Object Architecture

Milan-based design consultancy Syneo is in the business of branding companies’ futures. Using a process it calls Yellow Track, it analyzes how long-term social trends will affect a company’s environments, products, and communications. In 2000 Whirlpool was looking for just such a crystal ball and began teaming up with design firms such as Syneo for a biannual visionary exercise. “The idea behind these ‘exploration design’ activities is that we want inside people to connect to outside people,” says Alessandro Finetto, European director of global consumer design. “We want to mix designers with different experiences.”
The Yellow Track projects focused on rethinking the modern kitchen: improving the microwave, suggesting new ways of washing, and imagining how to arrange appliances for different lifestyles, such as nesting and entertaining. When Syneo design director Matthias Richter presented the projects to Whirlpool in spring 2005, he “added another variation,” Finetto recalls. “They concentrated on different behaviors, different mind-sets.” Analyzing sociological research gathered as a visiting professor at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, Richter told Finetto’s team that uses of the home had expanded and that appliances should adapt to these new lifestyles. “Our point was: Why shouldn’t the house change?” he says. “We didn’t want to do another fancy washing machine.”
The resulting nine-product in.home series, installed at last year’s Milan furniture fair, acknowledges that domestic be­hav­iors could be even further improved by changing the spaces themselves—finding ways to impart a celebratory feeling to dining at home, for example. “The things we proposed are not rocket science,” Finetto says. “These are innovations we could start tomorrow morning.” In fact, what began as a refresher exercise has turned into a launchpad for new products: a simplified iteration of in.home’s Lighthood pendant is currently in production, and a version of the Pure water system is in development. Featured here are two products from the series that rethink the relationship between household appliances and domestic space.

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Richter says that when the American open-kitchen concept invaded his native Germany in the 1970s, refrigerators were relegated to a hidden wall. Europeans are still following American ways, with “a tendency to have bigger and bigger fridges. That means a lot of wall surface, so why not use it in an expressive way?” Riffing off the tradition of magnetized grocery lists stuck to a refrigerator door, Syneo and Whirlpool transformed the refrigerator into a communicative divider that replaces the pass-through countertop. The two-sided Share has a traditional kitchen face, as well as “this expressive side with translucent windows toward the living area.” Besides signaling a pending refill, the window is a party decoration. “During dinner with friends, the whole thing is illuminated: the food, bottles of wine, dessert all become performers in a way,” Richter says. “You celebrate the product you put inside.”

Laundry Wall
“We thought the washing machine would be the most boring product of all,” Richter remembers. But in brainstorming sessions “people had so much to say about this topic.” The separation of clothing cleaning and storage in the basement and bedroom, respectively, was a recurring frustration; so was the necessity of reaching into the hamper to sort laundry by color before loading. In response, Syneo and Whirlpool merged chores into a single unit called Laundry Wall. Washer/dryer and refresher units flank a wardrobe, all architecturally integrated in a cool material palette. The washing machine also includes three built-in compartments for presorting. Following the theme of adaptive moods, the wardrobe was divided into performance, business, and nightlife categories, which illuminate when used.