The Impress refrigerator wall is one of the
many Electrolux Design Lab 2012 entries that should get you excited
about the future of industrial design.
Are you the kind of person who throws a box of leftovers in the
fridge, only to forget it was ever there? One design student figured the
solution to this would be if you could keep sight of what’s in your
fridge whenever you walk by… so what’s a better way to do that than to
eliminate the door as a whole? Wait, huh?
Sounds
like a crazy idea, but according to Ben de la Roche’s logic, his
door-less refrigerator might not sound as wild as you’d imagine. The
energy-conscious design features hexagonal panels that act as an opening
for each item inserted. The fridge — interestingly-named Impress — does
not power to cool anything until it realizes an object is inside, and
even then the machine will only cool the area where the item is
located.“Impress is a refrigeration wall that holds your food and drinks for you, out in the open and not behind closed doors so you will always remember the lunch you prepared for work or find that midnight snack with ease,” de la Roche, 21, writes in his contest entry. “Waste no more leftovers, waste less space and save more money with Impress.”
Thanks to the honeycomb design, the fridge wall can shapeshift to fit whatever the item you are trying to refrigerate. While the idea will definitely work for beverage and or sealed containers, open plates of food or fruits will need a cover or a plastic wrap to keep the contents from spilling inside this proposed fridge design. We also wonder how well the design will work for soups or food items that need to be stored horizontally.
The eco-friendly and literally off-the-wall design earned de la Roche a trip from New Zealand to Milan to present his entry with the hopes of earning the grand prize: €5000 (approximately $6,453 USD) and a six-month internship with Electrolux at its global headquarters. Since 2003, Electrolux has hosted a Design Lab competition to undergraduate and graduate industrial design students. The 2012 final event for the design competition will take place on October 25, where we’ll hope to see more incredible designs come alive to make us feel one step closer to the future.
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