Teknovation - The home of ShopRobotic

Wallpaper* Handmade - August 2010
The August Handmade issue is dedicated to this astonishing collection of one-off designs and delicacies, chronicling their production and presentation at this year’s Salone del Mobile.. . . click to expand

Wallpaper.com Wallpaper* Handmade – August 2010

For its most ambitious issue to date, Wallpaper* has brought together and briefed some of the world’s leading designers, craftsmen and manufacturers to produce unique furniture, fittings, foodstuffs, fashion and more. The August Handmade issue is dedicated to this astonishing collection of one-off designs and delicacies, chronicling their production and presentation at this year’s Salone del Mobile.

ShopRobotic vending machine, by Teknovation and Clements Retail The Wallpaper* Wallpaper* handmade

ShopRobotic is a chic vending machine with an angular design, creative lighting and smartly packaged contents. When you select one of the 48 items (each box represents a product created specially for Wallpaper’s Handmade issue), information on the product and details on the creative process behind it appear on the vending machine’s screen. ShopRobotic is finished beautifully in a high-gloss white, while its façade is covered by a single sheet of hardened glass, offering increased soundproofing. The rear of the machine has sliding doors for easy stock replenishment.

Teknovation

British company Teknovation comprises a group of enthusiastic technologists, united by their ambition to transform the world of automated shopping. With its ShopRobotic service, Teknovation has perfected the art of delivering instant gratification by placing desired goods delicately into your awaiting hands within seconds, thus combining the convenience of a strategically located cash machine with the elegance of a boutique. www.teknovation.co.uk

Photo courtesy of: Beppe Brancato and Wallpaper* Handmade

Clements Retail

Clements Retail specialises in building consumer environments and hi-tech delivery systems and has a history of working with the world’s top brands. These include leading purveyors of design-led merchandise such as Michael Kors, Christian Louboutin and Lanvin. This association with fashion and luxury products has in turn opened up long-standing partnerships with retail designers and architects across Europe, the US and Japan. www.clementsretail.com

Wallpaper*

Truly international, consistently intelligent and hugely influential, Wallpaper* is the world’s most important design and style magazine. It has attracted the most sophisticated global audience by constantly pushing into new creative territories and ensuring its coverage of everything from architecture to motoring, fashion to travel, and interiors to jewellery remains unrivalled. Wallpaper* has readers in 93 countries and has enjoyed unparalleled success in reaching the design elite right across the globe. To Wallpaper*, the world is one seamless marketplace, where consumers flit from one destination to the next, easily cross physical borders and cultural divides, and flirt with a variety of different brands, both established and undiscovered. With 12 themed issues a year, and a limited-edition cover by a different artist or designer each month, Wallpaper* has evolved from style bible to internationally recognised brand. www.wallpaper.com

Innovation / Brand-Building Initiative of the Year – Wallpaper’s Made in China issue British Society of Magazine Editors Awards 2009

Best New Editor of the Year – Tony Chambers British Society of Magazine Editors Awards 2008

From cover to cover, the Handmade issue is a complete celebration of craftsmanship and, in addition to the exceptional bespoke content, it incorporates a number of publishing firsts for Wallpaper*, including the use of multiple paper stocks and the chance for readers to play art director and custom-design their own covers.

Wallpaper* Handmade is on sale 8 July.

Cars, Condos, This Vending Machine Has It All
CBS4 - 9th April 2009
Forget your traditional gift shop on South Beach, now you can head to a vending machine to buy a little something . . . click to expand

MIAMI BEACH (CBS4) - Forget your traditional gift shop on South Beach, now you can head to a vending machine to buy a little something to remember your vacation by—some mints, a swimsuit, or perhaps a condo.

"To my wife it looks like paradise, because you can buy anything you want here," said Jan Melsom as he and his wife looked through some of the items for sale inside a new vending machine gift shop concept.

"What do you think of the 14kt gold rabbit's foot?" asked CBS4's Jorge Estevez to the Aud Remoy, who was on vacation with her husband. "It's good, it's quite good," answered Remoy.

The vending machine is not your ordinary gift shop, but in one that requires no attendant, just electricity.

"You don't have to run for shops. You can find it in a machine. It's a simple thing," said Remoy.

You can purchase anything you can imagine. You can buy items ranging from the cheap to the extravagant at the Semi Automatic, a vending machine located inside the lobby of the Mondrian Hotel on South Beach.

"From convertibles to Corvettes and from Bentleys to Pent Houses, you can buy whatever you want at Semi Automatic," said Reo Davis, Chief Concierge at the Mondrian on South Beach.

And to remember your trip to the luxurious Mondrian, you can pick up the hottest item: gold plated hand cuffs at $350 dollars.

The best part about this gift shop is that it is open 24 hours a day. When you buy one of the more extravagant gifts like a car, you get a voucher and they deliver it to you. How about that for service?

Hotel chain sells cars, electronics by machine
Associated Press - 8th April 2009
In the market for a Bentley sports car, a Jean Paul Gaultier dress or a cell phone, but don't feel like dealing with a pesky . . . click to expand

By TRAVIS REED – Apr 8, 2009
MIAMI BEACH, Fla. (AP) — In the market for a Bentley sports car, a Jean Paul Gaultier dress or a cell phone, but don't feel like dealing with a pesky salesperson?

