French student’s cooktop on wheels is a finalist in the Electrolux Design Lab 2008 competition.
Coox, the adaptive cooking table, lets users cook and eat wherever they are in the house, alone or with guests, and becomes an extension of the dinner table, coffee table or desk, depending on the situation.
The appliance is one of nine finalists out of more than 600 entries from 49 countries in the Electrolux Design Lab 2008 competition. This year, the sixth year of the global contest, undergraduate and graduate industrial design students were invited to create appliance concepts for the Internet generation.
“I think that flexibility is a very important theme for such a diverse and complex generation,” says the appliance’s creator, Antoine Lebrun, a design student at L’Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique, France. “Even though it’s easy to describe this generation, everyone has very different needs.
“That’s why my concept doesn’t impose one way of doing things but offers a maximum of possibilities for people to integrate it into their own lifestyles.”
The height of the appliance adjusts to adapt to its placement in the room. It cooks with induction technology, which allows the three-burner glass ceramic cooking surface to cool down immediately after the cooking process stops. There is also a warming area on one corner to keep food warm after cooking.
“Simple and useful”
Lebrun says that the concept was the result of an extended process, not a sudden insight. “When I started this project, I didn’t have any image in mind,” he recalls. “I wanted a fresh start without any preconceived ideas. My only desire was to develop a simple and useful appliance.
“After a while, I began to focus on furniture. Tables, desks and chairs, for example, are focused on only one or two basic functions. That was a real source of inspiration to me.
Lebrun is quick to point out that the product isn’t based on new technology. “I decided to use induction technology because it’s simple and works great.”
