“Pipelto” – Versatile marble trays for food presentation.
Nowadays, it is difficult to envisage marble as anything more than a helpless commodity.
Pipelto trays are made using Lasa marble residues from Alvar Aalto’s Finlandia Hall, Helsinki.
The trays are designed to alter the way people perceive marble on both a visual and experiential level, whilst simultaneously providing a heightened appreciation of the food they are consuming. As a result of marble’s pre-existing status, and the assumptions that are held of it, the trays immediately elevate the “status” of the food beyond the everyday.
My aim is to show that there is always an alternative, and always a way to make the most of what is in front of us. By using “waste products” to compliment and even enhance the aesthetic appeal of the food service industry, Pipelto can help to demonstrate that the lines between extravagant and basic, useless and useful, were never really there in the first place.

Gallery

The waste container at Lasa Marmo, with all the leftover slabs of marble.

Cutting shapes out of the marble to make something out of the residue.

Adding a groove for practicality.

Using the trays to serve food.

Trays from above, seeing the groove, that collects liquids or crumbs.

The different height of the feet makes it possible to create compositions and overlap the trays, for more possibilities.