crescent handle – chrome

‘crescent handle’ by rafael gonzalez urdaneta from canada is one of the shortlisted entries from our recent designboom competition ‘hands on door handles’ organized by designboom in collaboration with COLOMBO design. the door handle contest yielded entries from more than 6, 000 participants and has been juried by UK designer jasper morrison and US-based reiser and umemoto architects.

crescent handle by rafael gonzalez urdaneta   hands on door handles shortlist crescent handle – brushed

‘I was thinking about what a door handle is, and how if simplified to its basic function it can be considered an interface between the user and the door, an integrated tool that stays in place to help the user activate the mechanism that unlocks the door and lets him go through and would be virtually not accessible to the naked hand if this element was not present. so after this analysis I compared to other existing tools that would provide a similar way of grabbing and turning the pin that unlocks the door, and I found that a wrench could be used to do just that. this handle would be cast metal with a spun metal base, as any of the other handles in colombo design catalogue. I included different finish options that I think could work’. rafael gonzalez urdaneta

crescent handle by rafael gonzalez urdaneta   hands on door handles shortlist crescent handle – gold

chosen as one of the 165 overall shortlisted projects, ‘crescent’ was selected from the ‘freestyle’ category of the competition, in which we asked for experimental designs that still manage to match the specified technical requirements indicated. designboom is currently publishing the most common ‘variations on a theme’ received, and more than 20 types of door handles working with a similar concept as ‘crescent’ were submitted to our competition.

crescent handle by rafael gonzalez urdaneta   hands on door handles shortlist crescent handle – gunmetal black

crescent handle by rafael gonzalez urdaneta   hands on door handles shortlist crescent handle – on door

— those wishing to republish an excerpt of this article, please have the courtesy to link back to this original article, and to mention that the project was conceived for the designboom and  COLOMBO award: ‘hands on door handles’.

designboom would like to invite our readers to an evening at the triennale di milano. organized in collaboration  with colombo design, the event will feature a lecture by french designer jean marie massaud and will reveal the results of the international door handle competition ‘hands on door handles’. cocktail reception to follow. free entrance.

crescent handle by rafael gonzalez urdaneta   hands on door handles shortlist

small details make up the big picture. landscape, architecture, interior design and door handles. triennale di milano – sala d’onore, viale alemagna 6, milan

may 31st, 2011, 6:00 pm