What if Leica were to design an ice tray? 

In collaboration with Antoni Pakowski and Malav Sanghavi

February 2014

Made of silicone, steel tube, synthetic leather. Moulds 3D printed on an SLA printer. 

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For this project, a deliberately disconnected hand-sized product and brand were assigned to each group. The brief set for this project was to create a production run of 9 units in 4 weeks - identical units of one product which all needed to be fully functional, and designed based on the brand's implications.

In this case, the brand was Leica; a camera brand synonymous with luxury, but also precision, high quality lenses and optics.
The ice tray that we were designing needed to fit Leica's tight attention to detail and high quality finish. Not only the object and its materials,
but also in the way it is used, and the outcome that it creates. 

Based on this we decided to created an ice tray which offers a perfectly round, and perfectly transparent ice cube.
The ice cube tray contains two chambers: the bottom one contains salt water which insulates the upper chamber, in which ice starts freezing from the top down. Due to the principle of directional freezing, this process creates a completely clear ice cube. 

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