Project: Aquellio

Aquellio is a tray for the bathtub, developed as part of the "As Found" course in product design during my semester abroad at the Free University of Bolzano. The exercise was to find an object from a Tyrolean Folkscraft Museum and to take one element from it and develop a new product based on it. I found a tray hanging in the so-called "Stube" (living room) and extracted its most distinctive formal element — wooden dowels — and translated it into an entirely new context. The design process began with a close examination of the original object. Rather than adopting it as a whole or simply copying it, I broke it down into its components and searched for its most striking formal feature: the wooden dowels, which in the original object served purely as a hidden connective element between two parts. This construction logic — functional and invisible in the original — became the actual subject of my reinterpretation. Instead of continuing to use the dowels as a concealed joining method, I made them visible and turned them into the central, structure-defining motif of the new object. In developing Aquellio, the dowels are arranged into a regular grid that runs across the entire surface of the tray. This is not decorative but follows a clear functional logic: the gaps within the grid allow for effective air circulation beneath the tray and, at the same time, ensure that water can drain away freely instead of pooling — a crucial consideration for an object used in the damp environment of a bathroom. The traditional dowel joint, historically associated with craftsmanship and furniture-making, is thereby detached from its original context and translated into a contemporary, pared-down formal language. Aquellio can therefore be understood as an exercise in engaging with "found objects": the aim is not to imitate an existing object, but to uncover its inherent construction logic, question it critically, and transform it into a new functional and aesthetic statement. The result is an object that unites functionality and aesthetics by giving the traditional element of dowel construction a modern, independent interpretation.