Milan 2011: Italian designer Fabio Novembre will present this robot-shaped shelving unit for design brand Casamania in Milan next month. Update 31/07/11: see Dezeen's top ten stories about robots.
Called Robox, the shelves have a picture frame at the top and a red box representing the robot's heart.
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The text below is from Fabio Novembre:
Robox
Maybe a day someone would say that Robox represents my cubist period or that the edge solution has been the trick to find out the “right way” after the hyperboles and parabola of my work. From Mazinga to the Transformers the boys of my generation had always have a robot on their side and I was searching for a new function able to justify still its presence next to my desk.
The simple change of a consonant reveals the inclusive attitude of this new domestic hero: a device with a heart, an hard-disk pre-digital where store our memories.
Freestanding bookshelf in polished metal
Dimensions: Height 78 cm x depth 31 cm x width 184 cm
Available in different colours all with red heart
See also:
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| Nemo by Fabio Novembre for Driade |
Abarth Chair by Fabio Novembre for Casamania | Him and Her by Fabio Novembre |
i had such a laugh when i saw this. thanks fabio baby!
Errr…the whole damn design thing is getting out of control, don't you think !?
Oustanding work, could be the best bookshelf i ever saw
Fabio is digging every year deeper
I think this would be better suited in a childs bedroom.
thank god robots don't look like this anymore
vergognoso. Novembre ci piglia tutti per i fondelli!
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shameful. Novembre is making fun of us all!
sono perfettamente d'accordo con te.
inoltre, mi ricorda molto la libreria di Whiteman (senza la genialità della libera conformazione…)…sarà un caso?
qual'è la libreria di Witheman?
still for sale the Masanori Umeda one… http://www1.yoox.com/item.asp/YOOX/MEMPHIS+MILANO…
It doesn't appeal to me, but I can't see anything to get angry or disheartened about. Just another shelving unit in a range of shelving units available to the world.
And if anyone is going to trot out the 'why?' challenge, then one can always counter with; why not? The world doesn't need all the supposedly worthy products anymore than it needs the supposedly superficial product above.
@ a designer
'shameful'
shameful? … you don't think your terminology is slightly hysterical?
No, dear Douglas. The word is pretty correct: it's a shame a company like Casamania preferred this instead of something less gratuitous. It's a shame Novembre is pointed as one of the best italian designers nowadays. It's a shame he decided to put into production a product that doesn't answer a single "Why?" question, excluding "Because I liked it", which is obviously not what a designer should do. Is this a Memphis approach ?! I hope it's not, poor Ectore.
No, no, dear Guybrush.
A) Who say's its gratuitous?
B) Who says design 'should' answer any questions? if someone likes it and it suits their needs. Job done.
C) I used to hate memphis, but others find it interesting enough to purchase re-issues and original designs. So apart from your subjective opinion, wheres the 'design' problem?
A) the fact this particular form is NOT needed. Moreover, there's a lack of functionality due to the fat that there are holes too small to put something. So, since form does not derive from a function, it's gratuitous. Did you think about how many costly weldings the library has? Did you think about the fact I might need two or more libraries? What about the spaces in between? I could continue for hours…
B) everyone who cares about design knows that very well, douglas. design should be somehow ethic or deal about people behavior, otherwise is just decoration. but we don't care about decoration. or you do?
C)memphis was interesting because it was a reaction to a pause in design evolution, when minimalism was the only way to do design. It's important as dadaism is. Today we don't have this need anymore, so NOvembre's library seems just an easy and naive way to sell a "creative" library. Go asking Enzo Mari what he thinks about "creativeness".
Boys, please, don't give young designers a single chance to think design is just about doing some "likeable" objects: this is definitely WRONG. Please.
Guybrush
A) Who says the form is not needed? You? other designers who agree with you? What about those of us who don't? What about someone who wants some fun as well as function and for whom this form is perfect?
Need is a loaded concept and you should be able to justify the 'need' when you claim the definitive application of it to design. In a world overloaded with product, tell me of a recent shelving unit we DO need?
B) what do you mean by ethic? To deny fun and insist design must conform to some (or your) ultra-functionalist ideal is to deny an important aspect of human behavior. What would be inherently wrong with decoration? I've never understood this. But then, I don't swallow dogma easily. There are worse things a design can suffer from than for someone to contrive some beauty.
D) who are you to say what we need? and I don't care what Mari says. Your deference does you more harm than good.
C) You're right, design is not just about 'likeable' objects. But that doesn't preclude products from being 'likeable'. But it depends on who's doing the liking – in this case it isn't just about one strand of the design communities subjective 'likes' either.
By the way, I'm a design student, not an embittered designer p*ssed at other designer's having gained a bigger profile than I think I personally deserve.
…. oh, and the books seem to fit these shelves as well as any other shelves I've seen recently.
Dear Douglas, you didn't have to spend words specifying you're a student. We already knew.
Btw, I see you have a very precise position about this matter, so keep going. Karim Rashid is getting older and sooner or later we will need another one to laugh at. Maybe you'll be the next one.
Have a good Salone, if you will visit Milan!
Ouch! Guybrush. You mean you will condemn me to be as successful as Karim Rashid? Oh no, what a fate!
Is it better to follow your example and to spend my time bitterly stewing over the brutal fact that, when push comes to shove, no-one wants the designs you produce? Bit pointless as an existence!
btw Guybrush, I notice you didn't counter my precision – me being a mere student, should be easy to refute my position?
@ douglas: maybe. Unfortunately I'm not an Englis Terminology Virtuoso.
Anyway… don't worry: people will understand my primitive language
Design should be fun! …Go Fabio!
I think it's cute.reminds me of the metal guardians of castles.
eheh. a bit silly but comic and ironic
imbarazzante….
enough about the product! ..what about the fact that he puts his ipad with a picture of his face there?!
The italian Karim Rashid.
What is this? There is a clear loss of direction in this designers output.
No weight to anything. Pointless shallow objects.
The quality of the second image alone is shameful and cliche
Presented next month, but all we're shown is shoddy renders? That's the most shameful thing; he thinks this design sells itself with no communication of materiality or construction. To me, it doesn't. This could look ridiculous or maybe genius, no idea.
Talking about the idea alone, its worse than a high school student's work! Agree we need varieties and new things to feed the media such as Dezeen, or simply need alternatives for customers; It ruins the professionalism of DESIGNER!
Btw, what a shame for Memphis to compare with, Memphis did have a manifesto but this one clearly not.
When you became a "name", you can make everything, because you are famous.