Travelling is very exciting but trekking around airports or train stations, not so much. In fact, pulling your luggage (and yourself) around can be something of a drag. And a very monotonous one at that.
Dutch designer Jeriël Bobbe’s “Suitcase Symphony” aims to change all of that by bringing a little bit of sound and melody into the commute.
Inspired by the fact that music is everywhere – in “stone slabs, tactile paving for the blind, or a grid for wheelchairs” – Bobbe designed a walking surface that plays a melody when you pull your luggage along it.
Suitcase Symphony consists of ribbed wooden tiles that are arranged together to create a pathway. As a traveller pulls a wheeled suitcase along it, it creates different kinds of music.
Constructed by the Netherlands-based production company Bruns, the Suitcase Symphony makes musical notes when luggage is moved across it at a normal walking speed. The pitch of the tones and the height of the volume is determined by the distance between the ribs.
The individual wooden tiles can also be rearranged for composing different musical sounds.
Here’s a video of the sounds that the Suitcase Symphony can make.