PET: iconic design and problem solving

Nowadays, packaging is required to be a meaningful object able to create a union between product and consumer, between values and needs, between brand and collective imagination.

Lurisia is aware of this and has requested the collaboration of PET Engineering in creating the PET bottles of the two lines of mineral water Stille and Bolle (respectively flat and with added carbon dioxide, while drawn from natural sources) with the specific request to transfer the iconic shapes from the glass version, designed by Sottsass Associati, to the homothetic plastic version, in order to make the identity of the brand recognizable.

The solution to a complex challenge. The PET packaging version, developed in the 0.5 l format, presented complex problems to PET Engineering’s technical team: to imitate the champagne base used in the glass bottle having at its disposal not a preform designed ad hoc but a preform already present in the market.
The use of a dedicated preform would have allowed a perfect distribution of the material on the base which, reinforced, would have been able to bare the internal pressure due to the carbonation, thus avoiding the rocker bottom effect. This phenomenon, in addition to constituting an “aesthetic” defect, creates a series of problems related to the stability of the bottle in line and on the table.
A second difficulty derived from the need, a must for the customer, that the two versions - Stille and Bolle - were morphologically identical in order, not only to preserve the distinctive packaging of Lurisia, but also to use the same series of moulds for their production.
The design therefore started from the most complex container: the sparkling bottle. In order to obtain a reproduction as faithful as possible to the glass version with champagne base, the team decided to modify the existing market preforms to make them more suitable for the purpose. In particular, the lower area of ​​the container has been redesigned so that the latter deforms in a voluntary and controlled way due to internal pressure, giving rise to the desired profile, which reproduces the sinuous and elegant shapes of the glass version.