Hexual Heating
How can a kitchen appliance encourage people to cook and eat together as a group?
2016
The brief was pretty wide; design a device that can heat food and/or liquid. In order to design a product that was going to be of any use I’d need to make sure that I carried out effective research.
Using what you’ve got most closely available to you is always a good idea. What did I have that I could use for research that was right on my doorstep? University student life. For many people around me this was the first time they’d moved out of home, the first time they’d had to look after and cook for themselves!
My research was centred on the above, and more specifically how students cook together or more often than not, especially in the first year, the lack of cooking together. I discovered that this was mainly down to the lack of kitchen equipment that encouraged group cooking.
This formed the basis for the design of my product. It would be something that would encourage people to cook together. After my initial ideation and development I designed, a modular hotplate system that could be connected together to be used either to cook on, or to keep food hot.
The hexagon shape of the product means it is easy to adapt and fit in a number of places. In addition the way that the hotplates are arranged determined how hot they became. As a result the product not only encouraged people to cook and eat together but maked the whole experience as tactile as possible.
To download a copy of the report showing all processes in depth used to design this product click bellow...
