelf could justify a higher per-unit production cost.
Of course, I wouldn't recommend doing it unless it could be produced so that the resulting bottle could be recycled with the other #1 plastic drink bottles.
For Dimitri... It is called constructive criticism it is supposed to give the designer feedback so one knows what direction to choose when designing and improving design. Constructive criticism is the best thing a designer can hear!!!
I'm seriously asking.
This banal design is not even remotely brilliant as it lacks any sense of applied physics and is clearly untested---not to mention its unimaginative and uninspired design........
It lacks practicality, artistry and functionality.
Please make my comment the last comment on this blog
But then I though about durability. Not in shipping or storing in large volumes, but after the sale. If I were to purchase a bottle with the redesign, drop it on my way out of the store and have it impact on one of the corners... I would think a rupture would be likely, especially if said corner impacts with another corner (rock, shopping cart bar, whatever).
I'd be willing to bet that you could throw a Coke bottle (as currently designed) 5 or 6 feet in the air and it would not rupture on impact unless it happens to land on the cap, which would be the case for both designs.
You could overcome that by using thicker plastic but that would kind of defeat the purpose.
This is ment to be easier to recycle not to reuse it .
Personally I THINK people are thinking into it way to much., I know you will have to but there needs to be a change instead of being like "everyone" else.
Ultimately, the drink (its taste) is the only thing that matters. I personally, prefer the taste of the Coke in the Glass Bottles over the platic bottles.
In fact, it may take more energy to mould a collapsible bottle. And if not, the wastage from bottles that break during the manufacturing process will be higher.
Hmmm...while the style and stackability is rad (and I'll admit my ignorance as to whether a square bottle would end up round or not) the collapsibility is greenwashing and not a whole lot more.
it looks like it would hold less liquid, the sides of the bottle would be very weak which is why we use round bottles, most vending machines wont be able to hold these cause they are rectangle like, selling these to stores will still need some kinda of box to hold them in, and there is no way a square bottle can collasp like that, and even if they did event a way to do that an average consumer would not go to all the trouble of ripping off the label crushing the bottle then having to also throw away the label.
fact is this design has done nothing to save money or the enviroment.
Interesting and aslo rather aesthetically pleasing.
It probably needs some slight but deliberate force to collapse it when it's on it's own. I doubt the bottle is floppy and soft.
Personally I'm a glass guy. I'm really trying to reduce my plastic usage. Plus it may just be something in my mind but I like the taste better from glass bottles. But that could easily just be simple confirmation bias.
David.
Good design
Great job Andrew!
That would probably make it a lot less green than current designs :)
If the bottle is full and under pressure it cannot collapse if you put another one on top of it. Period.
The possibilities are endless!
(Pragmatic and enviROI concerns all noted)
The design is simultaneously less safe, uses more materials, and would take far, far longer to manufacture & label than current designs. There are multiple reasons why ALL cans and bottles are ROUND!
A polycarbonate soda bottle is a pressure vessel. I would recommend that Mr. Kim first start his attempts at a re-design by understanding the basic physics and manfacture of thin-walled structures which must safely enclose a pressurized fluid.
Evian has designed their water bottles that way long time ago.
No accident so far. You need to put quite a lot of pressure on both side of the bottle.
They can make biodegradable wax paper bottles?
They can also make corn starch biodegradable plastics.
I like the way you think, but we need to get plastic out of the equation alltogether. Would you consider editing this post to mention that it's being made out of PLA?
you can't crush it when it's full of liquid. even if the bottles were empty, as long as the lids were on, you still couldn't crush them... think about it..
I really hope Coca-Cola implements Kim's idea!
...of course, some plastic bottles are already ribbed for the same reason, when it's crushed it can fold like an accordion.
The same dense pack can be achieved by tessellating the iconic Coca-cola wave. For a starting point, search for an image of Ikea's SKAMT Vase.
http://images.google.com/images?q=SK%C4MT%20Vase
also,
the article says something about the bottle maintaining its shape because of being surrounded by other bottles, but wouldn't the fact that it contains a non-compressible liquid under moderately carbonated pressure be enough?
