Kit 24 House by Karim Rashid
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 02.23.06
We're off to the Interior Design Show this evening to see the launch of the Kit 24 House designed by the multitalented Karim Rashid. “This project gave me the opportunity to develop a kit house — a house that can be produced with simple minimal parts and tooling. I have always been interested in this notion of frugal housing, of housing that can be erected simply and quickly, that can be very inexpensive and democratic, and variable or customizable with little cause and great effect.” Look forward to our usual dreadful and crooked pictures tomorrow. ::Interior Design Show
This guy is probably the most wastefull designer there is....what are you guys thinking
I've seen Karim Rashid speak, and read several interviews with him. He is in complete denial of sustainability in design. He is an advocate of making everything cheap and disposable. He even claims that he throws everything he owns away after it's one year old. The mentality fits with his niche - funky-shaped disposable mod kitch.
He says this because potential clients like hearing that he wants to design things you need to buy again and again.
He is like the Andy Warhol of design. Weird, flaky, good at getting work, but ultimately living in his own world.
I am very surprised that Treehugger would extoll Karim Rashid so much on any of his products, especially this one. Maybe it represents an effort in the direction of small-space "affordable" housing, but if you know anything about Rashid's work, it's plastic-centric and not sustainable in any way. And that's one of the main problems with his work. It often involves colorful form-first products made of plastic, that make no positive contribution to the world or the environment.
The last thing this megalomaniac needs is a compliment from such a forward thinking organization like Treehugger. That is, until he makes a meaningful contribution to the world of sustainable design. We don't need any more lollipop plastic product design anymore, - that went out of style in the '90's - and that seems to be all that Karim Rashid has to offer.
check this out for a pre fab house
I am floored that, in a world that is so full of real need and with the power that design can have in influencing the way we live, that a designer like Rashid can have any authority at all.
I recently saw, or rather could not avoid seeing because it was pink plastic, the Kit 24 deigned by Rashid. From the outside you could see a world filled with shiny blobjects. What a world this is, nothing recyclable or sustainable, all of it high gloss and the smell of the PVC was revolting. Given the long line to get into the house I was relieved to hear the majority of folks were laughing on the way out and the comments, oh my the comments. I guess that we all did not get it, stuck to our old traditions and living in the past.
What a shallow and myopic profession design has become and I only hope that the press will turn there lenses and microphones in more interesting directions. Make Rashid invisible.
Thank you and best.
i love his work. ita ll just an insperation. he is not afraid to take rsks with his work. its all ingenious. loooovve it all loadz. xx
people stop hating