By Chris Nicholls
SYDNEY: Electrolux has launched the sixth edition of its annual design competition, Design Lab, which invites industrial design students around the world to create home appliance designs for what it calls the ‘internet generation’.
The award will be judged on intuitive design, innovation, and consumer insight. Submissions need to look two to three years into the future and be aimed at what the company calls the ‘internet generation’ – brand-conscious, busy young professionals concerned about the environment, and who live with technology and via online social networks.
“We are looking for daring ideas and solutions,” said head of global design, Henrik Otto. “Entries should reflect the iGeneration’s core interests and concerns like mobility, convenience, time, materials, personalization, entertaining, technology, and sustainability.”
Electrolux said thousands of international design students had participated since the competition’s inception in 2003, including many Australians.
In 2004, a team of University of New South Wales students won the competition with their Rockpool waterless dishwasher, which used carbon dioxide instead of water to wash the dishes.
“Electrolux Design Lab is a great opportunity for Australian design students to express their ideas on sustainable product development and showcase their talent at an international level,” said Lars Erikson, Electrolux Australia’s design director.
Last year’s competition, “Green designs for 2020”, was won by a Hungarian design student with E-wash, a compact washing machine that uses soap nuts instead of detergent.
The Design Lab 2008 has a first prize of 5,000 Euro and a six-month internship at one of Electrolux’s global design centres.
Entries must be submitted by May 30, 2008 via www.electrolux.com/designlab. Finalists’ entries will then compete in Zurich at the international finals in October, where a winner will be announced and prizes awarded.