Electrolux Design Lab’s 10th Anniversary challenge to international design students is tied to Electrolux professional knowledge and exprience in a theme that stimulates all senses.

Electrolux Design Lab is a global annual design competition inviting students and recent graduates of industrial design to compete for a six-month paid internship and prize money by submitting ideas that develop the sensory experience of home appliances. This year the jury will also take special note of the aesthetic qualities of the concept and the way textures and surface materials have been used.

Brief: Design Experience
As demonstrated in the Cube by Electrolux, the world of professional cooking is all about the experience. It’s not about achieving the perfect inner temperature of a steak for the sake of science or performance. It’s about designing the best possible experience for your guests. The creative force behind the experience is the merger of intuitive and innovative appliances with the creativity of the chef and carefully selected high quality ingredients.

The brief for Electrolux Design Lab 2012 challenges design students to draw inspiration from professional experience creators (chefs, architects, interior designers, hotel designers etc.) to design home appliances that will provide a fuller sensory experience. It might be through state of the art technology or it might be through a clever blend of textures and surfaces

Entrants will also need to consider the heritage of Electrolux. Submissions should reflect Scandinavian Design values by being sensitive to the environment, providing intuitive ease of use and aesthetic appeal.

“I believe the importance of our sensory perception is underestimated in a lot of today’s design. Too much importance is accorded to the visual. What if we could incorporate our other senses into design? Could we smell who’s calling? Or feel what’s on TV?” says Henrik Otto SVP of Global Design at Electrolux.

Autumn finals in Europe
Eight finalists will each be invited to participate in a final event in the autumn of 2012 held within a European city (to be announced) to present their individual concept to a jury of expert designers. The jury will consider entries based on intuitive design, innovation, aesthetic qualities and consumer insight when awarding the first prize of a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre and 5,000 Euros. A second prize of 3,000 Euros and third prize of 2,000 Euros are also on offer.

Deadline for entry is 23:59 CET June 1, 2012

For more detailed information please see the Competition section where you can read the full brief presentation, read up on the rules and register.

To see more of the event and hear the students present their concepts, the jury’s questions and the speakers, click here. ]]> http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2011/11/electrolux-design-lab-2011-final-review/feed/ 1 http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2011/09/the-electrolux-future-insight-blog/ http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2011/09/the-electrolux-future-insight-blog/#comments Wed, 14 Sep 2011 08:02:02 +0000 admin http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/?p=3400 What will 2020 look like? What do you think that means for Electrolux products and business strategy? The Electrolux Future Insight blog explores questions about the challenges of the future, and our role in tackling them. We invite you to join the conversation and have your say

Of the included design concepts, many were designed by previous Electrolux Design Lab participants. You can check out the 48 creations here or simply click on the image above. ]]> http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2011/01/trend-hunters-guide-to-48-electrolux-creations/feed/ 3 http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2010/12/induction-cooking-all-the-gain-without-the-flame/ http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/2010/12/induction-cooking-all-the-gain-without-the-flame/#comments Wed, 01 Dec 2010 10:39:22 +0000 admin http://www.electroluxdesignlab.com/?p=2760 Here’s a fun fact – did you know that induction hobs only generate heat when a suitable cooking vessel (made of ferromagnetic material) is put on top of it? No, it’s not cooking via magic, but a clever piece of engineering that creates an electromagnetic field when a pot or pan is placed on the hob to complete a circuit. It’s like a science experiment – the only difference is you can actually eat (in most cases) the results.

More people are choosing induction cooking technology these days and the reasons for doing so are quite simple: induction hobs are easy to clean, save energy, and are safer.

If you love to cook and cook often, you will understandably dread the washing up that follows. If you cook with gas then every so often you may get bits of ingredients stuck in the grills, or condiments and sauces splattered around the hob. In these circumstances most people will eat their meal first, wait till the gas-hob has cooled down (after an hour or so), and then proceed to clean up. However, cleaning an induction hob is almost effortless, simply because it has a flat and smooth surface. The residue heat from the pot or pan left on the induction hob cools down in mere seconds, enabling you to clean as you go.

As the induction hob is flameless the smooth ceramic surface remains safe to touch even when the pan or pot is hot. Best of all, it is equipped with an auto-off safety feature, that switches off when there are no pots or pans on it.

Energy savings are perhaps the most compelling reason for making the switch to induction – 20% more energy-efficient than a ceramic cooktop, and a whopping 40% more energy-efficient than a solid hotplate cooktop. This means that you can treat your family and friends with sumptuous food, and do your part for the environment as well!

