Core77

The Weekly Design Roast, #13

The finest of industrial design

By Rain Noe - August 23, 2019

in Weekly Design Roast

"The design challenge was to remove everyone's privacy, confuse the user as to where the boundaries of their desk are, and create unusable triangles of desk space behind each person's monitor. The empty hexagon in the middle is our 'punishment space,' where on Fridays the slowest worker is forced to stand, silently, on a slowly rotating turntable."

"When the client asked for seating and a worksurface that is impossible for the user to adjust, I said, I can do even better: I'll make it monolithic and difficult-to-move, and I'll coat the entire thing in easy-to-scuff white lacquer, even the part where your shoe soles go."

"I like to put a waterfall edge on surfaces that hold delicate objects, like votive candles and lamps. I also like secondary shelves to be at an angle. You can still place things on the second shelf, you just have to wedge them in there tightly from right-to-left. (Refer to the instruction manual.)"

"No it was NOT the final straw. She and I were having problems with our relationship even before I designed, built and began spending a lot of time in this."

"This coffee table says 'Don't bring your kids over to my house.'"

"The client asked me to maximize marble waste."

"I wanted to provide very sharp corners on all of the angles of approach. I've also fulfilled what most of my clients are looking for, which is a bed that wastes electricity."

"I designed this immersion-therapy bedroom for a client who suffers from domino-phobia."

"The brief was to design casual seating that taller people cannot use."

"It's a 'privacy phone booth' that must be mounted to the ceiling on a pulley. It's a little bit of a pain in the ass when someone bumps into it and it swings like a pendulum, but overall, users enjoy answering their phones and having to say 'Hang on a sec' while they grab the white orb and adjust it to the height of their head."

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Bobtato Smith

5 years ago

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That gaming chair – specifically, the enigmatic slot in the middle – is a lot more amusing if you have seen the movie Burn After Reading

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hans henderson

5 years ago

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Literally laughing out loud, the series just keeps getting better, thanks so much for making life just that bit better!

Where the heck do you **find** this stuff?

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Gerald Petersen

5 years ago

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Looks like many designers have been watching Get Smart reruns and trying their hand at designing their version of the Cone of Silence - and adding new ways for it to work poorly

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Ross Oliver

5 years ago

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Designers do seem to have an obsession with unwieldy and impractical shapes, finishes, and enclosures. These objects rarely turn up in the real word, so what is the incentive that drives their creation? Is there some designer reward system for maximum impracticality?

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Tom Coyle

5 years ago

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I do believe that this is the first time a Mel Brooks movie has served as design inspiration. See "Dark Helmet" from Spaceballs.

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