What do you get when you mash-up smart digital technology with traditional craft techniques and materials? The Hybrid radio by Mathieu Lehanneur, of course.
Lehanneur, who also collaborated with Lexon to design the Take Time analogue watch, blends digital intelligence, in the form of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB+) reception and an MP3 amplifier, with traditional woven rattan in his design of Hybrid; “it’s something that might be called smart and craft”, adds the designer.
Hybrid embodies the future-forward French designer, who also bought us kitchen-sized fish farms and living air purifiers, long-standing fascination with science and how it impacts and informs his designs.
Going by the Hybrid’s rising number of sales, all those who thought computers and smartphones killed the radio may want to re-evaluate their assumption.
