Repurpose Dock

The Repurpose Dock is a premium induction charger you can repurpose as a tray at the end of its lifespan. Meant to stir conversations around how our products could be better designed to reduce our excessive waste. Charging Docks on average have a lifespan of 5 years. Roughly 50-100 Million charging docks enter the landfill each year. A question emerged. Can we give a second life to a product that is designed for obsolescence?

Materials: Bead blasted anodized aluminum, walnut, PETG, lambskin leather, and cork.

Client

Personal

Date

2023 / Duration: 6 weeks

Designers

Matt Ravenelle

My Contribution

Concept Development, Prototyping, CMF, Final Model

Early Concept. Inner components can be discarded and elastic fabric can be used as a tray.

Early concept with dynamic bezel transforming dock into tray.

Selected concept for development. Bottom of base becomes tray.

Filtering what forms were cliché and new, while developing a form that maintaining a thin profile, but also visually solid and beautiful in dock orientation and it’s tray orientation. Also mindful of milling cost, and choosing the right surface that felt premium while also communicating coil placement through form.

The final decisions were figuring out how to indicate the phone was charging through an LED while also maintaining an uninterrupted surface on the front face of the base so - when in tray orientation - it would appear as if it was always a tray. A Full LED ring was explored but ultimately went with a micro-perforated, laser-drilled LED indicator on the exterior aluminum with an internal extruded light pipe to channel light which eliminated the need for an injection molded part. When the LED is off, the perforations visually disappear.