Dibbs on the sphere, the circle, and the d6, d10, and d20! (You can have the d4.)

Also, unless you have common form factors, you end up with just as much wasted space as things don’t fit together nicely (unless you’re a tetris master).

The patent thing also damages the idea. I think it was more to protect branding if Dyson made a whole line of these, but then you don’t have a standard, you’ve got lock-in.

He’s identified a real problem, it’s just the solution that sucks.

Kitchen appliance design has favoured the ‘iconic’ look because people will pay top dollar for it. This is the look that won’t be shoved away neatly, that stands out.

To me, this is an engineer’s solution to a problem in the market. Which is not to say with good branding a line of ‘cube appliances’ will not be successful.

But nobody’s crying out for cube kettles right now.

Also, if you don’t like your kettle taking up space, you can always buy a Qooker instant boiling water tap, like I did.

Cube-shaped Kitten appliances…?

hheheheh gross.

Problems right away:
- Toasters need to have two pieces next to each other to make family size toast and good use of long toasting elements, it seems.
- Heat disspation from toaster. Does it heat up the milkshake in the blender?
- Vibration. Are a toaster’s fine elements made to stand vibration from the blender?
Etc.

With computer stuff, yes stacking is an issue but more than that, the insides should be modular. Not “you can replace a hard disk if you read the manual, unscrew 10 screws, and then have built a few computers yourself”. I mean a whole module can be swapped in and out. They should allow you to have your box, and swap in functionality that you can buy separately. Maybe it isn’t cheap to build that way but certainly might be charming to many potential buyers. Maybe with video libraries etc. getting digital it would make sense to do this for the general consumer. Let’s get rid of the infinite spaghetti of cables too!

http://www.shorty.com/bonsaikitten/

In the 5 years I’ve had the thing it has never sucked. For a vacuum that’s a problem. Sure, it’s gorgeous, sure it’s environ, but if it can’t pick up a feather off a rug how is this helping.

Now it’s five years later, I’ve taken it to the local shop at least 4 times and it’s never gotten better.

Cute idea on the appliances, but I don’t trust team dyson to make a working product. Bring me a maytag! Hoover! GE! Anything but these dogs…

Have a look at architecture. Simplifying, it went something like that: “Let’s take an ordinary house. Do we really need a fancy roof? If you are inside the house, it doesn’t matter what shape the roof is. Why don’t we make the roof flat so it’s easier and cheaper to build? Or let’s make the whole house square, so we can use prefabricated elements to build it. Surely, from the inside it doesn’t really matter. Or let’s go one step forward. Maybe instead of building separate houses, we can stack all those cubes on top of each other, to save the space?” You get the idea.

We ended up with awful looking cities which all look the same, minimalistic, gray and square.

That’s not all, they went yet another step forward. They applied the above rule to all aspects of life. They made people watch the same TV channel (made from prefabricated and preapproved elements), they made them read the same newspapers, they made them wear the same clothes. They tried to made them believe in the same ideas. The effect: bunch of people wearing gray clothes, having gray thoughts in their gray, square minds.

Life is all about differences, the tension, the natural urge to fill empty space. It’s the differences that inspire and provoke, make you think, create and come up with something new. Between black and white there is a whole lot of other colors, not only gray.

Heck, I prefer my messy kitchen top full of different, sometimes strangely shaped things, looking like an Enterprise deck, than something filled with square, neat and boring stuff.

Hexagons pack nicely too.

*puts on nerd hat* And they’re more accurate when measuring across the diagonal, too! *takes off nerd hat*

So it’ll basically look like this?

Where is art, where are the aesthetics, what of beauty… etc?

While I may be more concerned regarding the functionality and effectiveness of delivery of my pop-up toaster, there is a time when I am not toasting bread. At that time I will (very occasionally) look at my toaster and admire it as a thing of beauty.

modular and form fitting appliances that save space would be great but can’t we come up with something more interesting then cubes?

The only appliances I leave out are the microwave (too big to move) and the kettle (used often). Everything else goes back into the cupboard until its next use.

In fact, when I think of the appliances I have on my counter top right now, one is already rectangular with no protrusions (toaster), one is round so making it square instead would just waste space (a blender), and one is round with handles so rotating it 45 degrees gets the handles out of the way of neighboring items (rice cooker).