By the time the customer opens the drink, the bottle's structural integrity is less important.
And to your second point, no it doesn't collapse so easily.
There is no danger of free standing bottles collapsing in this design.
Half full it should not be in a stack?
It would have to be able to support itself once open, just not a stack.
Unfortunately
Cylinder uses less plastic for a given volume, so smaller environmental impact.
It is much harder to hold a square shape than a cylinder shape
This idea is great :D
And it might be nice to hang onto a plastic bottle that you can compress when it's empty; it would come in handy for hiking and packing out after camping.
The thing I'm curious about is circumventing decades of cupholder design. Good thing it has a lid on it.
Of course Coca-Cola would never produce such a radically different bottle, but I'd like to see someone else use the idea.
Water comes in square bottles, but you when squeeze a water bottle, there's very little pressure, you try squeezing a coke bottle.
It's a nice idea, but ultimately, fail.
Once opened, if you slammed the bottle down hard you'd collapse it some and make a mess, but you'd make a mess if you did that today anyways. So whatever.
As for free standing and half full, most bottles today crush in your hands easily anyways, so I don't see how that can be a problem...
... or filled with liquid, making it not crushable? But yes, surrounding the bottles on sides so they don't fall is a good idea.
The square proposition makes all sense not only from it's environmentally perspective but also in terms of expenses cut in shipping.
But it will be just like a carton box of juice, it's very simple in terms of design. I would have to try it first...
its the liquid and gas sealed inside that makes the bottle hard to crush, not the plastic alone
but would it take less plastic to make it both bend and perform its primary job of holding the contents? or more?
Although Lucy's point about reuse might be an issue.
Cool design, but, it misses the requirements of the real world.
Not too original...
But also, people should not reuse plastic bottles anyway. It is a major safety hazard.
A SHELL cannot be CRUSHED by contents that are INSIDE of it.
As for reusing the bottle, I don't know why you would want to. Buy a water bottle if you need it, but recycling is based on reprocessing the plastics. This is an efficient bottle, not necessary a more eco-friendly bottle, though I could see it being indirectly more eco friendly.
When the bottle is full, capped and being shipped out of the bottling plant, it should have the strength for stacking because the high internal air pressure from the carbonation adds to the strength of each bottle.
I'd guess that the pressure of the contents would make it pretty stable. It's probably around 30-40 psi at room temperature.
I've seen water bottles exactly like this, square and with ribs or dents so you can easily make them smaller so the design is tried and true.
These bottles weren't designed for reusing. Why would a company want you to reuse their bottle? If you wanted to reuse a bottle, get a reusable water bottle.
The last paragraph was referring to mass shipment, where there are hundreds of bottles stacked on top of each other.
With all of that weight, the bottle may collapse, but the bottle is designed so the ribs need space to fold out.
When the bottles are packed, there is no space for the ribs to fold, thus no collapsing.
Now, without bottles on either side and on top, the bottle will be completely fine. There is no excess weight on top of it.
Plus, the cap needs to be removed before you can crumple the bottle. With the cap on, the bottle will not collapse, but may deform.
With bottles surrounding it in mass shipment, there is no such problem due to lack of space.
Without bottles surrounding it, there is still no such problem because there is no pressure.
Very well designed.
I would love to see these in stores soon!
You don't change icons just for "green" purposes. This is the most foolish "green" idea yet!
Al Gore wouldn't even like it!
This principle has been used in designing liquid-fueled rockets for many years - they are made of incredibly flimsy metal that cannot even support its own weight, but they are incredibly strong once the fuel tanks are pressurized (typically done with inert gas during manufacturing.)
When it's full of liquid, the internal pressure inside the bottle would keep it rigid (remember that you cannot easily compress a liquid). If the bottle is half full, that's a different story... but remember that the drink is carbonated, so even a non-full bottle would have a relatively high air pressure inside the bottle which would keep the bottle rigid.
You can test this yourself on a normal pastic bottle. Fill it up with water and try to crush it, or half full it with Coke and shake the bottle. Once shaken, try to crush the bottle.
