The Mazor4all cutlery system, developed in partnership with the Mazor Mental Health Medical Center, is the first product from the platform to reach mass serial production and be adopted by a public institution.
The project was born from a painful reality: in closed psychiatric wards, standard cutlery is prohibited out of concern for self-harm or assault, leading to a situation where inpatients were forced to eat spaghetti inside a sandwich or use children’s plastic utensils. Gali Simon, Expert Peer Coordinator at the Mazor Mental Health Center, described this starkly: “If the staff doesn’t trust me to eat like a human being with a knife and fork, maybe I really am that abnormal not quite a person.” Dr. Laura Sharoni, Director of the Medical Center, added that when patients do not see themselves as people, this is a serious contributing factor to violent incidents.
The clinic was conducted in collaboration with the innovation and research team of MIRC – Mazor’s Innovation and Research Center led by Dr. Alon Shamir and Tzurit Gottfried, who approached the project not merely as a functional need, but with a profound understanding of how design affects patients’ sense of dignity and self-worth.
Throughout the process, the Mazor team served as a full partner in defining needs and evaluating prototypes. Students Amit Lavie, Omer Bigel, and Shon Marom were given the rare opportunity to accompany a product from the concept stage, through field trials, all the way to mold corrections in mass injection production.
The solution the clinic arrived at is cutlery featuring a flexible “neck.” The geometric structure allows rigidity during vertical cutting while enabling flexibility in a stabbing motion effectively neutralizing the utensil as a potential weapon without compromising the eating experience.
The transition to mass production required the use of Nylon 6 and a post-injection curing process, which allows the material to absorb moisture and reach optimal flexibility. Industrial dishwasher washing ensures the properties are maintained over time. The cutlery set has been submitted for patent and design registration.
Recently, the first 6,000 units were supplied to the Mazor Medical Center, and additional institutions have already expressed interest. The project embodies the potential of HIT’s Clinics platform a convergence of academic knowledge, applied research, and design with tangible social impact.
The name Mazor4all reflects a Design for All philosophy, a commitment to investing in improving the quality of life of those who tend to remain outside the public consciousness.
