Ready-Made Replicas

For those on somewhat of a budget, there’s Design Within Reach (DWR). For those on a real budget, there’s Design Without Reach, 27-year-old product designer Rob Price’s answer to DWR’s creative monopoly. “I’d love to have some of these high-end design pieces,” he says of the company’s products, “but they’re still unattainable.”

The solution? As an offshoot of a collaborative multimedia project, Price developed Design Without Reach, which offers do-it-yourself instructions for creating improvised knockoffs of seven iconic design pieces (go to www.thwartdesign.com and click on “Progress”). Among the DIY adaptations are a Tootsie Roll Pops take on the 1947 Nelson ball clock, a paper-clip-and-electrical-tape version of Marcel Breuer’s famous Wassily chair, and an Ingo Maurer-esque lamp made out of an old light and a soup can.

Price is currently expanding the collection—with the recent blessing of Design Within Reach. “They see it as cute,” he says.