Tech-Drawer

Overview

“Create a product that encourages people to work in flex offices.”

The client specialises in the office environment and enhances it for day-to-day workers. These workers come to a place where they want to leave their belongings safe while still keeping them close. Yet there is no safe way to leave your work equipment at your desk when taking a short break. Lockers are available, but they require a physical key, which can easily be forgotten or lost. As a team, we wanted to create a product that easily tackles these issues and helps users feel safe.

Client: Ahrend
Duration: 5 months
Team: Group project
Main parts: Sketching, modelling, rendering, UI

AI-enhanced render: Tech-Drawer cover: the closed cabinet with black shell and pine front.

Inception

The problem

There are no ways of keeping belongings in a safe space. Lockers might be an option, but they often require a physical key that can easily be lost.

A bright flexible office with shared desks; bags and jackets on chairs and the floor, no personal storage.

What is available now

There are many options for lockers and drawers, but few are aesthetically appealing, practical and customisable. Most alternatives target one specific angle and are not available for companies to customise. The client has many competitors, but none of them seem to have created a solution that is innovative enough, or that makes users want to use it:

drawers with a key lock
drawers with an analogue code lock
group lockers with a digital code
group lockers with individual key locks

A white office drawer cabinet on castors with a key lock.

A white office drawer cabinet with a mechanical combination lock.

A wall of shared office lockers with digital keypad locks and a terminal.

A block of shared office lockers with individual key locks.

Ideation

Design according to need

The solution needs to be easy to use, available for desk workers, and easy to fix if problems arise.

Board of pencil sketches exploring rounded cabinet forms, with notes ‘slides out’ and ‘maybe slide card?’.

Solution

Carefree for the flex worker

A smart electronic lock with a motherboard. Stainless-steel, full-extension zinc electric slides. A separate board connecting all the electronics, with an independent battery that lasts 24 hours.

If the power fails, the 24-hour reserve battery keeps the lock working, so you can still get your belongings out without having to force the drawer open.

AI-enhanced render: Exploded view: black shell, white shelved rack, pine front with finger-pull groove, and the four side rails.

AI-enhanced render: The Tech-Drawer pulled out: white laminated shelved rack on full-extension rails, pine front with its finger-pull groove.

AI-enhanced render: Close-up of the finger-pull groove: a smooth cove along the top edge of the pine veneer front, behind a thin lip.

AI-enhanced render: Close-up of a full-extension ball-bearing slide screwed to the cabinet and the pull-out.

AI-enhanced render: Detail renders: rounded corner, smart lock, strike, side rail and shelves.

AI-enhanced render: Inside the pull-out: the smart lock and the control unit with its battery, wired on the front liner.

Unlock the drawer from the phone

With the app, you can reserve, lock and unlock a drawer next to your desk.

1UnlockReserve the drawer next to your desk and unlock it with your code in the app.
2Pull outThe pine front glides out on full-extension ball-bearing rails.
3StoreLaptop, headphones and keys stay safe on three shelves.
4Slide shutPush it closed; the smart lock engages under the top.
5CarefreeLocked and out of the way. Carefree for the flex worker.

AI-enhanced render: The closed Tech-Drawer under an oak desk in an office.

AI-enhanced render: The Tech-Drawer pulled out under an oak desk in an office.

Colour, material & finish

Warm wood outside, clean white inside: black powder-coated steel for the shell, pine veneer for the front, white laminated MDF for the rack and shelves, and zinc-plated steel for the rails.

AI-enhanced render: Colour, material and finish: black powder-coated steel, pine veneer, white laminated MDF, zinc-plated steel.

In context

AI-enhanced render: A flexible office with back-to-back desks, a Tech-Drawer at every workstation.

AI-enhanced render: The closed Tech-Drawer in a warm, light study.