Shift is an instrument to prepare and chop food at an ordinary kitchen table, in which I optimised the work flow and height.
The cutting block Shift consists of three components, the two cutting boards, the stand, and the two dishes. While working, the chopped goods can be shoved over the edge of the cutting board into one of the ceramic dishes or directly onto a plate. Waste is separated by shoving it off the other side into a separate bowl. The height of the stand equals the average difference between an ordinary table and a kitchen workspace. The Shift is also great for a taller persons‘ back, for whom the standard kitchen workspace height is too low. The top cutting board can be lifted off to be used separately on a kitchen workspace. The lower identical cutting board is flipped top-down and can be slid into the slot. It is used as a drawer for the dishes, and ready to be used as a tray or additional chopping board. Leftovers can be kept in the dishes when sealed with the glass lid with rubber gasket.
In continuation to my first semester project i got the oppertunity to design a cutting board concept as a off-curriculum work for Kuhn Rikon. The main approach was to create an adaptive cutting board that can change its working height to either adapt to somebody‘s body height or to fit different kinds of plates or bowls underneath the cutting board. The dimensions were evaluated through ergonomic statistics of the average female and average male body length of Central Europe.
