Working alongside Eugeni Quitllet, Philippe Starck has recently designed Home/Gym/Office for Alias’s fitness collection. The HGO collection is composed of a gym mat, barbell, jump rope, multipurpose hook, and rack. The gym mat is constructed of leather and polyurethane foam with non-slip rubber used in the lower portion.
The HGO barbells have a smooth and uniform design, a contrasting aesthetic from the ubiquitously severe and angled dumbbell. The weights are made in chromed casting brass with thermoplastic rubber. The handles on the jump rope share the same ergonomic grip, and are manufactured using aluminum and PVC.
I’m sure many of you agree that gym and fitness equipment have, for the most part, visually unappealing characteristics about them. This is completely understandable since the need for high functionality of the equipment outweighs any concern for an attractive design. However, for smaller fitness items such as barbells and jump ropes, there is no such limitation – as proven by this HGO collection.
Azarbayejani on 05.10.2012 at 09:25 AM
Everything is so phallic.
Lindy on 05.11.2012 at 07:39 AM
What a great idea!! The products look great!! I love the HGO collection
Cheers
Lindy
David Sucher on 05.19.2012 at 21:57 PM
Who worked with Starcke on the design?
There are a host of functional requirements and it would be interesting to know the experience behind his design.
For example, his dumb bells look extremely smooth.
Is that what you really want when you are sweating and holding a heavy weight (the ones they appear to show are very light but I assume they will have more) above your head or doing a chest press? You want non-skid.
So it remains to be seen whether Starcke’s designs are of any significance.