“There is an app for that”, or so the saying goes. I suppose that this is a fact, as smartphones get more and more powerful over time, gaining additional functionality with its greater array of electronics inside. Swedish agency Perfect Fools (what a cute name) came up with the concept of an Internet controlled Café Kauko for a couple of months during World Design Capital Helsinki 2012, where Tony Sajdak mentioned, “We wanted to show people how much design affected their everyday lives. Highlighting good design seemed easier by demonstrating how bad design could be!”
You are able to control the music, lighting and even atmosphere in the café after you have logged in to youdesign.fi, not to mention fiddle around with the height of the tables and chairs as well. Of course, the unknowing person sitting on that particular chair is going to get a shock of his or her life, and all their reactions will be streamed via multiple live cams.
Sajdak continues, “The café itself was built in Denmark and shipped over, but we had numerous hurdles to overcome. We had to create a queuing system online in case there were lots of people trying to set the height of the same chair, or change the music at the same time, and we had to build really quiet pneumatic chairs. We had a fair bit of technology to fit into a small space.”
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