It's a Metaphor La Table by Emanuele Di Bacco

It's a Metaphor La Table by Emanuele Di Bacco is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award de Bronze in Design de Mobilier Competition Category.

BronzeMobilier· 2020

It's a Metaphor La Table

by Emanuele Di Bacco

Client: Gladstone London

A' Design Award de Bronze Winner in Mobilier Category

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Colors

The Design

About It's a Metaphor La Table

Ce projet se moque de lui-même tout en sensibilisant la société à l'égalité des sexes. Plus précisément, il utilise une métaphore issue du sumo, l'un des sports les plus dominés par les hommes de la société japonaise. Les femmes ne sont pas autorisées à concourir professionnellement dans ce sport étant donné les règles sexistes, qui les limitent à l'extérieur du ring de lutte en raison de leur impureté à cause du sang menstruel. Faire tomber un guerrier de sumo au sol, au service d'un pot de fleurs ou de tout autre besoin que les gens peuvent avoir, profane ce sumo à dominance machiste, en utilisant simplement l'ironie et l'humour.

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award de Bronze

It's a Metaphor La Table est lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Bronze, une reconnaissance hautement prestigieuse décernée à des designs remarquables qui se distinguent par leur créativité, leur ingéniosité et leur sagacité. Les lauréats Bronze sont des artefacts amplement habiles et d'une créativité frappante, qui authentifient la vaste expérience, l'imagination et l'ingéniosité de leurs concepteurs. It's a Metaphor La Table est censé être un objet très estimé, admiré et chéri, remarquablement professionnel et innovant. Ce design lauréat de l'A' Design Award de Bronze intègre les meilleures pratiques de l'art, de la science, du design et de la technologie, et est excellent par son souci du détail. It's a Metaphor La Table satisfait admirablement les besoins, touche les désirs, charme les sentiments et attire la curiosité.

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: This is a furniture product able to speak and provoke, challenging with irony and a clumsy smile unethical behaviors of our times.
Dimensions & Packaging: Measures are in mm.

Glass platform ø: 1800 / Glass platform thickness: 10 / Body with: 850 / Body height: 750 / Body depth: 1000
Tags: table, social design, equality of the sexes, Japan, sumo
Production Technology: 3D-printed assembled object. It can be produced either way with Eco-friendly 3D-printed Poly Lactic Acid filaments or carbon fibers. The structure is divided in multiparts, hand refined and assembled. Successively the whole body is glazed by immersion and finished with a vitreous enamel coating.
A round tempered glass is based on the structure and secured using discreet clear glass high-grip bumpers, specifically designed for the purpose.

The structural analysis take into consideration the chosen materials and the multipart splitting process, where every cut and internal printed reinforcements are made to dump and sustain the weight the structure will go through.
Design Challenge: The creative challenge of this project is to combine the practical function of a furniture piece and communication contents as a means of social commitment. Sumo wrestlers are so well regarded and revered in society to be almost considered as macho semi-gods in their country; placing one of them in a conscious submissive position -grateful and happy to help others- wishes to rebalance a more male-dominated thinking to a non-discriminatory one.
Research: The main focus of this project -together with many pieces produced by our design studio- is to raise awareness about social rights and equal opportunity. Specifically, the target of our research was speaking about the equality of the sexes without being moralistic or patronising; in order to do this we chose to use irony and humour, two powerful rhetorical devices to convey a disputed concept without too much bloodshed.
Inspiration: "The piece of wood came alive and it was able to speak". That's pretty much what happened to Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio; likewise, adding communication contents to a product, gives this object an identity and the ability to speak to people.
This project is poking fun at itself while aim to raise social awareness on equality of the sexes. Specifically, it uses a metaphor which springs from sumo, one of the most male dominated sport in the Japanese society. Women are not allowed to compete professionally in this sport given sexist rules, which by tradition border them outside the wrestling ring as a result of their "impurity" by reason of the menstrual blood.
Knocking a sumo warrior to the ground at the service of a flower pot -or any other need people may require from a table- ironically desecrates this macho dominance still present in some traditions.
Project Duration: The project has started in December 2019 in London and finished, as it is shown, in February 2020. Currently, the table has a unique prototype and will be ready to be produced and launched serially in May 2020.
Operation Flow: A table which can hosts up to 10 seaters. Ideal to be placed wherever an open minded spirit is at home.
Patents: Copyrights belong to Emanuele Di Bacco
Team Members: Emanuele Di Bacco