Designers: Reza Bavar, Skyler Olsen, and Kevin Shek, Kaloud, Inc., Los Angeles, California, USA
Manufacturer: Kaloud, Inc., Los Angeles, California, USA
The Brief: Reinvent the Hookah. The goal was to refresh the design and invent new technology for a product that's been in use for more than 500 years without much in the form of significant improvements in either of those two areas.
The Hookah was invented by a Persian physician, for an Indian Moghul King, using tobacco from European Traders, that was imported from the Americas and originally discovered by the Native populations, which revered the plant as one of the great spirits in faiths rooted in animism and a reverence for nature.
The Design Solution: After considering a lot of concepts, ultimately the inspiration was found at Japanese Tea Ceremonies, where all the elements necessary to carry out the ceremony are typically contained in a beautiful box.
So, the concept arose to use different elements -crystal, stone, steel, and aluminum to elevate the Hookah from a typically utilitarian function to something designed to be displayed even when not in use and to perform even better than the predecessor Hookahs in the marketplace.
It took nearly five years and countless hours and prototypes to arrive at the world’s first Krysalis, something so remarkable that it’s not fair to call it a Hookah…
