Art-ware Is the Dining Set That Never Has to Go in a Cabinet - Yanko Design

"Tableware has always had a storage problem. A complete set of cups, bowls, and cutlery takes up a cabinet's worth of space for the privilege of being used a few times a week. The rest of the time, it sits behind closed doors, out of sight and contributing nothing to the space around it. That's a lot of material devoted to a fairly passive existence."

"Michael Jantzen's Art-ware prototype takes a different approach to the same set of objects. Rather than designing tableware that gets put away after a meal, he designed a system where the dishes, cups, and cutlery connect to each other and become something else entirely: freestanding abstract sculptures that live out in the open, doubling as décor when they're not being used for eating and drinking."

"The key to the whole system is a set of male and female connectors molded directly into each piece. These are simple protrusions that stick out from the surfaces of the bowls, cups, and cutlery handles, allowing any component to plug into or stack onto any other. A bowl can lock onto a cup, a cup onto another cup, cutlery can stand upright in an opening or connect through a handle, and the whole assembly stays together without any separate hardware."

"The configurations that result don't look accidental. Cups stacked and plugged together form vertical columns; bowls assembled at various orientations create clusters that read as organic, almost biomorphic forms. Slide cutlery upright through the assembled pieces, and the resulting structure starts to resemble a piece of abstract art you'd find mounted in a gallery, not something you'd normally find next to a kitchen sink."

Tableware occupies large storage space because complete sets remain unused behind closed doors most of the time. Art-ware replaces storage with an assembly system that turns dishes, cups, and cutlery into freestanding abstract sculptures. Each piece includes molded male and female connectors that allow components to plug into and stack onto one another without separate hardware. Bowls can lock onto cups, cups can connect to other cups, and cutlery can stand upright or connect through handles. The resulting arrangements form vertical columns, organic clusters, and gallery-like structures. The assembled set is intended to remain visible as décor, then be disassembled and reassembled around meals.

Read at Yanko Design - Modern Industrial Design News