Type: Table Architecture Series
Client: Ventura Lambrate
Location: Milan, IT
Status: Completed
Manufactured by: The Fiction Factory
Team: Marieke Kums, Alessia Nociaro, Zsofia Szoke,
Gorka Beitia Zarandona
These last decennia media technology has had a great influence on the way we live. It changed the scale of our daily environments and the places where we meet,the ways we communicate and share information. The wide spread use of this new media contributed to the endelss expansion of our (virtual) social network, but at the same time has made communication more personal and direct than ever before.
On a very practical level many new applications and products have been designed, but the places where we use these products have stayed behind in thei r development. On a small scale daily base for example, desktop computers, laptops, and mobile phones ar e used at or on tables, but the table itself has not yet been fur ther developed to match these tools.
For Milan Design Week we created CLOUD TABLE, an event table that explores the possibilities of tables for information exchange and networking. The table is made of an untreated plywood table top with integrated wifi, bluetooth and wireless charging technology mounted on thin steel frames. The form of the table refers to the scale of a landscape, rather than to that of a piece of furniture, thus creating a new type of environment.
At the Milan Design Week the table showed its great potential: it was used as a general meeting point where one could make use of bluetooth ‘proximity marketing’, WIFI and Cloud storage, download maps, photo’s, interviews, info on designers and press info related to the Salone was shared. People could digitally browse through catalogues of manufactures and thus reduce the large amount of (environmentally unfriendly) prints. Presentations were held at the table using digital projections.
After the fair in Milan, the table travelled to other destinations, providing similar services at other events.