We're usually ridiculously supportive of designers bringing new, fun and functional ideas into the world and can imagine our spaces filled with things that aren't exactly traditional. That said, there's still some designs that stop us dead in our tracks — vote for your choice of the biggest flop after the jump.
• The Rocking Hot Dog: This giant purple sausage by Jaime Hayon and Nienke Klunder will be hitting London next month and although we can see this working in a large, open modernist space, we can't help but think the first thing your guests would say is, "Holy Giant Purple Sausage!" We're pretty sure of it, because it's the first thing we said!
• Hygienic Sanitary Pad Layers Table: Wow. Just wow. We know this is a piece that's meant to be taken with a large side of humor, but we're speechless. This shelf by Andy Kurovets is our least favorite of all the items listed here. Not just because of what it is, but because it's so heavily graphic, displaying or storing anything on it would be a double eyesore. Although you could tell guests the bathroom was down the hall and left at the heavy flow, what... you can't say that on a design blog?!
• Streetside Urinal: To help keep the streets clean in Belgium, this new design has been suggested to make peeing in public ok, or at least a cleaner process. Having a, "If you can't beat them join them" vibe, we personally think it seems a bit off putting.
• Human Skin Rug: Take a moment to grasp the idea of a woman laying on the floor in this position for hours while she was covered with plastic to create this giant human skin rug. The designer, Chrissy Conant, is trying to convey her sense of feeling powerless and objectified, although there could have been different ways to go about the display of such feelings, like making a nice documentary, we hear those are all the rage these days.
• Fish Bowl Toilet & Sink: We love fish, we really do. Ever since Ernie called them into his boat on Sesame Street when we were little we were hooked. But the thought of having to clean the tanks on these contraptions is just mind blowing. Plus, the thought of Nemo watching you do your business is a bit bizarre. It's hard enough to go to the bathroom alone if you have dogs or kids, do we really need fish in the picture too?
(Images: Dezeen, Chrissy Conant, Curiobot, Yanko Design & Kapsteur)
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The streetside urinal is less off putting than the reek of a few allies in our bar filled college town.
The purple saddled sausage is soooo outrageous. I love it.
Fish tank fixtures: foresee too many problems. Like how unattractively the fish swim around with, oh, you know, and when they don't swim around at all.
Sanitary table, maybe in a posh gynecologist office. No where else.
Woman rug: truly awful.
interesting.
The human skin rug has to be the worst offender here...just horrible! The face on it really gives me the creeps!
Is that human rug meant to be an interior design piece or a piece of gallery artwork?
The human rug... really WTF!
I'm kind of torn between the sanitary pad shelving, and that skin rug. I suppose skin rug disgusts me completely, whereas the shelves just embarrass the hell out of me.
Either way... WTF???
The urinal just makes me giggle.
I couldn't stop laughing!!!!! It's ridiculous the turns our field of work take from time to time!
The woman rug is soooo grotesque that i actually wonder how could someone use their brain cells to come up with something this disturbing....
The urinal.... well into the 21st century... do we really need to have people going about their intimate physical necessities on the street? It's like going back to the middle ages... It would be very interesting to see the female version!!
The others are not even design... they are a cheap, easy way to justify some scholarship or parents money to go through design school.
agreed, suzy8track. it's as if it's trying to be serial killer chic.
that pad table could work in some very woman centric area. Maybe not a gyno, but a very "girl power" store. I like it.
I kind of want the pad tray for my desk... I feel like it would be wicked cool in a dorm room.
hate to be enjoying an ice cream cone and walk by someone using the urinal
The rug is pretty bad but that -USED- sanitary pad table takes the cake. WTF!?
Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting are all the words I have for the human skin rug. All the rest of the designs aren't too bad.
Wow. Ridiculous. Very ridiculous. All of them. The only one I could maybe live with is the fishy sink. It reminds me of a book I read when I was a child.
Emily
The rest of it is tacky, but somewhat good-natured about it. But that rug is the most awful, over-the-top combination of ugly kitsch and social commentary.
The sani pad is just weird. Normal bodily functions aren't disturbing, but the Skinned Human is.
Purple sausage just seems kinky in a sex toy sort of way.
that rug is wrong on so many levels... everything else is just ridiculous.
These are the sort of design products produced by the idea that if you do something weird and different- that's enough. Me? I'm a beauty & function kinda gal...
http://cozylittlecave.blogspot.com
It puts the lotion in the basket. And then it buys a regular rug not made of people.
I love the idea of the weird table for a gyno office.
The skin rug reminded me simultaneously of Silence of the Lambs and The Female Eunuch.
All ick. Fish least ick of all - actually cool, except that you'd never be able to really clean the tanks.
I didn't catch the sanitary pads layers until I read the post. It looked like some abstract form, and I thought, "Oh, what are they complaining about now?" until I saw what it was meant to be. No. Freaking. Way.
The woman rug is cheesy and cutesy and a no-way, but I hate the sanitary pad thing even more, because at least the rug is trying to make some kind of statement. The shelves are just screaming, "Look at me! I used a bodily fluid in a class project! Aren't I witty and cutting-edge!?"
Mary
wow, after seeing the other items, the giant purple sausage / pseudo sex toy looks kinda good now.....
