Fisher & Paykel: THE SOCIAL KITCHEN 2012

Credits & Description:

Type of entry: Environmental Design

Category: Exhibitions & Live Events

Advertiser: FISHER & PAYKEL

Product/Service: TRADE SHOW

Agency: ALT GROUP Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Photographer: David St George (David St George)

Photographer: Garth Badger (Garth Badger)

Photographer: Toaki Okano (Toaki Okano)

Designer: Fisher/Paykel Design Team (Fisher & Paykel)

Designer: Aaron Edwards (Alt Group)

Designer: Ben Corban (Alt Group)

Designer: Kate Cullinane (Alt Group)

Designer: Janson Chau (Alt Group)

Designer: Zoe Ikin (Alt Group)

Designer: Dean Poole (Alt Group)

Creative Director: Mark Elmore (Fisher & Paykel)

Creative Director: Dean Poole (Alt Group)

Brief Explanation

A custom 65 metre long concept kitchen was designed and fabricated that allowed guests to experience a linear journey of food by hunting, gathering, storing, preparing, cooking, cooling, cleaning and sharing.

Visitors were encouraged to cook their own meal, engage with the company's products and design team and start a conversation about the role of the kitchen.

Describe the brief from the client

The goal was to communicate Fisher & Paykel's design philosophy to a design-minded audience at Urbis Design Day. The concept was seated in the Fisher and Paykels approach to product design - re-evaluating the kitchen as the social hub in everyday life.

Design Process

At every step Guests interacted with Fisher & Paykel designers who wore t-shirts with questions about the experience to prompt conversations about the life lived around the product they designed.

This allowed the gathering of insights that will have an impact on future generations of appliance design. 126 questions were compiled into a publication and gifted to guests at the end.

All details and elements of the event were designed from the wooden induction cooktop to custom aprons, utensils and plates.

Results

The event was attended by over 2,500 people in 2012 - building on numbers from the previous year, it has become an annual interaction point between the Fisher and Paykel design team and their customers. Based on the success and feedback from architects and designers in Auckland, the event will be extended on a larger scale in Sydney in 2013 to reach new audiences in Australia and Asia.