Bang & Olufsen’s new BeoPlay A9 wireless speaker is unusual in a couple of respects. First, there’s its strange saucer-like form, with a 2.3-foot-diameter disc perched on a wooden tripod. But perhaps even more unorthodox is its development story, as told to me recently by the Danish designer Øivind Alexander Slaatto.
A9 marks the first manufactured product for Slaatto; previously, he “didn’t even have a single toothpick in production.” Surviving in Copenhagen as a tuba performer and a caregiver, Slaatto had to borrow the money (and a shirt) to cross Denmark and knock on the door of Bang & Olufsen’s headquarters, arriving unannounced with his portfolio in hand. Surprisingly, B&O agreed to meet with him—and although the company rejected most of the work in his portfolio, it nevertheless saw promise in his ideas.
B&O decided to let Slaatto work in its studio with then head of design Flemming Møller Pedersen, with whom Slaatto completed the design proposal for what eventually became A9. “The idea only took a few days to come up with, but to turn it into reality took several months,” Slaatto says. “I was involved all the way to the final production. I think it was worth the hard work.”
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