Heat pumps are energy-efficient household climate systems essential for transitioning to renewable energy and combating climate change. Typically installed outside close-by to buildings, they are becoming common visual elements in urban landscapes, often resembling air conditioners with limited design variety across brands. To reimagine these essential typologies, Viessmann, a world leading Heat Pump producer, invited MA Product Design students from ECAL to develop innovative concepts, resulting in designs that challenge norms and explore new visual identities of heat pumps.
Collaboration (2025) with Augustin Scott de Martinville
"Oasis" incorporates a heat pump into a compact architectural structure that integrates various environmentally focused features, including bicycle and electric vehicle storage, water collection, and solar panels. The heat pump's draft is directed to cool the solar panels, enhancing their efficiency. Its scalable design facilitates easy adaptation for individual or shared use of this sustainable hub.
"Oasis" incorporates a heat pump into a compact architectural structure that integrates various environmentally focused features, including bicycle and electric vehicle storage, water collection, and solar panels. The heat pump's draft is directed to cool the solar panels, enhancing their efficiency. Its scalable design facilitates easy adaptation for individual or shared use of this sustainable hub.
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Developed in the Swiss context, "Tavillon" reinterprets a traditional architectural technique in which split wooden tiles are used for façades. Similar to a chimney on a tavillon chalet, the heat pump is clad in wooden shingles and can be positioned atop the building, departing from the convention of existing heat pumps while preserving a vernacular and sustainable building tradition.
Developed in the Swiss context, "Tavillon" reinterprets a traditional architectural technique in which split wooden tiles are used for façades. Similar to a chimney on a tavillon chalet, the heat pump is clad in wooden shingles and can be positioned atop the building, departing from the convention of existing heat pumps while preserving a vernacular and sustainable building tradition.
Developed in the Swiss context, "Tavillon" reinterprets a traditional architectural technique in which split wooden tiles are used for façades. Similar to a chimney on a tavillon chalet, the heat pump is clad in wooden shingles and can be positioned atop the building, departing from the convention of existing heat pumps while preserving a vernacular and sustainable building tradition.
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"Unified" is a scalable and adaptable system for Viessmann heat pumps, built using anodised extruded aluminium profiles. The design enables the creation of various sizes and configurations of heat pumps with just two extrusion dies—one straight and one with a rounded corner. Inspired by the lenticular lens effect, the profile shape conceals internal components whilst allowing for efficient airflow.
"Unified" is a scalable and adaptable system for Viessmann heat pumps, built using anodised extruded aluminium profiles. The design enables the creation of various sizes and configurations of heat pumps with just two extrusion dies—one straight and one with a rounded corner. Inspired by the lenticular lens effect, the profile shape conceals internal components whilst allowing for efficient airflow.
"Unified" is a scalable and adaptable system for Viessmann heat pumps, built using anodised extruded aluminium profiles. The design enables the creation of various sizes and configurations of heat pumps with just two extrusion dies—one straight and one with a rounded corner. Inspired by the lenticular lens effect, the profile shape conceals internal components whilst allowing for efficient airflow.
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"Terra Cotta" integrates Viessmann technology into the garden landscape without hiding it. The materiality lends familiarity and enables a beautiful ageing process, while protecting the technology from outside factors. The brick format uses standard clay extrusion processes to allow for a format with sufficient airflow required for the pumps functionality.
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"Mailbox" integrates heat pump technology into a familiar street typology: the mailbox. In particular, it pays homage to the iconic Swiss letterbox design by Andreas Christen. This iconic Swiss design is typically produced in various formats, often featuring a cavity space beneath the boxes. In this concept, that cavity has been optimised to house a heat pump, seamlessly incorporating it into a commonplace street element.
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Founded in 1917 as a heating technology manufacturer, today Viessmann Climate
Solutions is a leading global provider of sustainable climate (heating, cooling, water and air quality) and renewable energy solutions. The Integrated Viessmann Climate Solutions portfolio seamlessly connects products and systems via digital platforms and services, creating an individualized feel-good climate for users. Viessmann Climate Solutions is part of Carrier Global Corporation, global leader in intelligent climate and energy solutions that matter for people and our planet for generations to come. For more information, visit Viessmann Climate Solutions
Client Presentation
Client Presentation
Client Presentation
Client Presentation
Client Presentation
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MA PRODUCT DESIGN
by Adam Friedrich
Airy is a research project that explores the use of air as a primary resource. It uses inflatable structures to protect valuable devices during travel. The design employs contemporary materials and pays particular attention to detail to offer relevant, everyday solutions for safeguarding increasingly fragile and valuable electronic devices.
MA PRODUCT DESIGN
by Alicia Stricker
Folly approaches the craft of beaded embroidery from a product design perspective. It explores the value of tactility above the visual aspects that the technique is traditionally valued for. Consequently, the project manifested as something that is experienced by the body - a sofa. Scaling up the traditionally small beads and applying principles of beaded embroidery in the development of a textile sofa cover allowed for the sofa to transcend its classic typology, creating a three-dimensional surface with a biological sculptural presence - an object that breaks the mould of what we expect of something as familiar as a sofa and begs to be experienced through touch.
MA PRODUCT DESIGN
by Brice Tempier
Due to limited housing capacity in urban areas, more people are living in small dwellings. At the same time, renting has become a common form of housing in many countries, including among adults. These conditions, sometimes marked by instability, frequent moves, and a feeling of not truly belonging to the place where one lives, led the designer to reflect on our relationship with domestic space, its temporary nature, and the difficulty of making it one’s own. This project takes the form of a small, mobile structure, the size of a bed, conceived as a personal spatial frame within a room. Péninsule is a dense and flexible living space, a micro-architecture open to appropriation.
MA PRODUCT DESIGN
by Carl Johan Jacobsen
In the U.K new court ruling threatens trans-people while the US government is doing a full assault on trans and female bodies. Hardwear is a collection of wearable objects offering a sense of protection in urban environments, as a response to a growing tendency of hostility towards the body. Hard surfaces become flexible armor, protective shields transform into high heels. Whether to preserve personal space on public transport or to create cognitive distance Hardwear aims to create a sense of security. By using hard materials, the feeling of being safe inside a car is transformed to the outside resulting in a line of wearable objects made for for everyday resistance. Drawn on protection typologies from sportswear, Hardwear is made of 100% recycled plastic with 3D printed elements.
MA PRODUCT DESIGN
by Cedric Zimmerman
DUCTUS is investigating how tangential fans can be reinterpreted in combination with spiral ducts, which are normally used in industrial HVAC systems, in a modular, energy-efficient ceiling ventilation system. The galvanised sheet metal is perforated locally using a specially developed laser manufacturing process and then processed into spiral ducts in an industrial standard procedure with almost no material loss. These ducts serve both as air ducts and as a supporting structure for the fan unit. The system, manufactured in collaboration with the Lausanne-based company Air Ventil, generates a wide, quiet air flow while also adding architectural accents.