Every other week, together with Sjiek / Het Belang Van Limburg, we present a Limburg design icon, or one that is well on its way to becoming one. This week it is the Lungo by Davy Grosemans.

WHAT: The Lungo is a 12-liter watering can, inspired by an enameled coffee pot from the 1920s.

YEAR: 2010

Davy Grosemans from Hasselt graduated in 1999 as a product designer at the MAD faculty in Genk. He immediately got a position with the renowned designagency Creneau International, where he is still the Senior Designer. In 2001 he started Das Ding, his own design studio. To experiment, but also to bring fully functional products to the market. Grosemans particularly likes to work with archetypes. Iconic forms or qualities, with which he subsequently does his thing. And with success. In 2008, he won two prestigious IF Product Design Awards with his FrouFrou and Chubby. The FrouFrou was a tight variant of the kitschy raffia parasols. The Chubby, housed by lighting manufacturer Dark, was an industrial fluorescent lighting combined with an upholstered lampshade. Both products turned into commercial hits for the Belgian manufacturers Sywawa and Dark.

LAST TRUMP

The Das Ding-designs also intrigued Xala, the dynamic design label had just started with home and garden products. “They asked me to think about garden items that could be sold through DIY stores,” says Davy Grosemans.

“With a whole pile of ideas and a big design ego – I just had a number of winners behind my name – I accepted the invite. But one by one they didn’t like the designs. In retrospect, quite rightly so, but luckily I still had a sketch of a watering can in the contours of a coffee pot. I wasn’t really keen about it myself, but I still put it on the table to save the meeting. ”

QUEEN

Lungo on the market. The watering can is available in different colors and even has a special golden edition. “Queen Mathilde has one and so does the Dutch King Willem-Alexander. At least, they once got one. There are certainly pictures of it, “laughs Davy Grosemans.

More than 100,000 copies of the Lungo have been sold throughout Europe and this year Xala is also launching it in North America. Davy Grosemans’ contribution to Xala did not remain with that one watering can, meanwhile the ingenious rain barrel / garden cabinet Credenza has also been added. A complementary product, if the Lungo is on top, it looks a lot like a coffee pot on a Leuven stew.