This clever ‘curling bowl’ is perfect for elite snackers
If you’re tuning in to the Milan Cortina Olympics, you may be one of many spectators who’s suddenly invested in the sport of curling. You’re in good company: Swedish designer Gustaf Westman, best known for his chunky homeware, has become so fascinated by the event that he used it as inspiration for his latest design.
Curling centers on an object called a “curling stone.” Using its gooseneck handle, competitors slide the round, 44-pound stone down an ice shuffleboard toward a target zone. Westman’s “curling bowl,” which he debuted on Instagram on February 10, reimagines the object as a snack bowl. The stone’s handle has been cleverly converted into the perfect slot for a glass of wine, or whatever beverage suits the moment, while its round base has been repurposed into a vessel for chips, crackers, and popcorn. The bowl is not listed for sale on Westman’s website at the time of this writing.
Iconic Olympics-related objects like the ceremonial torch, cauldron, and medals may receive the most attention at the Games, but Westman’s new bowl gives the curling stone the flowers it’s owed.
Designing the “curling bowl”
Before Westman reimagined the curling stone as a receptacle for popcorn and charcuterie, it was already one of the most interesting pieces of sports gear at the Winter Olympics.
Since 2006, every single stone that’s been thrown at the Games has been manufactured at one factory on the Scottish island of Ailsa Craig. That’s because the island’s microgranite is formed by fast-cooling magma, which makes it ultra dense and hard—perfectly suited for slamming into other curling stones at speed. Every stone is shaped, weighted, and polished to enable it to slide across the ice like butter, essentially making each a very precisely engineered work of art.
Like his other designs (see Westman’s whimsical collection for Ikea and puzzle-inspired shelf, for example), the bowl is pleasantly chunky, rounded, and colorful. In place of the stone’s usual handle is a two-pronged appendage that allows a beverage to hover directly over a spot for snacks. Overall, the bowl leans more toward artistic than performance-driven, but it does take after the real thing in one key way: It can slide.
In a video posted to his Instagram, Westman tested out his design at what appears to be a local rink, sending it shooting down the ice with potato chips, wine, and several bunches of grapes on board. At home, spectators might use this function to pass hors d’oeuvres down the table while enjoying the Games.
“I love being present and commenting on the time we are living in with my design,” Westman told Dezeen. “I also think humor has a big place in design—this is a great example of that for me.”