Stackable is a cute idea, though. Make the bottom fit the top.
The bottle will not collapse by itself. It is simply ribbed so that it collapses in a predictable fashion when considerable force is applied to the top.
This is similar to the way a car's "crumple zone" is designed.
This design isn't going to fly.
the pressurized contents will blow out the sidewalls
requiring more plastic. This is both expensive and runs against the whole eco premise of the designers pitch.
the major companies want to consume shelf space in the market. This edges out the competitions ability to get their products on the shelf. I bet that the designer doesn't even know that the large companies actually *pay* or extort their access to prime shelf space in the store.
having a bunch of closely packed non standard bottled that are going to be hard to pull off the tight fitting shelf is going to make a joke out of this design.
This may fly in Japan where space is limited.
but it's not going to fly at all in the west where the dynamics are very different.
More plastic used = more expense / eco concerns
Odd shape = retrofit of entire $$$ystem
Less space used = more space for competition
prospect of consumer rejection over a "traditional icon" form.
http://zepbrook.co.uk/BrochurePages/water_coolers/Volvic%20Family.jpg
when the bottle is full it's naturally more resistant to compression because of the incompressible (to some extent) fluid dynamics
that design is very smart...
The problem with collapsing is not when the bottle is freestanding - it's when the other bottles on top of it during shipping are weighing down upon it, i.e., when a large amount of pressure is applied from above on the bottle. The bottle doesn't collapse because of the added pressure on all 4 sides from neighboring bottles.
When the bottle is freestanding and half-full, it will stand straight up without a problem, because there is no large amount of pressure pushing down from it.
Presumably you don't decide to stack other bottles on top of it while it's half-full and the lid is off, so it should be fine :-) Collapsible just means that it will collapse when pushed, not that it will spontaneously collapse itself as soon as you take it out of the box
Other than that, great new idea.
It's a decent idea if the public would be willing to make that sacrifice in the name of sustainability. I doubt they would though.
PHYSICS! Woo!
However, a number of issues prevent this from being practical. First, I'd guess that if this bottle was dropped, it would break pretty easily (explode, tear or otherwise mechanically fail). To have a strength and durability even close to that of a round container, it would have to be much thicker-walled. But in order for the pleats to fold for collapsing the bottle, the pleats would need to be very thin-walled. I would guess that there would also be manufacturing issues related to actually making the bottle in the square shape (blow-molding the corners while keeping the material reasonably thin in the middle of the bottle?).
The statement that "smaller footprint = smaller carbon footprint" is complete nonsense. Crush-size of the bottle wouldn't necessarily equate to smaller carbon footprint, particularly if the bottle would require more plastic to manufacture.
The cap being offset into one corner is aesthetically pleasing, but would offset the center-of-mass and a stacked tower of these bottles would be extremely easy to topple.
Notice that the author says "...the strength needed for stackability wouldn't jive with a crushable bottle". What he is saying is that since the bottle is crushable, if you were to stack a bunch of them, then the bottom one holding the most weight would crush. If you are the end consumer who is simply drinking out of one single bottle, it isn't going to crush unless you force it to. This is a handy design to allow more of them to fit into garbage cans because they won't take up as much space. It is similar to how cans get crushed.
2. its impractical. would use more plastic to produce. would reduce efficiency of production. the collapsible edges would expand because of carbonation in shipment. and the offset neck would make it unstable in shipment.
The premise is not that the bottle would require the support of the other bottles at all times; only when there is *additional* weight on top of it, such as during shipping when there are bottles stacked on top of bottles. This would also not prevent reuse; it simply means that the bottle *could* be crushed with somewhat less pressure than otherwise required; not that it would collapse on its own without that pressure, however small.
Think of it like this: a drinking straw with a flexible neck can stand, unaided, while liquid flows through it. It can also be compressed into it's folded shape, but won't necessarily do it on it's own. Bottles like the one above have actually exists for over a decade, albeit not with liquid already contained within them. They were intended to be reusable water (or whatever) bottles, to allow someone to compress the bottle to whatever size was needed for the amount of liquid they needed to contain. These still exist; just google "collapsible accordian water bottle" and you'll find many examples.
