The Exceptional and the Everyday

5/26/2011 Uncategorized

Happy to explain the assorted rationales of the Exceptional architecture of the Boston Harbor Islands Pavilion (just give me a call), but I thought it would be good for design culture to return to our roots – the appreciation of the Everyday (also in italics).  During a recent visit to the Thinking Cup on Tremont Street (one of two official cafes of Utile, Inc. – the other is Grassroots on Summer Street because we love the owners), I appreciated both the all-in-one fluted coffee cup and the toilet seat lid with the molded-built-in handle.

The toilet seat needs no explanation (for dual-sex households), but the coffee cup may require additional analysis: in this case the need for the hot cup sleeve is eliminated. Instead an integral fluted cup both dissipates heat and provides structural support for a much thinner cup liner– genius (and elegant!). The result is a cup that would have been invented by Hellenistic culture – if paper technology had been at the appropriate state of development.

-Tim

Coffee_cupToilet_seat