This table and stool design – SUNPlace – is by Lanzavecchia & Wai and is intended to revive the ritual of the banquet, inspiring sociable cooking. Halfway between a traditional barbecue and a teppanyaki, this outdoor furniture set, made from oak and steel, incorporates a Fresnel lens which focuses light on the grilling area to cook your food. The Italian-Singaporean duo created the sun-powered project – for Le Affinità Selettive, curated by Aldo Colonetti – to come at the same time as this year’s Milan Expo, which is themed around sustainable food production. In theory, the cooker heats up the food from the top using the heat of the sun through the lens, while the metal plate underneath grills it from below. As you can see from the images, this is still a prototype, but who knows – maybe zero-emission cooking, using the sun, will catch on.
