Specialized storage.
Après is an alpine sports drying rack, inspired by scandinavian design, crafted to hold alpine related equipment after getting off the mountain. It affords to support both skis and snowboards and a variety of other equipment, while the slatted shelves allow for natural airdrying of equipment.
What already exists?
Having researched numerous existing ski storage products, several commonalities stood out. The majority were wall mounted devices which had no particular aesthetic considerations and also assumed the user had the ability to mount the device to their wall.
The majority of the products were expensive regardless of the low quality materials used and minimal design features present. While functional, most of the products are primarily designed to be stored in a garage, a space not every user has available in their residence. This research prompted me to ask the question how might I design a functional, aesthetic piece of furniture that stores all ski and snowboard equipment?
Not like the others…
Specialized
Après was designed based on ski and snowboard dimensions, while also factoring in the placement and size of the bindings. The repeated horizontal slats provide a resting place for all gear items but still allow constant airflow.
High-Quality
The product is constructed with 100% European beech wood. This wood species was selected not only for its aesthetics but also because it is naturally very dense and resists small knicks and scratches due to its extremely tight wood grain. Après also features a leather wrap over the base slats on the side the skis are stored, to increase traction between the ski and the ski rack so the skis will not slide.
Compact
The ski rack measures 44” vertically, 44” horizontally, and 22” in depth, making it large enough to store multiple people’s gear yet small enough to fit in an apartment or hotel room.
Design Process
Hidden moment analysis
Initial Ideation drawings
Initial Renderings
After an extensive amount of sketching and initial ideation, I began to model the Après in Rhino CAD. I then made some initial renderings in Keyshot Studio to further visualize the final product before I started building the final prototype.