Literally at the touch of a button, visitors to the Mondrian South Beach can buy those items — as well as more prosaic hotel gift-shop staples like toothbrushes — from a new lobby vending machine called a Semi-Automatic.

In a postmodern echo of the early 20th century's Automats, where office workers could buy coffee and comfort food without talking to a soul, the Semi-Automatic peddles a jumble of more than 60 items priced between $10 and $1.2 million in a large, sleek rectangular display.

"We don't have a newspaper stand or some place where you can just buy a sundry item," front office manager James A. Bryant III said. "We've got Semi-Automatic, which is sort of an 'in-your-face' gift shop. Just like our hotel is really sort of brash and out there."

Never mind the Jean Paul Gaultier dress, the 1965 Corvette convertible or the 24-karat gold hand cuffs. Visitors who really enjoy themselves can spring for a penthouse condo on the property.

"I think it's incredible," visitor Claude Beller from Antwerp, Belgium, said Wednesday. "Out of curiosity I might buy a couple hundred dollars' worth of something, but I'm not going to buy a $68,000 Corvette."

That appears to be just the reaction New York-based Morgans Hotel Group, owner and operator of 11 luxury hotels in the United States and London, is after as it rolls out Semi-Automatics nationwide.

"We asked ourselves, if we do our job of transforming guests into gods or rock stars or whatever description you want to give them, then our customers become more daring, more experimental and especially more indulgent with themselves," Morgans chief marketing officer Scott Williams said. "So if you're in that frame of mind, what do you want to go and buy? A neck pillow? I don't think so."

The giant white-framed and purple-accented display holds row upon row of white, high-gloss boxes, identical but for terse descriptions: "Sunset Dinner Yacht Cruise for 2," "Sony PSP-2000, Black," "2000 Bentley Azure Convertible," "Gunpowder Tea Candle."

Customers can view product images and details on either of two small screens. To make a purchase, they simply swipe a credit card, tap on the product and watch as a motorized arm scoots behind and retrieves it. Products too large for one of the machine's glossy shopping bags are assigned cards that can be exchanged at the front desk for the purchase.

Other vending machines carry cell phones, MP3 players and even disposable shoes for late-night clubbers. But none sates as wide a range of cravings as the Mondrian's Semi-Automatic.

"People just pass by it, and literally even if they weren't thinking about buying something, they sort of buy into the idea. They want to purchase something cool; it's almost a story to tell — really an experience," Bryant said. "I've seen people spend 20 to 30 minutes just looking at the different products, and just be amazed that we're selling just kooky stuff."

The biggest items, like cars and condos, the Semi-Automatic dispenses in two stages. Buyers first pay a nonrefundable $1,500 deposit that puts the item on hold. Then, hotel staff bring the vehicles around for a test drive or take the buyers to visit the property. Guests who change their minds forfeit the deposit.

"I guess for people who might not want service, it might work great," said Nidhi Agrawal, assistant professor of marketing at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. "Some people might get a kick out of doing this. But if you get a kick out of talking about an item, gushing about it, then a vending machine might not have the value you're looking for."

Top-sellers so far are gold handcuffs, a gold rabbit's foot and T-shirts with the word "recession" parsed into "Recess Is On" on one side and "(Expletive) the Recession" printed on the other. The shirt reads like a nod to both the hotel's risk in launching a $250,000 toy in the worst market in decades and customers' willingness to play along.

"When admirers ask where you bought your 2003 Bentley Arnage t, we dare you to say you bought it from a vending machine," reads the $90,000 car's description.

A Look Inside Mondrian South Beach's New-Wave Vending Machine
Hospitality Design- 9th April 2009
Mondrian South Beach is taking a quirky approach to the traditional vending machine with the Semi-Automatic, which . . . click to expand

Mondrian South Beach is taking a quirky approach to the traditional vending machine with the Semi-Automatic, which dispenses some very out-of-the-ordinary items. Front office manager James A. Bryant III describes the Semi-Automatic as an "in-your-face gift shop." Though guests can access staples such as toothbrushes through these machines, they can also purchase snarky T-shirts, 24-karat-gold handcuffs, a sunset dinner cruise for two, a penthouse condo, and even a Corvette or Bentley. (For the larger-ticket items, Mondrian requires a $1,500 deposit to put the product on hold.) Morgans Hotel Group plans to roll out the Semi-Automatics at its other properties nationwide.

Luxury vending machine dispenses jewelry, penthouse, care
Kare 11- 9th April 2009
If you visit one Miami Beach hotel you won't have to worry if you forgot something at home, even if it's your car. . . click to expand

If you visit one Miami Beach hotel you won't have to worry if you forgot something at home, even if it's your car.

At the Mondrian South Beach, they've taken the gift shop to the next level, with a luxury vending machine.

While you might expect to find bathing suits and jewelry, it's the big ticket items like a one-bedroom penthouse or a Bentley automobile that are getting attention.

The hotel's chief concierge says, "The most popular things are, oddly enough, things that you wouldn't expect. The gold-plated handcuffs have been flying out the door, as well as our $20 Paul Smith toothbrush."

Smaller items are in gift bags delivered through a pneumatic system.

Prices range from $10 to more than $1 million.