Electrolux has design on the mind.

For a company that prides itself on forward thinking, it’s nice to see brands that follow the same lines. Electrolux, as mentioned previously here, hold a Design Lab contest every year.

The brief for the 2011 competition was ‘Intelligent Mobility’ and there were plenty of creative, original ideas presented. Of course there’s very little chance of us seeing them in the foreseeable future but I think it’s a great way to give designers and engineers the opportunity to think out of the box and really play with the word ‘innovate’.  

Out of the entries, 25 were chosen for the semi-final with 8 finalists selected on the week commencing 11th July.

For now, here are a couple of the entries that I found to be quite exciting and kind of wish we had around now....

Design: EMS Cooker
Country: Czech Republic
Designer: Simona Hruskova
School: Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague
A bracelet-type wrist mounted appliance that uses kinetic energy (the movement of the body) to charge up. It then can be unwrapped and placed around items such as cups or used as a heating plate. This would prove really useful on those cold days when we’ve bought a coffee on the way to work and need to keep it toasty warm!

Design: Heat Grenade
Country: New Zealand
Designer: Sam Evans
School: Massey University
A portable cooking device to be used in emergencies, the Heat Grenade is a cool James Bond-esque gadget I can see coming in handy. When closed, it looks like an egg, but press the button and it splits open like a flower and becomes an induction hob with slide out control panel. I can see this being a big hit on the festival circuit!

Design: Breez Portable Dish Dryer
Country: Canada
Designer: Andrew Parsons
School: Humber College
An appliance perfect for the Germophobes out there. This portable dish dryer uses a pulse motor to compress air into a thin stream that can blow at a speed of 400mph so your plate dries quickly and hygienically, ready to stick straight back into the cupboard. Certainly a lot healthier than using the same tea towel again and again in my opinion!
 

One thing apparent by looking at other entries is induction technology is rapidly becoming the go-to way of heating, due to its energy efficiency, quick heating time and flexibility of heating space. I for one am looking forward to finding out the winners in this contest and hope that ideas such as these become commonplace in the near future.