Electrolux Design Lab 2010 – The 2nd Space Age

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To boldly use what no man has used before – the design competition that spawned DustMate Shoes and the FlatShare fridge announces 2010 theme.
Electrolux Design Lab 2010 invites design students to compete for a six-month paid internship and prize money by submitting ideas that consider shrinking domestic spaces. The brief specifically seeks solutions that address how people will prepare and store food, wash clothes, and do dishes in the homes of 2050, when 74%* of the global population are predicted to live in an urban environment.
“Now in its eight year, Electrolux Design Lab offers the designers of tomorrow an opportunity to test themselves and gain valuable insight in to the world of commercial product design” says Henrik Otto, SVP of Global Design at Electrolux. “This year we’re looking for concepts that consider the way we use domestic space. The ideas need to be green, adaptive to time and space and allow for individualization.”
September finals in London
Eight finalists will be invited to participate in the final event in London to present their entries to a jury of expert designers. The jury will consider entries based on intuitive design, innovation and consumer insight when awarding the first prize of a six-month paid internship at an Electrolux global design centre and 5,000 Euros. A second prize of 3,000 Euros and third prize of 2,000 Euros are also on offer.
Deadline for entry is May 1, 2010 via the Electrolux Design Lab website.


ELECTROLUX DESIGN LAB 2010 – The 2nd Space Age Fact Sheet
In 2010 the global urban population is predicted to be 3.5 billion by 2050 it is expected that this will be 6.4 billion people (74% of the world population) Source: UN
The majority of urbanisation until 2025 will likely be concentrated to the developing world. The number of urban dwellers in the developing world will increase by 50.5% between 2007 & 2025
Megacities have 10m+ inhabitants in 2007 there were 19 Megacities. By 2025 it is predicted there will be 27 Megacities (Asia = 16, Africa =3, Europe = 2, North America = 2, Latin America = 4)
The world’s largest city by 2025 is expected to be Tokyo with 36m inhabitants.
If, as now predicted, the global population grows to 9bn+ by 2050 and if we want to leave a buffer for the preservation of biodiversity, we need to find ways for the average person to live well on less that half the current global average footprint.
Worldwide 30-40% of all primary energy is taken up by buildings (source UNEP). As an example of the need to change way of life in the city to create a sustainable future, people living in Stockholm, Sweden need to decrease their energy consumption by 60% between 200 & 2050. Source: Mattias Höijer, Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm
As cities become more heavily populated the need to find interior design solutions that decrease people’s living space.
Urban sprawl (unplanned urban development) creates negative social & environmental impact e.g. increased energy consumption, segregation and increased infrastructure costs. To manage this, the car will be de-emphasised, more will be made of building projects (making the most of space, keeping housing closer together and offering a variety of size/cost options to diversify communities)
Cities may create problems they also contain solutions. According to the UNFPA the potential benefits of urbanization outweigh the disadvantages but the challenge lies in exploiting the possibilities.