visualisation of sound
College: The Hong Kong Community College of PolyU
Client: Happy Veggies
Item: Tableware design
Background: Happy veggies is a Hong Kong based vegetarian restaurant that provide job opportunities to hearing impaired people, helping them to be self-reliant and integrate into the community. This client project provides chances to discover the design opportunities which could benefits the restaurant.
Design: Seeing is equal to hearing in the perspective of hearing impaired people. The project takes ‘Sound’ as the theme and hoped that visualisation and touch of sound through a set of tableware could promote the restaurant as well as become its unique corporate identity.
Cutlery with Rest
The soundwave acts as a rest, which lifts the food-holding part from the table plane due to the imbalanced weight of two ends. Thus, it keeps the food-holding part hygienic.
LP Records Bowls & Plates
LP Record records sound and can be used to play sound while the soundwave cutlery is a scientific way to visualize sound. In other words, one is sound producer and one is the sound produced. They are the perfect set.
LP Records Packaging Paper Mat
Putting the Soundwave cutlery and the LP Record bowls on top of the LP Record packaging paper mat is a complete enjoyment for your meal.
Working Mechanism
The largest ring acts as the pivot of the cutlery. Since the soundwave is made in metal, 'b' part is heavier and rotate clockwise. Therefore 'a' part is lift up.
Ergonomic Considerations
The sound waveform is designed according to the majority holding gesture of corrosponding cutlery. The up and down curves fit the fingers for gripping the cutlery comfortably.
Why wood?
Wood is used for the body of cutlery, which match with the image of Happy Veggies: Natural environment and green.
Teck wood
It is durable, easy to be craft.
Stainless steel
It is mostly used in cutlery as it is resistant to oxidizing.
Brass
Brass oxide is toxic and cannot be used to make cultery for long term. Brass is used in above model because stainless steel is not able to be craft at that moment
Making of the Bowl & Plate
LP Record is first heated to 120°C in an oven. Use two ready-made bowls/plates to mould it into a new form.
Material of LP Record
LP Record is made of Polyvinyl Chloride ( PVC ), Chlorine, a toxic gas will be given out under heating > 120°C or burning. It is not available for carring very hot food.
Various color of LP Records
There are various colors and transparent to opaque LP Records. However, I prefer the opaque black one as it is the the most iconic color of LP Records. Thus, when pottery is used as the imitational product, it will be paint in black.
Easy to be Scratched
LP Record is easy to be scratched. It is not a good choice to choose materials that are easy to be scratched for making tableware.
Imitational Product
The rings on pottery are similar to those on LP Record. The circle sticker can be imitate easily by paints while the hole is filled with transparent material.
