Muungano’s Library Bus & Sweetshop – what’s next?

Posted by Mia on Aug 28, 2009 in AW 2009 |

The Swedish design group Muungano is attending the ongoing Stockholm Formex fair. They are one out of twelve designers invited by Formex and the Trend Group to the section Young Designers - a platform for not yet established designers. According to their website, Muungano has its roots in a critical discussion about the meaning, methods and values of design. In their projects they “consciously find challenge and motivation in pushing the boundaries of the brief, by contextualizing problems and assuming a holistic approach”.

In 2008 Muungano designed a very special library bus, and in 2009 some awsome skull lollipops, now one really looks forward to their next design steps! Here’s a look into my Muungano favourites so far. treiettM
One Muungano project I particulary like is the library bus from 2008. When it was time for the old (boring) library bus in the northern town of Kiruna to retire, Muungano got the chance to design a new one. The old bus had functioned mostly as a distributor of books from the library out to the people is this geographically spread and sparsley populated area of Sweden. The function of the new bus is the same, but also to supply a larger service – the bus includes a library, a small cinema, computer games, a music listening couch, internet station and personal service. Because of the lack of sunlight during most of the year in the north the bus is designed to be “like a lantern” when dark, to attract people and light up the surroundings. It sure does, doesn’t it? :)

The bus, with graphics made by Fredrik Forsberg, won the prize Â´Library bus of the yearÂ´ given by the Swedish librarian society. It was also nominated for a prize in the graphic design contest KOLLA and for an Golden Egg, the prestigious Swedish advertising award. The underlying ideas of the design was to awaken and highlight the incredible power contained in books, where only your imagination sets limits. By mixing their own illustrations with graphic elements inspired by people’s favourite books – a fantasy world was created that invites the viewer to their own subjective interpretations. The primary objective was to create an inviting and playful atmosphere for library visitors, and encourage and inspire reading. The design in close-up:

muunganobus

An interesting 2009 piece of design by Muungano is the Sweetshop 3D. Originally a sugar experiment for Urban matters and Sweetshop at LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions) Muungano continued later back home by combining a technique of so called rapid prototyping with small-scale mass-production. They made a 3D-model of a human skull in the computer and the data was then sent to a 3D-printer that made moulds of the skull in silicon. These were then used for making a collection of lollipops with a top of a sugar-skull.

lolly

The lollipops have been shown at the gallery Monde Radieux in Stockholm and shown and sold at the gallery Millard Sheet in Los Angeles. Now to the crucial (and nagging) question: What is Muungano up to next?!