“ADT” burglar alarms, Southwark • I often find clusters of bell boxes, but they’re usually random and mis-matched. However now and then I come across groups of identical sounders arranged into geometrical compositions, which – to use a fine art term – I think of as burglar alarm “multiples”. This one takes the biscuit: six plastic daisies with ADT alarms as their centres, dancing across a wide white wall. It was a temporary installation on the side of London’s Design Museum in 2005, but I never found out what it was in aid of. I quite liked the mystery, but after 30 seconds on Google I’ve discovered it was Daisy T from Sweet Dreams Security, “the ADT alarmbox flower attachment [that] transforms your existing alarmbox from dull and dreary to chirpy and cheery”. In the mid-noughties the firm, brainchild of ex-graphic designer Matthias Megyeri, made some amazingly cute security products – from a CCTV camera disguised as a cat and butterfly-studded razor wire to teddybear padlocks and heart-shaped chain links (which sounds more like high-end bondage gear than a burglar deterrent). Apparently Megyeri was struck by the bizarre mixture of security and kitsch he saw on London homes, as compared with his native Stuttgart in Germany – especially all the ADT sounders – and set out to combine the two “to change the visual language of security products from depressing to seriously humorous”. • Spotted: Shad Thames, Southwark, London, SE1, England, 2005 • Politics: In the Liberal Democrat constituency of Bermondsey and Old Southwark
Bump!! Check this out for multiples +1. Looks like they drilled from the other side of the wall though! (I’m assuming these types of bells are driven by water flowing so once the holes are drilled you can’t just move the box by 4″). Obvously not actually burglar alarms so a bit off topic but impressive. And presumably still there.
http://www.clerkendweller.com/2009/2/17/How-Much-Logging-Monitoring-and-Alerting
Ha ha, that’s brilliant – thanks for the link!
No doubt!
I’d love to know how that came about; I can just imagine the look on the surveyor’s face when the customer (the main man from a design museum no less) requested 5 boxes on that particular elevation – all randomly situated!
For something like this I imagine they did it in collaboration with ADT as a promotional piece – I assume the sounders are merely decorative and not wired up to anything. It was in place for a year and apparently became a popular local landmark…
I want one of those flowers for my bell box now!
what people walking down my street would think, I don’t know!
You’ll need an ADT box too … it’s the only one it fits.
aww!