There are at least two items in my apartment that I can count on including in my will someday and I'd bet the same goes for most people if they take a stock of their most prized possessions. Alien & Monkey express the opposite sentiment with a handful of their ephemeral designs. As writer/illustrator Daishu Ma and industrial designer Marc Nicolau explain on their website, "These products can be used for a long period of time and, due to the elements, crumble back to sand dust at the end of its life cycle." Making sand stick together in mind-bending ways is nothing new. We're just accustomed to seeing it in some form of sand art or architecture—not necessarily as functioning products.
Most notably, the Barcelona-based design duo has introduced a crumbling sand package design that has been making waves on the blogosphere. Tiny objects can be hidden within the solid walls of the package and are supported by loose sand inside of the chamber. A cut across the object directs the opener to the best spot to crack open the brick.
I've gotta say, even if I didn't like what was hidden inside, the strange satisfaction of completely destroying the sarcophagus might just make up for it. Aside from the packaging concept, Alien & Monkey offer a stool and hanging pendant lamp designs for the home that last a little bit longer than the granular container. The stool reminds me of a particularly uncomfortable cinder block couch set-up that I once saw in a DIY magazine. But as they say, can't knock it until you've tried it!
What say you, design critics? They say that the best designs are built to last—does this make it into the books as an exception? Or is it a pointed comment on planned obsolescence?
Check out Alien & Monkey's sandy designs—and more, like this bamboo fitness equipment—on their website.
Via Design Taxi
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Because the earth is not constantly spewing new rock from below which will never turn into sand....
Cool package guys! maybe it can replace some polystyrene packaging? God knows we actually are running short on the petroleum stuff that goes into all plastic packaging. I wonder if zacg works for a plastics company or a paper company? probably paper.
I hope I never live to see a world where we have consumed all the sand...The ocean floor, the Sahara, our favorite beaches, all void of our beloved sub-millimeter sized rock. Using sand in this manner is most certainly not sustainable and needs to be stopped before it's too late!
Not in the sense that the left-over packaging is garbage, but the energy required to make it is. After the "package" has been used and turned back into sand you have nothing left to show for the energy used to make it. At least a wooden box can be used again and again and again with no added energy. They've made a single use vessel which is actually counter-productive in the "eco" sense of the packaging industry.
Not to mention the overpacking waste they create because they have to ship the sand vessel inside another wood box to support it. The "sandbox" wouldn't survive the smallest drop on to the ground.
This is nothing more than a headline grabbing stunt. It's like a poor execution of a clay vessel.
I'd like to see companies with this much time and money focus their attention on solving real problems or creating useful products.
It's also not "sustainable". If I ordered 10,000 of these boxes and they had to dig a giant hole to harvest all the sand, when will that sand grow back? It doesn't. The supply of sand is endless in the same sense that coal is endless.......... we think it is until we start to rely on it. You can grow wood, you cannot grow sand.