Alberto Meda

    Alberto Meda was born in 1945 and has masters on mechanical engineering. For many years he work as a technical manager with Kartell- a famous Italian company that makes and sell plastic contempory furniture. From 1979 he worked as a freelance industrial designer with various companies including Alfa Romeo Auto. He had various exhibitions of his designs in Tokyo, Paris and also Milan. Most of his work include dining table and chairs. Below are a few examples.

    The Teak collection is a set of tables and chairs ideal for outdoor areas. The collection consists of a chair, a chair with armrests, a sun lounger chair with white nylon wheels, four kinds of tables and benches. These are all made from light metallic grey aluminium and wood. These furniture are lightweight and are easy to be carried around. The chairs are all designed to be stackable and the tables can be folded easily to store better. Their design is very simple yet beautiful, and they don’t look like they are from cheap material at all. They will give the garden life and also a bit of character. Their light colour will defiantly blend in with the bright colours in a garden. The seatings look ergonomically comfortable because their shape is not completely flat. Even though these are perfect for the outdoors I cannot imagine them being used for the indoors. Below are some pictures.

    The OttoWatt was designed in 2011, which is a desk lamp with only one LED light that consumes only 8 watt. This lamp has a rotational disk which can be rotated to change the light to be cold or warm. This is very efficient especially for summer, when it is really warm and the hot bulb next to you is too much while working. The lamp is all made from aluminum and can be adjustable in length and in its direction. It is a very thin desk lamp that won’t take a lot of space on your desk and can be moved easily because it is very lightweight. The design is very simple and has no details at all. I could easily imagine this desk lamp at a high class contemporist office.

    The Ugol by Yaroslav Misonzhnikov is a very different desk lamp than the Otto Watt. The lamp is placed through the edge angle of the table and automatically the bulbs are diagonally on the table. It reminds me of a shovel handle because the shape looks exactly like it. Unfortuantly, unlike the Otto Watt if you don’t have a cornered table this cannot be used. The Ugol is more unique and takes less space on your desk but cannot be adjustable. This has a very unique style unlike the one deisged by Alberto Meda which is very similar to most of the desk lamps you find today. 

    Overall Meda’s designs are very simple yet convenient. They have minimalism of details but could be very useful and comfortable to use. He is one of the few designers that puts functionality before form. He thinks more about the function of the object than how it is going to please the eye.

Bibliography:

Suite New York 2013 http://www.suiteny.com/product/detail/31/5/47

Alias Design 2012 http://www.aliasdesign.it/worlds/49/teak-setes/

 Erin 30^th April 2013 http://www.contemporist.com/2013/04/30/ugol-by-yaroslav-misonzhnikov/

All searched on the 5th of JAnuary 2014