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3D print your face on a mask, fit antibacterial handles to your doors – designs for the Covid-19 both practical and whimsical
- An architect’s call for designs for small objects to make a difference to lives amid Covid-19 drew a range of submissions, some functional, others more fun
- Douglas Young of quirky Hong Kong lifestyle store G.O.D submitted a 3D printed face mask, artist Kacey Wong embalmed a toilet roll. The designs are now on show
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When the Covid-19 pandemic hit Hong Kong nearly nine months ago, sending everyone away from offices and schools and into their tiny flats, architect Marisa Yiu Kar-san started thinking about how even the smallest things could make a big difference when your life has shrunk to the size of your home. She decided to put out a call for interesting ideas.
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“These are small objects in response to the pandemic,” says Yiu, the co-founder of Design Trust, a charitable organisation that promotes design. “They should fit in the palm of your hand.”
The response was enthusiastic, with a total of 76 submissions from designers, artists and architects in Hong Kong and around the world. Faced with travel restrictions and closed borders, British designer Sam Jacob made a globe printed not with a world map but with diagrams of interior spaces. Hong Kong textile artist Movena Chan was also inspired by the newly inaccessible world beyond her home; she shredded maps and wove them together into a small tapestry.
These projects and many more are now on display at Soho House in Sai Ying Pun on Hong Kong Island, where Design Trust’s “Critically Homemade” exhibition takes place until October 4. But these objects could survive well beyond then. While Jacob and Chan’s projects are conceptual in nature, others are more practical, and Yiu says Design Trust is looking to work with companies to put them into production.
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