I'm always annoyed when people treat fish as if they're a decorative element rather than living animals.... Poor guys have to spend their lives watching people poop?!
The large purple penis rocker could work in a fetish video, but I don't think that it's particularly good design, phallic or not.
Maxi-pad table? Funny but useless.
The urinal is a great idea.
I like to human skin rug, but it belongs in a gallery not a home.
The fish tanks would only work if you had a disco ball in your bathroom.
I voted for the pad shelves. It's truly awful. Seriously? This is design? I can see the companion piece now: soiled diaper shelves!
The rug is disturbing on so many levels I don't know where to start.
I gag every time I see an animal skin rug so to me, the woman skin rug is just a piece of social commentary that I get! If it's an awful thing with a human, why condone it with other creatures? Don't they also value their lives?
I think the rug is AWESOME. I think I'll buy several to donate to the local zoo, for use in the zebra enclosure.
Why do men in Belgium pee in the streets? Don't the bars have bathrooms? I've never been there, so maybe this is a useful thing, but I can't see encouraging men to pee in the street. I can't imagine walking down the street, past some guy peeing. I don't know...is it me?
it's all tacky.
The rug is a piece of art and shouldn't really be on this list. There is a difference between art and design.
The fish tank is smart: They go belly-up and you don't have to go far to flush them!!
i agree with modern on long island, fish (and birds and other living beings) are not ours to decorate with. it's wrong. so the tank is the worst offender.
which sort of flows into the rug idea - decorating with fur and leather are wrong too so i'm digging the potential of the human skin rug to make people think; there's no difference between her and a bear (or zebra or lion or....).
I agree that the rug is awesome. Not for decor, god no. But as art/commentary, for the visceral reaction it produces. I shudder every time I see an animal skin rug on the ground. I can't believe that's a trend that's back now. Just, ick.
The aquarium bathroom fixtures are kinda cool in a kitchy way (I seem to recall an aquarium bed in the Las Vegas hotel suite in Diamonds Are Forever)
But the first 4 are all just too disgusting for words.
Purple hotdog is for amateurs. I've ridden bigger ones.
@#9, that is hilarious.
I love the urinal - do you think it comes with a 4 am emptying service contract?
At my age, there are so many things I wish I hadn't seen ...
Definitely the deflated sex doll. I mean "rug".
There is nothing "girl power" about those shelves.
As for the skin rug- the artist was feeling objectified? And her solution was to... objectify herself even more? Am I missing something here?
Ick. I've got a serious case of the heeby-jeebies now...
The rug! Ick!
But is it supposed to be lived with? A lot of the stuff I see in the 'hot or not' categories I kind of think of like stuff you see on the catwalk - supposed to inform and inspire, but you don't wear it to the shops. So while I often vote 'not' because I wouldn't want it in my space, or think the price is redonk, I secretly think it's 'hot' as a conceptual design.
Whereas the urinal etc is clearly meant to be in an actual real, used, space. Can I say again: ICK.
Is the crutch on the purple hotdog a Dali reference? If that is the case, it is awesome.
The human skin rug is the only thing that makes sense on this whole post.
Wow...a Silence of the Lambs rug....utterly creepy
...the public urinal is funny but quite functional....
The hot dog looks like sex toy furniture
What, women don't need public urinals?
As a side note, it would seem that the artist who created the woman-skin rug also took fertility drugs, had her eggs harvested, and then packaged them and "marketed" them as "Christy Caviar".
Bizarre.
it's interesting that three of these offensive designs have to do with going to the bathroom and menstruation. Certainly three things people get hung up about all the time. The maxi pad table I wouldn't have even realized had anything to do with maxi pads if you hadn't mentioned. and honest, having fish "watch" you going to the bathroom - that would really freak you out? the urinal is interesting, but seems pretty practical imo. so i dunno if it's the design so much as the activities or items being used in the design. as far as designs go, they all seem to work well to do what they're intended for. except the rug, which, as someone mentioned, seems like statement and work of art rather than a practical item.
i LIKE the pad shelves, in a very "deal with it, men, we have to deal with it" way. it's oddly comforting?
My boyfriend, who was standing behind me when I had the Pad shelves on the screen. He didn't know what it was but stared at it for a minute and then said he really liked the design....
HAHA! ...
something to think about...
the human rug is the worst.
Now that I think about it, if the gray lines on the top of the pad table were removed, that would be pretty neat to have around. With the pad-markings, it just look silly.
All are cool as long as they belong to contemporary art museum, not in someone's living room.
The urinal one is brilliant!! Yes, they have toilets in bars all over the world.. but have you ever walked home with a bunch of blokes after they have been drinking beer all night? They will pee in all kinds of places that women wont, just because they can.
This is a sensible, funny solution to a well known problem. I would love to see them everywhere.
Thank you manu_pty for being the first one to say it like it is: woman rug, not human skin rug. To call it Human Skin Rug is so disingenuous -just as it is to remove it from the (O I pray) niche of art and commentary, not common rug selection at yr JCP.
I do very much hope this doesn't become a regular feature as such, WTF, for there are plenty of sites on the net to go to for judgments, negativity as well as 'outlandish art piece being discussed as common household item' for sake of 'WTF.' I sincerely hope that this family of sites remains for inspiration and sharing: not the judgey shock of finger pointing and hells NO.
How un-fun of me, I suppose.