Heat pump product design

De Warmte is a scale-up from the Netherlands with the mission to provide affordable and sustainable heating solutions for all households. ManGo Product Design was requested to design and engineer a hybrid heat pump to be added to their product lineup. Challenging us to create such an attractive design that it would enhance a house instead of being an eyesore. On top of that there was a 4-month deadline until the first installations had to take place.

Client

DeWarmte, Netherlands

Services

Research, Design strategy, Concept development, Prototyping, Design for manufacturing

UN Goal

Concept development

Due to the time limitation, we avoiding mouldings for the housing to save time and use sheet metal. A beautiful material to work with especially in combination with high-end coatings. However, design freedom is limited due to manufacturing constraints and driving costs up if a design requires a lot of welding to be made. Every week a meeting with the client was planned in which concepts were discussed. After which these were fine-tuned until the final design was approved for engineering. This agile approach allowed us to make design decisions fast and meet the deadline.

Machine aesthetics

ManGo came up with design characteristics transforming the heat pump from utilitarian machine to an attractive and fashionable appliance. A design which is distinctive but not perceived as disruptive in any environment. Besides its good looks functionality was validated in the process through CFD-analysis and several prototypes. To ensure turbulence free airflow, limited energy use and low sound levels.
Our local supply chain was also utilized to the fullest to allow DeWarmte setting up production in a very short period.