The oven, rebirth of the social communal centre within a household: Graduation Project for Miele and TU Delft

The oven, rebirth of the social communal centre within a household: Graduation Project for Miele and TU Delft

Buijs, W.J.

Van de Geer, S. (mentor)
Özcan Vieira, E. (mentor)

Industrial Design Engineering

Industrial Design

Master of Science Design for Interaction

2012-07-02

1.Assignment In deliberation with Miele and the TU Delft an assignment was formulated for this graduation project, focusing on a new oven concept. The title of the assignment is: The oven, rebirth of the communal social center within a household 1.1 Introduction The oven, stove or fireplace has been the central meeting place within living areas for over thousands of years. This is the place where people get together and the communal food is prepared. Next to the primary function of heating food, the oven also generates warmth, light and smell, which provides comfort, protection, coziness and intimacy. For centuries the food preparation in the common home took place within the main living area. Over the last two centuries the preparation started to take place within a separated area, the kitchen. In the 50’s the first serving hatches were introduced, having the living and cooking area partly connected by a small opening in the wall. It has only been for the last ten years that the new trend of open-plan-living has fully submerged the cooking and living area once again. In the foreseeable future this trend is expected to increase even more in popularity. 1.2 Problem definition Currently the oven is still a place where people get together. It is a place within households where people work together and create their food. The communal activity bonds people. It can vary from preparing a quick lasagna together, to baking cookies on Sunday. Because of the social aspect people have positive association and memories about being together, the baking smells, the warmth etc. Despite of all this, the oven as a product, has often lost its central position within households, especially compared to its position a century ago. Nowadays most ovens are electric, build-in and lack the atmospheric qualities that for example wood-fired stoves have. The oven is often purely designed on its baking functionalities and rarely responds or does not respond at all to all the potential user-product interactions. The oven has so much potential to interact with its users. It is one of the few products that stimulates a process that involves all the human senses. Currently there is not really an oven on the market that reacts to this. The new trend of open-plan-living puts the oven in the centre of the living area once again, asking for a social communal role of the oven. Having the kitchen and living area within one room, means that products should fit two different sets of interactions. The ''living'' aspect demands a new vision on interaction and therefore an entirely new type of oven. 1.3 Project goal The goal is to reestablish the central communal role of the oven within households, with an innovative concept. The oven should be designed to fit a combined ''cooking'' and ''living'' environment. It should increase the frequency of oven use and the level of social activity. The interaction with the new concept should have more affinity with all the senses that are involved in the usage.

oven
household

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f2a38306-0e74-48a6-bfc2-1230fcbcde30

Campus only

Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2012 Buijs, W.J.