the foundry designs a coffee cup made of sand

inspired by the ever-shifting dunes, the foundry by tinkah set out to develop a material that takes the characteristics of desert sand into a moldable medium. ‘ramel’ has the ability to shift shape into functional and aesthetic products that emerge from their environment rather than adopting their surrounding. as a homage to a global culture, the foundry has designed and produced the humble coffee cup using this new material.

with experimental exploration at its core, the foundry allows tinkah’s artists, designers, writers, creatives the dedicated environment to defy the monotony of commercial design. organically emerging from dubai, their found creative practice draws inspiration from its immediate environment. for this particular design of a sand coffee cup, the company looked at the most abundant and unused natural resource in the UAE — the team set out with the aim to utilize sand into a reproducible product.

with the focus on a scalable manufacturing process, the designers proceeded to create a composite material that combines the visual, tactile and heat insulative properties of sand with the castability of slip ceramic. iron, calcium, silica, aluminum and magnesium are just a few of the elements found in desert sand, each sample varied in composition.

project info:

designers: the foundry

designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.

edited by: maria erman | designboom