Induction Cooking Christmas Tips
Vladimir Niza, a chef at the Daylesford Organic Cookery School in England is a regular user of induction cooking and has some suggestions that have been trialed on his induction hob for those of you looking for Christmas food inspiration:

Cranberry Sauce
For perfect cranberry sauce that isn’t too sharp, don’t overdo the sugar; instead add the zest and juice of a very juicy orange. The faster you cook the fresh cranberries the more nutrients, colours and fragrance you will retain, induction hobs are Vladimir’s first choice for fast cooking.

Honey Glazed Carrots
You can roast carrots on an induction hob with butter and glazed honey freeing your oven for the longer necessary roasting of dishes such as turkey or goose.

The Swede, whose concept ‘Cocoon’, took the first prize of a six month work placement and €5,000, joined Electrolux in April 2010. Rickard has since been an integral part of a project team responsible for designing dish care products and appliances.

“Working at Electrolux for the past six months has been a fantastic experience”. said Rickard “I have learnt so much and have enjoyed contributing to the development of some rather innovative projects alongside some great product designers.”

Rickard continued, “It sounds like a cliché but it really has been rewarding to turn design school theory in to practice here at Electrolux and now I’m looking forward to new challenges.”

Rickard’s new role will involve creating concepts that explore future dish washing solutions, whilst also continuing to support design iterations for current product lines.

Advice for Future Electrolux Design Lab Entrants
As Electrolux continue there quest to find the best young product designers through the annual Electrolux Design Lab competition, Rickard has been involved on an ambassadorial level, travelling to design schools and events within Europe to spread the word about his experiences and the opportunities afforded by the contest. And as a former winner Rickard offers the following advice for any future participants:

“If you apply for Electrolux Design Lab 2011 makes sure that you find a design that is motivated and relevant for the brief and the scenario. Also make sure that you concept gets a ‘wow’ feeling and that you really feel that it’s something fresh, new and really inspires people. Finally, don’t forget to have fun while working, if you are having fun it’s going to show in you concept.”

Details of the 2011 Electrolux Design Lab contest will be published shortly.

“To re-source oneself is to re-generate, re-energize, re-mix and re-lax,” says Bruno Lizotte, Design Manager of accounts at Electrolux, “and the appropriate space for this multi-tasking is, more than ever before, the home and its vibrant centre – the kitchen.”

The students also need to weave sustainability and culture into their work. Both are increasingly important issues for product design as our planet’s resources disappear and our changing habits and lifestyles are fed by multi-cultural influences and our quest for novelty.

The design concepts must be based on currently available technology, not what might be available in the future. The students will use a mix of material from the Academy and Electrolux.

“It’s a true collaboration not just teaching,” says Bruno Lizotte who will tutor ten international industrial design students – reviewing their work and giving them feedback. “The initial study already shows a dynamic new way of looking at our industry and promises novel solutions for the kitchen environment.” The students will deliver their projects in late November and we’ll share the results right here.

A two-sided collaboration
“As a designer myself, my role is to support and help the students based on my experience as a professional designer and the insights I have gathered from two decades in this industry. But it also goes the other way. I expect the students will show us fresh new ways of approaching our everyday tasks.”

The students are a very international mix from Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Italy, Turkey, India, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Hong Kong.

Further academic collaborations
Besides the Domus Academy collaboration, the Electrolux Design team is currently participating in a similar project with the Interaction Design Masters Program at the Umeå Institute of Design in Sweden, focusing on user experience.

Above:example of a traditional shophouse exterior by Nanoucoco for www.travelpod.com.

“Every house and every space is unique and you will have to work with the opportunities you have. We have bought a heritage house, being a traditional Singaporean “Shophouse“, so to start we have to work with a long narrow building which offers some limitation in space.”

“Traditionally ‘’shophouses” have three connected rooms on the first floor. You enter the living room, then in the middle the dining room and finally in the back, you have the kitchen.

“The kitchen is a really dynamic part of our house. This is where we all come together, either it’s around food, drinks, entertainment, work or just having a good chat. For all these different activities to happen concurrently, you need a rather big kitchen and the design of the kitchen should be well integrated with the rest of the living space.

We decided to turn it around so that one enters through the dining room, (and longest room in the house), where we will be able to fit a large dining table to seat eight people comfortably. Then in the back, we will have the living room – where more light enters the house, with the kitchen in the middle. This is the smallest space, but it allows for a nice integration with the living room, connecting the two major living spaces and placing the kitchen in the heart of the home.”

