Gardena

The initial brief: design an EV-charger for high-end mountain cabins and summer houses in the Gardena design language. This was later adjusted to a tighter brief: design a charger that fits into Gardena's "City" product series, with a form language inspired by wind, snow, and waves rather than Gardena's existing garden-tool vocabulary.

Started with a form study of Gardena's own product DNA (the robotic lawnmower and City series): three levels of interaction/form, curved surfaces, "floating" panels, a faceted panel edge, matte surface finish. Built a moodboard of high-end reference imagery (Tesla charge ports, dark stained-timber cabins, black stone facades, Range Rovers under carports) to calibrate a "high-end, understated" register rather than a consumer-gadget one. Ran a second moodboard around split lines, chamfers, and curved surfaces from consumer electronics and product design references (lamps, headphone shells, bike frames, portable speakers) to source a formal vocabulary. Explored the wind/snow/wave brief directly through quick sketch series: "subtle wave" panel splits, then more figurative sketches referencing stacked stone, wood grain, and rippling water. Converged on a "wind, screen, shelter" direction: a single asymmetric, faceted panel that leans off the wall like a windbreak or a folded piece of fabric, sheltering the charging handle behind it.

The final concept is a wall-mounted charger built around one dominant curved, faceted grey shroud panel that wraps forward off the wall, sheltering the charging handle and coiled cable behind it, echoing a folded wave or a wind-shaped drift of snow. The handle dock sits recessed with a blue accent ring and a small "READY" status readout with a battery-percentage indicator, in Gardena's blue/grey/black palette. Rendered against dark timber cladding and concrete facades to test how quietly it sits in a high-end residential setting.