Savor
Project Timeline: 5 months
Team: Individual (Industrial Design Masters' Capstone Project)
Year of Completion: May 2019
Role: Product Design, Researcher
For: School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi
Overview
Savor is a single appliance meal maker. It is a compact cooking solution for young professionals, which prepares a single bowl Indian meal. Daal and rice is a staple diet in North India, consumed at least once a day in majority of households. This appliance is an efficient way of preparing this wholesome meal by enhancing the cooking experience, inspired from the techniques of Rajasthani (Western India) cuisine like Slow Cooking and Single Pot Cooking which is known to extract the best taste in food. The concept of ‘One Bowl Meal Solution’ is incorporated to make daily meal by preparing two components at the same time.
Product Initiation
The project initiated with a deep understanding of traditional cooking practices in Western India which were lost over time, replaced by quicker and more convenient solutions. The project navigated to find the reasons of the adoption and lost cooking practices, and arrived to focus on this problem statement
Busy individuals find cooking traditional meals time-consuming and rely on external aid.
Design Research
Literature Research
Carried an extensive research to understand the origin and what components contribute in making the cuisine local to Western part of India.
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Climatic and geographical impact on cuisine
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Arid and dry region with scarcity of water and fresh vegetables influenced the ingredients and cooking techniques
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Use of dairy products to reduce use of water and hardy grains (grounded as flour) and legumes were used prominently)
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Ethnical impact on cuisine
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75% of population of Rajasthan is pre-dominantly vegetarian and cooking with limited resources got creative and efficient.
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War-like lifestyles also shaped the cooking techniques (sand-pit cooking) and raw materials (game meat)
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Geographic Study
Ethnographic Study
Primary Research
The Primary research focused on observing and getting insights from these aspects:
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Conducted 12 user interviews to understand their daily routine, user pattern and the pain points in the cooking experiences.
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Reliance on take out, going out or external help to cook.
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Find it time consuming after coming back from work.
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Crave for the authentic flavors
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Conducted 6 interview with the locals who cook daily to get insights from their cooking practices and adaptations done over their cooking journey.
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Everyday diet includes dal, rot, rice and any seasonal vegetable and made themselves daily
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Adaption to newer appliances like air fryer and pressure cooker to ease the work.
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There has been inclusion of many vegetables due to year round availability, still preservation plays an important role.
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Ground flour of grains and legumes widely used as a substitute for vegetables on special occasions.
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Interviewed 2 experts on the lost art of traditional cooking and the origin and how are they preserving it currently.
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Old practices are craved but are not practical for the modern kitchen.
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Process of drying is a pivotal part in the cuisine and losing its taste as not done authentically.
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Single Pot cooking, Slow process was very prevalent.
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Attended cooking sessions to analyze the techniques used in preparing traditional food.
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Trying to cook and order and taste the relevant food and time it to gain first hand experience.
Pictures collected during primary research
As the research was focusing on two areas, the cooking techniques and identifying the area of intervention based on the pain points of the users, the reframed problem statement
How Might We make everyday cooking easier and efficient
Utilizing traditional cooking techniques to enhance the flavors
Concept Generation
The concept development is divided into three areas
Roti (Flatbread) Making
Putting down the process of flatbread and some design concepts
Press Iron and Roast Pan
3D printer for Flatbread
Spice Grinding
Concept for using traditional stone grinding at the comfort of home
Spice Grinder
Stone Spice Grinder
Cooking Appliance using Slow Cooking
Design appliances with different automation using slow cooking techniques to enhance flavors to prepare gravies and dal.
Concept Feedback
To try combine techniques together and create one pot wholesome meals.
Design Development
Created 3D renditions on software to work out the form and internals, and physical model to understand the proportions and ergonomics of the design.
3-D Form Exploration
3D Internals
Physical models to understand shape and usage with respect to kitchen and user and provide proof of concept for the size.
Design Feedback
To simplify the internal mechanism and do testing of the concept.
Final Design
Single pot Meal maker
Slow Cook
Steam
Air Fry
Features
Steps to Cook
2
Add Ingredients
1
Select Recipe
3
Serve the meal
Internals
Mechanism
Magnetic Induction transfers heat to the Soapstone containers to have even heat at low temperature of 80-100 degree. Depending on the recipe, it takes around 2hours to 8 hours to cook.
The stoneware heats the water, which cooks the rice due to temperature and cooking time difference. The cooking of rice can be stopped through outlet of steam
The tempering of spices, tadka is used as a taste enhancer for most Indian Dal or the base of Indian gravies. The air fryer can also be used to fry indivisually as well, through the loaded recipes.
The shutter mechanism helps in transfering the temper to the cooked Gravy.
Exhibition Feedback
To make a working prototype of the product and add more versatility to cook different variety of food preparations