German industrial design studio ding3000 (Hanover; www.ding3000.com) and the “designfabrik” team at BASF (Ludwigshafen / Germany; www.basf.com) have developed an unusually designed range of high quality cutlery, which will provide diners with a puzzling aperitif to their meal. “Join” cutlery is manufactured by household product designer Konstantin Slawinski (Cologne / Germany www.konstantinslawinski.com) using glass fibre reinforced “Ultramid” A3EG6 FC plastic, a food contact-approved special polyamide. A Japanese toy, involving three small sticks that are joined, apparently inseparably, by a “square knot”, influenced ding3000’s designers.

The stick-together cutlery, consisting of fork, knife and spoon and which has been available from Konstantin Slawinski since August 2010, employs the same principle as the toy – each of the three cutlery items has an opening in the middle that allows them to be joined, forming a small yet stable, free-standing sculpture that challenges the user to test his or her mental dexterity before being able to eat. BASF’s designfabrik team assisted in selecting the right plastic and converting the product idea into reality. It remedied weak spots by testing and optimising the design on a virtual prototype using a simulation tool. In addition, together with their partners in the project, they chose glass fibre reinforced special polyamide as the optimal material.

Aside from being approved for food contact, BASF said the material is tough, heat-resistant, dishwasher-safe and can be easily coloured. Because of the engineering plastic’s inherent strength, it was possible to come up with a more delicate design than typical of most common plastic cutlery.