The Electrolux Challenge

Industrial design students at Sweden’s Umeå Institute came up with this multi-load washer.

Students have designs on futuristic laundry

By Alan Wolf, YSN

For the eighth consecutive year, Electrolux has challenged students at Sweden’s Umeå Institute of Design to come up with new takes on an old category: home appliances.

With only four weeks’ lead time, the school’s industrial design scholars were tasked with creating new white-goods concepts under the theme of “The Future Home.”

Four teams were formed to tackle different product goals, including “The Agentive Home” and “The Hearthscape.” For the former, the students envisioned OWL, which they described as “a laundry product that’s helpful but not intrusive.” Designed for use in a bedroom, hallway or walk-in closet, OWL scans clothing, detects the fabric type and any stains, and then steams, deodorizes and scents the apparel, while a “smart wand” handles spot cleaning.

Team Hearthscape also conceived a laundry product, albeit one for communal use. The CL-35 reimagines laundry by washing multiple loads at once, using separate, stackable, color-coded baskets. “CL-35 turns laundry into a social ritual of trust and shared responsibility, fostering connection while promoting sustainability,” the students said.

For students, the appliance challenge, combined with feedback from Electrolux experts, “puts them on track for success,” said Thomas Degn, director of the school’s advanced product design program.

For Electrolux, the students’ outside-the-box concepts help stimulate R&D ideation. “We wanted to challenge these students as we challenge ourselves to imagine the future home,” said Timo Mashiyi-Veikkola, Electrolux’s head of design research. “The students’ ideas help us think differently.”

Student concepts from past years included:

• Ease, a top-loading horizontal oven that eliminates the physical strain of bending and lifting by sliding dishes onto a tray at countertop level, which is then lowered into the oven cavity.
• Autocare, a robotic laundry basket that autonomously loads a companion washer. 
• Jodana, an ecosystem of cooktops that adapt to the user’s circumstances. Can be stored vertically and combined with others in a modular system when cooking for more than one. 

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