Head of the Class

College students wow the housewares industry with innovation and practicality

By Christina Owens
CTW Features

Image courtesy 2008 International Home & HouseWares Show

The cutting edge of home design is so new it hasn't even left the classroom yet. The winners of the 2008 International Home & HouseWares Show Student Design Competition not only won a monetary prize, but also the chance to unveil their budding talent as well. "This is a really nice opportunity for young designers and students to be connected with the industry," says EunSook Kwon, associate professor and director of the Industrial Design program at the University of Houston. "They can show their design creativity and talent to the industry which can allow them to continue their design careers."

Of the 215 entries, 14 students won honorable mentions and the following five were placed:

- 1st place: Sarah O'Brien, senior at the University of Louisiana

- 2nd place: Richard Hagee, senior at Columbus College of Art and Design

- 2nd place: Noah Balmer, senior at the California College of the Arts

- 3rd place: Faris Elmasu, sophomore at San Jose State University

- 3rd place: Alexander Brown, sophomore at San Jose State University

O'Brien's design, "Elizabowl," offered a different take on the traditional fruit bowl. "Fruit bowls are designed to store fruit and then there are also these really gorgeous bowls designed to display fruit," O'Brien says.

"I wanted to design something that was always filled and helped preserve fruit so that it wouldn't go bad." She says her first instinct was to create something functional. Form, she says, just seems to naturally follow. "I know I've solved a problem when it looks good," she says.

The design, made of scored plastic and a convexly curved base, holds each individual piece of fruit in place with folding compartments that can be manipulated depending on the size and shape of the fruit. O'Brien's piece in particular impressed the judges with its playful yet functional approach to design.

"It is really poetically grounded," says Kwon, a judge at this year's competition. "It is really enjoyable – even seeing the way it works. It makes people smile and happy."

�Kitchen Sync,� which placed second, brought laptop technology to the kitchen with a computerized recipe book. It's design, Balmer says, took him to a place he knew little about: the kitchen.

"With every design, there's a process that starts out with researching what people actually do and if there's actually a need for a new product. Part of the research was me trying to be a cook," he says. "There's no bridge between the computer and the kitchen. I started to cook and I got recipes from the Internet, but I would always cook it once and the paper would be totally destroyed and then I'd try to find it on the Web site and there are just so many recipes I could never find it again."

For Kwon, Kitchen Sync was an example of the changing face of housewares and the difficult task many designers face of combining aesthetics with functional technology. "I think that is a really new design boundary for the housewares industry where information technology is embedded into the traditional industry," she says. "This is one good example of how digital technology can enhance our future life in housewares."

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