Rice Bowl

Materials Plastic

Diameter: 5.5 inches Height 2.5 inches

April 2 -13, 2018

In the attempt to learn about plastic vacuum forming I threw for a project with a funny concept. That concept being, of a what if the Rice Bowl had rice as part of the bowl's design.

Originally the concept of this piece was geared towards the texture of the rice. However early on, in my attempts this was not possible without making the mold itself into a pin cushion. Part of the reason was that I wanted the rice grain itself to appear onto the bowl. In another way of putting this I wanted each individual rice grain to appear without it spacing apart. What happened instead was that it took the form as a whole than individually. I tried heating the PETG longer or using a thinner piece, but to no avail. Thus the only conclusion to solve this was the pin cushion, but it is not possible without destroying the mold itself. Especially with the tools and limited knowledge that I had on hand.

Going forward from here I began to experiment laminated pieces of plastic together with rice in between. This formed a texture but also an interesting visual language that read as both rice, but also something else.

These bowls can hold two cups of rice with ease and as a bowl they stack as well as not being too hot to hold onto despite the rice coming out fresh.

I am happy with what I was able to achieve, but I am sadden that I was not able to achieve what I originally set out for as it became more of an impossible task considering the hours it would have taken to punch out the shape of each rice grain that stacks against each other. Perhaps a concept to revisit, but as it is right now happy yes, but not satisfied.

The early attempts of making the rice texture rice bowls. As you can see instead of the rice grain it came out as more like pricks and points than a recognizable shape.

In the middle was where I started to realize where I could take this piece towards.

Using the oven I laminated two sheets of PETGs together with rice grains in the middle to create my own sheet of plastic that I then formed over a mold to create the bowls.