June 2006 • Metropolis Observed
Ready-Made Replicas
By Eva Hagberg
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.
Read Related Stories:
Thank You, Come Again
At a new men’s health clinic in San Francisco, the DWR catalog is just as titillating as Playboy.
Redefining Design
Once they have left the factory floor and are actually being put to use, products get deployed in myriad unintended ways. It’s a lesson the industry should take to heart.
Designer DIY
Philippe Nigro’s table legs pair as well with Ligne Roset’s luxurious wood tops as with an old barn door.
BACK TO TOP