The winners of the annual Electrolux Design Lab have been announced and we are now looking forward to the next year. The 2014 event showed that young designers are ready to think outside the box (pardon the cliché). A snail that heats your mug of Ovaltine or a fridge with a brain… just a few years ago it would be deemed irrelevant. Today it is a reality but in just a couple of years from now, we’ll be using those appliances in our own homes.
The top prize went to Peter Alwin, studying at the National Institute of Design in India. The judges thought he stood out on the background of more than 1300 entries. He has designed a portable cooking and heating device The Snail that can sit on any sort of a dish (pot, pan, mug) and heat the contents to a pre-set temperature. It takes the energy from a sugar crystal battery.
Second prize and the People’s Choice Award went to Russia – Yuriy Dmitriev designed a Bio Robot Refrigerator. It was the people’s favourite by quite a long stretch, accumulating 37 per cent of votes (ironically, the judges favourite, The Snail was voted second lowest by the public – just 5 per cent of total votes).
The third prize went to Matthew Gilbride from North Carolina – he designed an all-in one modular shelving unit for kitchen.
Wow, these are some really great ideas. I can’t wait for something like the robo fridge to come out on the market. This contest definitely puts people to the test on how to learn 2 build green.