Remote control cafe demonstrates bad design

This year Helsinki has the accolade of being World Design Capital and as a part of the legacy of the event the organisers wanted to engage with a wider audience of local residents to explain why design is so important in all our lives.

They decided to get the conversation going about the impact of good and bad design by creating a remote controlled café. This cafe included a range of badly design items, to demonstrate what good design means to us all, whilst anyone could remotely control the environment through a web interface.

When local residents popped in for a coffee they would find their chairs raising and lowering, whilst tables adjusted and items like sugar and napkin dispensers just did not work.



The interactive space was a great success and gained a lot of publicity, including a feature spot on the national news with the newsreaders getting into the action.