Loop

Most of the global climate challenges that the world currently is facing are directly tied to the extensive resources use in developed urban areas. There is a current trend demonstrating that more people are moving into single-living household whilst still maintaining a relatively large living-area, making the energy consumption from these households unsustainably high.

The HSB Living Lab is a response to these issues. By creating an adaptable testing environment for new sustainable inventions, new ideas are allowed to surface, and a change can be made towards a more sustainable urban living situation. Washing clothes might not seem as the root of the climate issues, but studies have shown that users in general washes at half capacity, resulting in an unnecessary water, energy and detergent consumption. By developing a new solution for transporting, storing and washing laundry, this unnecessary resource wastage can be eliminated.

The aim of the project was to develop an innovative solution that encourages users to wash laundry simultaneously in the same washing-machine. The purpose was further to develop a solution that facilitates the laundry management throughout the different steps of the laundry cycle, including storing, transporting, washing and drying laundry.

User-studies were conducted with the aim of gaining an understanding of problems with currently used products and with the aim of extracting requirements that the developed solution needs to fulfill. A survey was conducted aimed to retrieve quantitative data and nine interviews complemented the survey with qualitative input. Guidelines from the design for sustainability methodology were used as a basis for the ideation phase where the created concepts were assessed with mockups and sketches. Discussion with supervisors and a concept scoring matrix were used in order to decide on a final concept.

The project resulted in Loop, a multi-functional laundry bag designed to facilitate every step of the laundry cycle. Loop is designed to be stored, filled with pre-sorted laundry, transported to the washing studio, washed, dried and carried back to the apartment before getting back into a new laundry cycle. Loop encourages shared washing by overcoming the obstacles connected to hygiene and privacy. Loop reduces the resource usage, saving both time and money, whilst still maintaining an optimal washing result. Loop further satisfies the individual preferences of various user types by offering multiple dimension, placement and handling options. The materials of Loop are mainly recycled fabrics, easily separable, making Loop fit into a closed loop system.