“It may not be as big as we would like it be, but it has been a nice challenge to create a design that makes the most of the space we’ve allocated, considering work flow and living space. We cook at home a lot so I want a beautiful and practical solution, but I have to admit that the aesthetics have been a strong driver of the design.

We also knew the overall style that we wanted and I must say that there are not a lot of suppliers in Singapore that could do what we were after and I am very happy that we found a partner in Vivant Concept & Contracts.”

“I believe any great kitchen design starts with an understanding of the appliances you want. We centred the design around the Electrolux 900 mm MaxiSense Induction hob. It’s an amazing product (above) and the long narrow format with three burners in a row is both practical and yet aesthetically very pleasing. With a black glass hob, we selected a dark grey quartz stone as working surface to keep the contrast down. The Electrolux T-shaped style stainless steel hood is an elegant yet simple design that will be integrated with an extended stainless steel shelf and to put less emphasis on the chimney, this will be covered in black wood panels.

The refrigerator and freezer, both also from Electrolux, are built-in and integrated with the doors of the kitchen cabinets, which are in matte crystal glass with white background. The Microwave and the Electrolux Pyrolytic Oven go in the wall between the fridge and the freezer behind an aluminium shutter (shelter) door. This way, we can choose when we want it one way or the other”.

“Additionally, for me, there are some must-have features such as a standing height table top, a computer to browse the web and enough space for people to work together or just sit and watch while others work. The light needs to be flexible, ranging from practical to ambient, allowing different applications.”

© Vivant Concept & Contracts

“This is very much our dream (my husband’s and mine) coming to life and it’s part of the expression of our house and how we want to socialise with families and friends.”

Previous finalists have included a portable solar cooker charged by its spray-on solar cells, a clothes washer where natural soap nuts replace detergents and a cooker that creates the night’s salmon dinner from a packet of genetically engineered muscle cells, oxygen, and nutrients.

The popularity of Electrolux Design Lab stems from a potential internship and learning opportunities awarded its finalists. For Electrolux, its dialogue and ideas are a springboard to thinking beyond current solutions to addressing challenges consumers face tomorrow.

In the short term, future generations of appliances will appear much the same as those found in our kitchens and laundry rooms today, however more intuitive, more energy-efficient and material-homogenous. Beyond individual appliances, we are thinking of the sustainable home, which is an integrated network where the waste from one product rejuvenates the function of another.

The leftovers from yesterday’s dinner composts into fuel for the gas stove, water for the washing machine is heated by the district heating system, and heat output from refrigerators and other electrical goods is captured and piped to a place where it keeps occupants warm on a chilly night. In mega-cities where space is tight, we see how individual needs can be served by shared appliances, like on-demand laundry services and compartment freezers for apartment buildings—resource savers that consume a fraction of the energy of today’s solutions.

Vac from the Sea

At Electrolux, we see sustainable design’s future as a culmination of the visual and interactive experience one enjoys when using a product, whilst simultaneously allowing us to make a change for the better. In the age of the conversation, designers are now better placed than ever to take this forward in tandem with consumers.

One particular conversation is also to be had with the suppliers of raw materials. Our foremost challenge in a world where population and economies are growing exponentially is to continually reduce the impacts of our products while guiding the consumer on how to make further sustainability choices.

In a push to Electrolux suppliers, we have highlighted the shortage of quality recycled plastic that can be used to manufacture products, whilst concurrently showing our concern with the amount of plastic that pollutes the environment. This is illustrated by our Vac from the Sea initiative which has seen Electrolux use plastic waste in the production of vacuum cleaners. Surely there is a permanent bridge that can be built to banish such discrepancies.

You can find out more about our ‘Vac from the Sea’ at:
www.electrolux.com/vacfromthesea

Imagery from the exhibition, an explainationary video and more detail about the Moléculaire follows.

Design Lab 2009 finalist Nico Kläber took the marriage of science and cooking to a new level with his ‘Moléculaire’ concept submission. The Moléculaire is influenced by chefs that scientifically and painstakingly experiment with food and their states to surprise and provoke fresh ideas in cooking. The Moléculaire simplifies a process that currently requires great skill, time and knowledge by acting as a cnc-food-printer for both professional and domestic kitchens. It autonomously prepares basic and otherwise difficult to create two and three dimensional parts of meals. It works with a layer by layer printing process using small particles from diverse ingredients. The aim of the concept is to provide simplicity, accuracy, repeatability and, of course, great tasting food!