At the same time, I don't see the accordion feature being useful. Bottles are generally already crushed, unless the cap was put back on. But most people crush their plastic bottles to save space in their recycling bins or trash bags.
if the bottle is solo and under normal circumstances, it doesnt collapse. They were referring to its shipping & stacking ability.
When stacking the bottle for shipping methods, it uses its tight square shape pressed side by side other bottles to prevent from collapsing.
My only gripe with the design is the offset lid. That would do little to improve drinkability and would go far in complicating the stacking process.
I don't think this design offers any of the advantages the designer suggests that it does. Looks cool but it is the work of a freshman.
1) You need to design a pressure vessel. Coke is carbonated. That design in general and the base in particular will deform after filling, and completely deform in any kind of heat above room temperature.
2) You'll have a hard time getting those sharp corners to blow out in PET.
3) You've got to consider manufacturing. These bottles need to be cranked out at about 1800 per mold per hour. An offset neck is a nightmare for that.
4) Do you have any idea what an accordion does under pressure? It expands. This is a horrible idea. You don't want a hinge in a pressure vessel.
5) How do you expect this to vend in the army of existing vending machines in the world?
Stick to your crayons and leave the design and engineering to the big boys.
Then nothing happens. The problem is whether the bottles stacked on top would crush it because of its accordion based structure. The bottle doesn't magically implode when it's empty.
"I realized they would be stronger with their buddies." - Idiot writer
It also won't crush while sealed and capped because of the airtight seal and the air/liquid pressure inside the bottle. It has much more to do with this than the "support" of other bottles around it. Crushing an empty coke can is easy with one hand, try it with a full sealed can, not gonna happen.
It's not that it won't stand up under its own weight - those are just crease lines! The point is that it's crushable, not that it collapses without any load on it.
There is a reason bottles for carbonated beverages are round. It has to do with the pressure of the liquid inside. A square bottle would deform into a rounder shape because of the pressure.
Green tea, lemonade, milk-based drinks, all sorts of non-carbonated beverages use square packaging, but you will notice that if it is carbonated it must withstand pressure, and that means round.
Sorry, try designing a bottle for Snapple or something. Your design skills are wonderful, but your engineering and physics need a little more work.
-Tom
Plant-based plastic has a very low gas barrier - not possible to hold carbon dioxide, may be you should use rPET instead. And rectangular shape can't withstand internal pressure as good as circular, please think more why all the bottles are circular.
Of course, being half full I kind of understand it is not going to be under another bottle, much less fifteen of them.
As for Lucy's comment, I would recommend you look at existing bottles that are designed to collapse. They are made out of plastic that is strong enough to hold its shape. The ribs essentially act as a curve to control the collapsing direction and make it efficiently collapse.
But yea this is an amazing design i would love to use it.
often with re-designs for big corporation packaging like coke it is obvious it would never work because it would up costs and they loose advertising space but this design has benefits all round for the company
That's why the bottles we have today are round.
First year students really need get their hands dirty and start making models, instead of merely rending their wishful thinkings.
I must be in a stable, because I am surrounded by nay sayers.
Its made out of plastic, not tissue paper.
I like the thought, though. Keep on innovating!
This is a carbonated soda...so the internal pressure is going to keep the bottle from collapsing in shipping, less the bottles surrounding it.
Even with a non carbonated beverage the cap keeps the airspace locked and un-compressible.
That being said it's a very interesting concept.
When shipping the bottle before being filled I would guess that the bottle is light enough so that others stacked on top won't cause it to compress. This would be a challenge, but far from impossible. I think the idea is quite brilliant.
- Coke is a carbonated beverage making a 'square' bottle highly unlikely to stay 'square' it would naturally bloat.
- the current bottle bottom has been engineered to reduce excess agitation of the carbonated liquid, smooth lines that stop it getting 'angry' square bottles make coke angry.
industrial design is the balance of ideas and reality, at least it used to be.
this is a neat idea but very poorly researched.
Also, if it collapses so easily wouldn't that prevent people reusing the bottle?
Other then that, I like it.