When I first saw the ooba bassinet in the newest issue of Dwell [where it's one of the few surprises in their modernist kids furniture roundup], the website was still just one big "coming soon!" page. Well, a few days later, there's a functioning site, lots of photos, and hints of a multi-piece ooba Nest Collection to come.
Judging from the bassinet, anyway, ooba is the baby furniture the Eameses should have done. The designers--all first-time parents, of course--created a contemporary, minimalist piece out of Eames' favorite materials--molded plywood and chromed steel. It comes with a walnut of maple veneer frame and brushed cotton interior, a mattress, pad, and two fitted sheets. [Additional sheets are still "coming soon".]
Bringing such a piece into a modernist classic-filled home can sometimes be as tricky as introducing the baby to the cat; it's safer to keep them in separate rooms. But the ooba looks like it'd play very well with others. Except for the Seimi outfit--which suddenly looks pretty sedate--the ooba's main design competitor is probably the Bugaboo, which can serve as a convenient bassinet for the first few months [and which might absorb a chunk of the bassinet budget anyway.]
No word yet on any retail or online distribution besides ooba's own site, so it'll be interesting to see how the firsthand accounts come back.
ooba bassinet from the nest collection, $500 at ooba.com [ooba.com]
Looks very stylin'. And i agree about your Dwell comment.
The one thing that stuck out about their website is the fact that they only baby you see is on the homepage. As if you wouldn't want to mess up the clean lines of the bassinet with a little tiny worm of a baby...
[to their credit, though, this whole print issue felt like it had been sprinkled liberally with kids. It's gotta be a focus group/subscriber study/target demo strategy thing; that many kidpix don't just happen by accident. It's as if the original Dwell subscribers 1) have finished their first redo, 2) had a kid or two, and 3) are now flipping it and starting another project -ed.]
somewhere in that issue of Dwell it mentions the fact that a bunch of the staffers had babies in 2005 (editor in chief among them) ... check out the kid on pg 146 ... daughter of a daddytype devotee (me)
[you should've told me; i'd sent a shirt for the shoot. -ed.]
Wow! How beautiful!
Ok,...so now I'm really mad. I just had my third and last baby a year ago. Why are all the design greats doing this now? I might just have to have a 4th.
I would have bought this and maybe the changing table on pg 174 in Dwell. Maybe Ooba will create a kids line. Hint, Hint!
I love the Ooba.............can you get it in Vancouver BC? or Seattle, Washington? If so please send me the address and telephone number of contact.
Thanks Christina
modern seed just stocked the bassinet:
http://www.modernseed.com/ooneba.html
I heard that www.posh baby.com will be selling sheets and blankets for the Ooba Basinett by the end of this week.
That company has so many great products!
[and they have such adoring customers that they'll post completely unsolicited praise and tips about unreleased products on websites that just happen to be the top Google result at the moment for "Ooba Bassinet"! What're the odds?]