eve

The concept eve was made during my early days at Umeå Institute of Design in the form of a 3 weeks design sprint. My aim was to challenge the current aesthetics in the field of faucets as well as enhancing the user experience.

Focus 1 - Awareness of water consumption 

One goal that I set to myself when starting the project was to create a faucet, that encourages you to use less water. The first step is to increase the awareness of our water consumption. The water out of the faucet seems to be an infinite resource. We turn it on, it flows in a constant stream until we turn it off. We don't get a feeling for the amount we have used. We get in contact with it for a moment and then it has already disappeared in the drain. On the other hand the faucet should remind you of your water consumption in an unobtrusive way. It shouldn't force you to behave in a certain way. By very subtle representation of your water already consumed, it will already influence the way you interact with the faucet. We all know that we should turn off the water while brushing teeth, sure, but we also know, how hard it is to change our routines and get rid of bad habits. How could we encourage people to do so? By making it fun, by making a game out of it. Instead of suggesting how much water should be consumed on a daily basis I want to give people the opportunity to set their own goal and then they can try to get better and better. They can also compare their results with other peoples results and feel rewarded when they could manage to use less water. 

Focus 2 - Exploring new materials 

My second focus in that project was, to explore the possibilities of alternative materials when it comes to faucets. Right now the marked is dominated by metals. A current trend is the usage of copper, but besides that you see mainly steel faucets. The faucet at the moment is basically an extension of the water pipe in the wall. I wanted to create an object that seamlessly integrates in a bathroom environment. Most bathroom are dominated by ceramics, stone and other organic materials. So I choose to investigate in that direction. Before designing the shape I had to explore the possibles of ceramics and concrete. The possible shapes are strong influenced by the behavior of the material in production. Ceramics for example need to have a certain material thickness. Also sharp edges cannot be achieved with regular mass production methods.The mechanic functions of turning water on and off, adjusting temperature and water flow, need a certain precision of the material, that cannot be achieved with ceramics or concrete. Therefore I ended up with a combination of two materials. An outer shell made of ceramics or concrete, and the functional components made out of metal. The combination of new materials with the classic metal offers endless variations when it comes to color & trim finish. Customization is possible and therefore the faucet integrates perfect into every home environment.