The Soap Dish

The Soap Dish is Kristine Five Melvær’s third collaboration with When Objects Work.

The process of designing the soap dish startet with a brief from When Objects Work, where the goal was to make a soap dish with the best possible function. A problem with many soap dishes is that the soap gets soaked in water after repeatedly use. The water resolves the soap, which often gets stuck in a grooved surface which is hard to clean. No matter how good the soap is, the soap dish makes what could have been a small, but sensuous ritual of washing ones hands into a moment of frustration.

The answer to these problems lies in the shape of the object. The object has large cuts with a diagonal shape, which leads the water of the soap dish. The shape of the cuts makes the dish easy to clean, and the height of the dish elevates and presents the soap in a nice manner.

While the shape mainly derives from the function of the object, the piece has a strong, sculptural quality. The clean lines and geometric shadows of the object resonates well with the striking architecture which often surrounds the When Objects Work products.

The soap dishes are, like all When Objects Work objects, made with a strong focus on quality. The soap dish is made in six variants – oak wood, walnut wood, Portoro marble, black marble, white marble and travertine stone. The different materials adds different qualties to the object, in terms of tactility, weight and temperature.

The Soap Dish series was awarded Accessory of the Year at the Bo Bedre Design Awards 2016.