Now here’s a turntable perfect for listening to rock music! Inspired by Ron Arad’s Concrete Stereo, the RA84 is a turntable and speaker set modeled with a raw, brutalist aesthetic that pays tribute to Arad’s 1984 artpiece featuring a turntable and a set of speakers made similarly from actual concrete. Arad, a prolific designer and architect, was known at the time for challenging conventions of industrial design, often using unconventional or even “anti-design” materials.
Concrete Stereo was created as part of Arad’s early career explorations. Rather than hiding the rawness of the concrete, Arad emphasized its roughness and mass, contrasting it with the delicate inner electronics typical of audio equipment. This juxtaposition created a tension between fragility and permanence. The design also subverted expectations about consumer electronics being made from conventional materials like plastics and metal. Stu Cole’s RA84 refines Arad’s classic design with something that looks a lot more modern, and sort of reverts to plastics in a rather tongue-in-cheek way. Yes, even though the RA84 has that distinct concrete appearance, it is, in fact, made from recycled consumer plastics!
Designer: Stu Cole
Stu Cole’s rendition of the classic Arad stereo features the turntable along with the speakers. While Arad’s designs were more rustic, Cole refines them with relatively perfect surfaces, barring the chipped corner that reveals the materials’ rough stone-like texture. The ‘apocalyptic’ stereo set comes in a choice between the concrete grey, or a darker terrazzo-ish black.
More than just an ode to a classic piece of design history, the RA84 proves what a stellar replacement recycled plastic is for stone or concrete. Just given the sheer amount of plastic waste we generate, using post consumer recycled plastics as a material isn’t just a decent idea, with Stu Cole’s RA84, it shows how great recycled plastics can look if given the right treatment! “Same spirit. New material. Full circle,” as Cole says.
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