Ooho! by rodrigo garcia from spain

Curiosity leads us to appreciate the most simple and beauty form that nature offer us, a drop. It is the smallest quantity of liquid heavy enough to fall in a spherical mass. Liquid forms drops because the liquid exhibits surface tension, bounded completely or almost completely by free surfaces. "Ooho!" replicates this behavior, encircle the water in a eatable membrane of algae. It is new way of packaging that propose an alternative to the plastic bottle. Using the culinary technique of sphereification, the water is encapsulated in a double gelatinous membrane. The technique consist into apply sodium alginate (E-401) from the brown algae and calcium chloride (E-509) in a concrete proportions in order to generate a gelification on the exterior of the liquid. The final package is simple, cheap (2ct/unit), resistant, hygienic, biodegradable and even eatable.

The most clear inspiration is the way nature encapsulate liquids using membranes. Made of lipids and proteins the membrane enclose, limit and give a shape keeping the balance between the interior and the exterior. As example the egg yolk. As structural element a membrane works almost exclusively with traction forces. The technique of spherification, of shaping a liquid into spheres which visually and texturally resemble caviar born in 1946. (US Pat. 2,403,547). In the 90s the Spanish chef Ferràn Adria brought the technique to the modern cuisine at his restaurant elBulli. “Ooho!” apply an evolve version of the spherification to one of the most basic and essential elements for life, the water.

After experimenting the spherification technique with different ingredients, proportions and dimensions, a “recipe” was found to create “Ooho!” with a double gelatinous membrane and in different sizes. The double membrane protects hygienically the inside and allows to locate between the two layers identification labels with out any adhesive. Other of the technical innovations is to manipulate the water as solid (ice) during the encapsulation so is possible to get bigger spheres and allows to the calcium and algae to stay exclusively in the membrane. The exploration of how other disciplines can solve design problems, generates interesting states as “how to design in the kitchen” or “how to cook the design” . Nowadays only big companies have the infrastructure to manufacture packaging. The main idea of “Ooho!” is that everyone could make them at their kitchen, modifying and innovating the “recipe”. From DIY to CIY (Cook It Yourself).