Colandish

The brief

One of our design team, Jaques, saw the problem of straining pasta, or boiled vegetables through a colander before emptying the contents of that colander into a serving dish. He explored the concept of combining the colander and the serving dish. We took the brief further by exploring how we can eliminate the need for a trivet, as a serving bowl often requires a mat when placed on the table, and also a lid that can keep food warm, but also sealed if stored in the fridge.

The bang

We saw the opportunity to design an elegant serving bowl with an inbuilt trivet that can flip between two modes. When flipped down, the flexible silicon trivet acts as a stand, so the dish can be placed in the sink and be strong enough to support the weight of pouring water and pasta. The water pours out through the holes. When flipped up, the silicon seals the holes and acts as a trivet.

The result

The actual engineering took a lot longer than planned as the cross section of the silicon skirt proved to be critical. Every line and wave on the product is engineered to improve the product’s function, and we are proud we were able to tune the engineering into an elegant solution. The Colandish was awarded a prestigious German Design Award for “tableware” in 2016, and was licenced to Villeroy and Boch for a bespoke range. QVC USA ordered 15k pieces and we are very proud of the 5 star reviews the product is getting.