It's a Metaphor テーブル by Emanuele Di Bacco is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2020 A' Design Award 銅賞 in 家具デザイン Competition Category.
銅家具· 2020
It's a Metaphor テーブル
Client: Gladstone London
A' Design Award 銅賞 Winner in 家具 Category
Verified Award Winner
Verify Award Status for #96553The Design
About It's a Metaphor テーブル
このプロジェクトは、ジェンダーの平等に関する社会的認識を高めながら、それ自体が面白味を帯びています。具体的には、日本社会で最も男性が支配するスポーツの1つである相撲から生まれたメタファーを使用しています。女性は、月経血による不純の結果としてレスリングリングの外側で女性に接する性差別的なルールを前提として、このスポーツでプロとして競技することは許可されていません。植木鉢や他の人々の必要に応じて、相撲の戦士を地面にたたくと、単純に皮肉とユーモアを使って、マッチョな支配力の相撲がまだ保持されていることが冒とくされます。
The Recognition
About the A' Design Award 銅賞
It's a Metaphor テーブルは、創造性、独創性、鋭い洞察力で際立つ傑出したデザインに授与される、高い権威をもつ評価である A' Design Award 銅賞の受賞作品です。銅賞の受賞作品は、十分に巧みで印象的なほど創造的な工芸品であり、デザイナーの豊富な経験、想像力、機知を裏づけています。It's a Metaphor テーブルは、高く評価され、称賛され、愛される品であり、顕著にプロフェッショナルで革新的であることが期待されます。この A' Design Award 銅賞を受賞したデザインは、芸術・科学・デザイン・技術のベストプラクティスを取り入れており、細部への配慮に優れています。It's a Metaphor テーブルは、ニーズを見事に満たし、欲求に触れ、感情を魅了し、好奇心を引きつけます。
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
- Image Credits
- Emanuele Di Bacco all Rights Reserved
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