Sharing Plug by Dave Hakkens

These handmade electrical plugs allow you to plug a second appliance into the back.

Dutch designer Dave Hakkens noticed that appliances like fridges and boilers need to stay plugged in all the time so there's often a shortage of sockets for occasional use.

His Sharing Plug eliminates the need for a tangle of multiple-socket extension leads or unplugging one device to use another.

Hakkens sculpted the plug by hand, scanned it digitally and used the manipulated model to cast the casing in rubber so it's soft and flexible.

He then made a rubber socket and standard plug in the same way, resulting in a range with a warmer aesthetic that their mass-produced plastic counterparts.

Here's some more information from Hakkens:

Most of the products around us are made industrially. Although I am a big fan of craftsmanship I believe our world sometimes just needs products to be made industrially. To make the products produceable for machines they need a 3D file which is designed and drawn on the computer.

Usually this is done entirely computer based. Products are starting to look the same and a personal details are lost.

I wanted to make a technical product by hand but still produceable for the industry.

I did this combining old techniques & crafts with new technologies such special software and 3D scanning.

I took a normal plug and a power socket. Usually these things haven't got any value.

If for instance an electronic device doesn't work anymore the plug is also thrown away, even though it still works perfectly fine. I wanted to give the plug more value and make it less disposable, so when a electronic device is broken you disconnect the plug instead of throwing it away.

Making of:

I started off by making a lot of different models and variaties. With this information I made the final models.

Instead of designing them on the computer I made them completely by hand, after that I scanned the models in 3D and put them on the computer.

I edited them, drew the technics inside and made the dimensions universal. Right now the file is 3D readable and usable for the industry. I used this file to make the final models in 3D.

Now, they are made from rubber which gives them a soft feeling, allows the plug to bend in the direction of the cable and fits perfectly around cables with a 3 - 8 mm diameter.