Ambi Chopsticks & Holders

In order to explore a wide array of possibilities around the category of 'For the Home', we sketched out 30 concepts. Each of these concepts included an associated narrative as to why that given concept would appeal to the category, where the concept would fit within the market and how the concept could benefit the MoMA Design Store. Each of these concepts was centered around the vision of creating a culturally rich, sustainable product.

After an executive review from Allan Chochinov and Sinclair Scott Smith, we narrowed down our ideas to 5 concepts which were built out in Solidworks, rendered in Keyshot and prototyped using 3D printing.

In order to truly understand which products had value, we carried out an in depth analysis of what was in the market; what customer demands were and how they spoke to the concepts that we had created. This informed our decision of how to improve each of the concepts.

We learned that there was a growing sustainability market and that market values were shifting towards green products. This led us to construct a vision of a partnership between the MoMA Design Store and WWF around Ambi, which aimed to be the world's first vehicle of reciprocity.

A vision that propelled us to refine Ambi's form to a branch with a leaf, resembling its purpose: the reconstruction of the environment.

"Design cannot exist within a vaccuum" - Sinclair Scott Smith.

To both validate and further improve our designs, we carried out user interviews to learn the needs of users and how that could improve our designs.

For Ambi, we learned that:

• Humans do not buy expensive chopsticks as they get lost. This demonstrated that there was a need for the leaf, which held the chopsticks together.
• Eastern cultures have a great emphasis on hygiene. This encouraged a redesign in Ambi, by which the leaf elevated the chopsticks before a meal and enabled the leaf to be used as a rest during a meal.

Our findings led us to narrow down our selection to three innovative products, whose story, strategy, renders and prototypes were presented to the MoMA Design Store for selection.

After being selected to be part of the MoMA Design Store collection, we provided the team with material choices as well as CAD Models and Engineering Drawings in order to support their manufacturing process.

We put together a lean, multidisciplinary team and performed the roles of Producer & Creative Director in the creation of the advertising for the launch of the Ambi Chopsticks & Holders. The animation featured in this profile was used for the front windows of the MoMA Design Store in April 2018, whilst the video was used for marketing purposes and lives on the store website.