SolarPunk is a design exploration into how increasingly accessible solar energy might shape and integrate into our everyday lives in the near future. Embracing a hopeful vision of sustainability, the movement challenges traditional perceptions of renewable energy by imagining creative, aesthetic, and functional uses of solar power.
This collection of work was created by first-year Master’s students in Product Design at ECAL, under the guidance of designer Philippe Malouin. Developed specifically for the Soleil·s exhibition at the MUDAC design museum in Lausanne, the projects reflect bold experimentation and speculative thinking. Rather than focusing solely on efficiency or utility, the students explored poetic, playful, and sometimes unconventional applications of solar energy, highlighting the emotional and experiential potential of this technology.
Among the featured works are two standout projects which have been developed and feature in the exhibition: ‘Solar Shade' by Carl Johan Jacobsen, a wearable hat that powers a cooling vest using flexible solar panels, and ‘Butterfly Sunglasses’ by Takumi Ise, simple lightweight eyewear that combines colour, movement, and solar functionality.
Studio project, Collaboration (2025) with Philippe Malouin
By 2050, Paris could reach 50°C. Solar Shade is a wearable hat with flexible solar panels, inspired by traditional headwear like the conical and milkmaid hats. It powers a cooling vest with two fans, designed for those working in hot conditions, such as gardeners.
By 2050, Paris could reach 50°C. Solar Shade is a wearable hat with flexible solar panels, inspired by traditional headwear like the conical and milkmaid hats. It powers a cooling vest with two fans, designed for those working in hot conditions, such as gardeners.
By 2050, Paris could reach 50°C. Solar Shade is a wearable hat with flexible solar panels, inspired by traditional headwear like the conical and milkmaid hats. It powers a cooling vest with two fans, designed for those working in hot conditions, such as gardeners.
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Butterfly Glasses are lightweight, versatile sunglasses that rest gently on the face, adding a dynamic touch of colour. Made from spring steel and a clip-on film sheet, they adapt to the wearer and offer interchangeable colour and UV filter options.
Butterfly Glasses are lightweight, versatile sunglasses that rest gently on the face, adding a dynamic touch of colour. Made from spring steel and a clip-on film sheet, they adapt to the wearer and offer interchangeable colour and UV filter options.
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Solar Chime is a sound installation powered by sunlight, producing tones when rotating chimes randomly intersect. Inspired by the suikinkutsu, its soundscape shifts with the intensity of sunlight, creating a dynamic, ever-changing experience.
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Cartel is a solar-powered signage solution that uses low-energy e-ink technology to display and update information via Bluetooth. Its 7.5-inch black-and-white screen is suited for both static and dynamic content.
Cartel is a solar-powered signage solution that uses low-energy e-ink technology to display and update information via Bluetooth. Its 7.5-inch black-and-white screen is suited for both static and dynamic content.
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Solar Fountain explores creating city infrastructure powered by sustainable, autonomous energy. By being installed in a lake, it draws its water directly from the source and operates entirely on solar power, eliminating the need for external energy and water supplies.
Solar Fountain explores creating city infrastructure powered by sustainable, autonomous energy. By being installed in a lake, it draws its water directly from the source and operates entirely on solar power, eliminating the need for external energy and water supplies.
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The Clock Sucks is a small solar-powered clock that attaches to windows, exploring how glass can serve as a medium for energy-harvesting devices. It's silicone construction suctions onto glass surfaces.
The Clock Sucks is a small solar-powered clock that attaches to windows, exploring how glass can serve as a medium for energy-harvesting devices. It's silicone construction suctions onto glass surfaces.
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Final Presentation at La Becque
Final Presentation at La Becque
Final Presentation at La Becque
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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.
