Nendo--the Japanese studio that has redesigned everything from chopsticks to magnetic eyeglass frames--is getting into the ice cream business. The firm has created an adorable little ice cream village, populated with chocolate houses, to nudge people to go home for the holidays.
Designed in partnership with the Champs Élysées Häagen-Dazs shop in Paris, the ice cream cake is meant to go on sale around Christmas, as a way to remind Parisians to make time around the holidays to go visit their loved ones.
"Christmas is about homecoming, about spending time together with family, so we created a cake that's a small village, composed of houses clustered closely together," Nendo says. "We thought the winter wonderland scene would emphasize the warmth and cheer inside each home."
The cakes come in two varieties: a caramel and nut-based cake, and a cake filled with oranges and other dried fruits. (If customers buy more than one Nendo cake, they are given free chocolate bridges to connect the two and form an even longer village.)
This is not the first time Häagen-Dazs has teamed up with a design studio to make ice cream. The American (not Danish, the company actually hails from the Bronx) ice cream maker has made something of a name for itself over the last few years for teaming up with designers to make ice cream cakes. Last year, Häagen-Dazs teamed up with Swedish design collective Front to design a cloud-shaped ice cream cake. The year before that, London designer Doshi Levien helped them create an ice cream cake that looked like a moon.
[h/t Dezeen]