Hasta La Ideas

Everywhere on Hanoi’s streets you will see an avalanche of colorful plastic stools (used likewise as seats and tables) – the little brothers of the cheap, white plastic chairs that we all are confronted with everywhere. This little stool, available in any color you can think of, has a way smaller foot print than its bigger brother, and therefore makes way more sense to be used on Hanoi’s cramped streets and pavements. At night, however, these busy streets are almost completely abandoned with hardly any street life at all. Usually everything is stored behind shutters, but the storage system for these little plastic stools is quite often the holes of the concrete utility poles – they fit so perfectly that you could assume they were made for this – but it is actually just a great example of non-intentional design solutions.

This simple way of amplifying the sound of a mobile phone speaker you can find quite often in the streets of Hanoi – and in fact in Bangkok and Mumbai. For me it is another nice example of non-intentional design that is particularly present in poorer countries, where people are in a way forced to improvise because they are not in a position to just order the next useless gadget online.

This is not really non-intentional design, however, it is such a delicious coffee and beautiful process of making it that I feel it is worth to share it from a design point of view: In Vietnam, coffee is brewed directly into your cup through a small metal filter. Add ice and sweet condensed milk and you have a cafe sua da – an antidote to the thick heat and the perfect way to refuel. Also it is fun to be involved in the coffee making process yourself – somehow, as everything where you put hands on yourself, it already tastes much better for just that reason. The lit of the metal filter becomes the coaster to put the metal filter on, after the coffee has run through it, to prevent a mess on the table. So simple – so yummy!

(more…)