Apero
September-December 2022
Individual Project
The University of Edinburgh
Brief: Design an eating or drinking vessel
There is a lot of modular and stackable tableware on the market, however modularity tends to be used mostly for storage purposes, for the ensemble to serve as decor when not in use, or unfortunately as a marketing gimmick that brings no real advantage to the user.
Apero changes this by taking full advantage of modularity in enhancing the experience of serving and presenting food. Inspired by French ‘apéritif dinatoire’ culture, it allows for presenting, serving and storing a wide range of different foods in a wide range of different ways.
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Inspiration
When considering what I could explore for my vessel, I was reminded of seeing Helen Von Boch’s ‘Die Kugel’ in an exhibition, and I remember being fascinated by the idea of modular tableware. I was further convinced when seeing the 50 year anniversary re-edition, which I find to be a beautiful piece of design.However, the modularity was an aesthetic/storage solution, and I started considering ‘flat’ tesselating forms, to see how modularity could come into play while the pieces are being used.
Die Kugel/
La Boule
Helen Von Boch
1971
La Boule 50th Anniversary Edition
Villeroy & Boch
2021
Concept Development
I eventually came to an initial design (render to the right): One main dish and six individual cups that tessellate into it. The idea is simple, you can have food in the dish and serve it in the cups, use the dish and cups for different foods (eg. chips and dip), or just use the dish as a ‘tray’ to hold the cups. However, since my goal was to get the full potential of modularity, the next step was working on the details that would make the design even more functional.
Final Concept
A user buying Apero would get 1 dish, 6 cups, and 6 lids. The dish can be used to serve/present food, to hold the cups if they have food in them or to hold the empty cups for optimised storage. The cups can be used to hold different foods, or serve individual portions of food held in the dish. The lids allow for storing food that would be left in the cups, as opposed to having to transfer leftovers to a separate dish or tub. The cups can also stack, to allow for storage separately from the dish. This stacking function also works with the lids in place, which is also optimal to store cups of food, for example in the fridge.
