Enel, a leading European electric energy provider, launched in 2017 the campaign e-mobility revolution, to install thousands of public chargers to recharge electric vehicles.
Koz Susani Design was tasked with designing the entire portfolio of these electric vehicle chargers.
This was a rare opportunity to design a product with no precedents, to create a new urban icon designed to look familiar in the city landscape while providing an innovative function.
In the same way electric cars minimize their impact on the city, we designed an object that, while representing a ‘new necessity’, would reduce its impact on the fabric of the city.
We designed an urban furniture first, we created a design language that integrates perfectly with any street, whether in the historic center of a small Italian town or in the parking lot of the most modern shopping center.
Electric cars promise to be respectful of the quality of life in a city: they are not violent, polluting, aggressive disruptors of the calm of a pedestrian city.
Likewise, our charging stations are not imposing the language of the highway to the piazzas of an historic city: they use materials, shapes and proportions that fit naturally in the street.
Koz Susani Design was tasked with designing the entire portfolio of these electric vehicle chargers.
This was a rare opportunity to design a product with no precedents, to create a new urban icon designed to look familiar in the city landscape while providing an innovative function.
In the same way electric cars minimize their impact on the city, we designed an object that, while representing a ‘new necessity’, would reduce its impact on the fabric of the city.
We designed an urban furniture first, we created a design language that integrates perfectly with any street, whether in the historic center of a small Italian town or in the parking lot of the most modern shopping center.
Electric cars promise to be respectful of the quality of life in a city: they are not violent, polluting, aggressive disruptors of the calm of a pedestrian city.
Likewise, our charging stations are not imposing the language of the highway to the piazzas of an historic city: they use materials, shapes and proportions that fit naturally in the street.
The iconic shape is a pure cylinder, a simple, familiar form. The size of the charging station is miniaturized, to allow its top to fit below the line of sight, reducing the visual presence on the street.
There is a separation between the hi-tech ‘head’, where the high resolution user interface is, and the ‘body’, that uses traditional, architectural materials, like stainless steel and a variety of stone finishings.
These materials form a sort of ‘skin’, that could be easily replaced from a catalogue of ‘open source’ materials, so every city can select the material that fits better its architectural landscape.
There is a separation between the hi-tech ‘head’, where the high resolution user interface is, and the ‘body’, that uses traditional, architectural materials, like stainless steel and a variety of stone finishings.
These materials form a sort of ‘skin’, that could be easily replaced from a catalogue of ‘open source’ materials, so every city can select the material that fits better its architectural landscape.
