Blackstone Pizza Oven
Blackstone, an outdoor cooking appliance company based in Logan, Utah, sponsored this semester-long studio project during my third year at Brigham Young University.
Blackstone asked our team to redesign a housing for their pizza oven that incorporated the original interior components.
Existing Pizza Oven
Pain-points identified from the out-of-box experience:
Assembly was difficult
Exposed sheet metal edges are sharp
Simple cleaning and maintenance requires a lot of disassembly
Top-heavy design
Ideation
As a team, we spent a couple of hours generating ideas of new forms for the pizza oven to get jumpstart our form ideation.
40 Oven concepts
I used thumbnail sketches to record a lot of ideas quickly, then went back later to refine them.
Group critique to share ideas and give feedback
Categorizing
After generating 40 concepts of my own, I made small scans of them, categorized, and named them. Moving forward, these 14 categories gave clarity to my ideas and served as a library of visual qualities
Initial quick sorting
Refined groups by form
Naming each group
Concept Development
I moved forward with modular and tabletop/personal oven concepts. Stackable ovens could be more useful for caterers or for feeding large parties, and having a table-top sized model makes it easier to store and integrate with other appliances.
Form would work well for stacking, but felt too industrial
Curved front and back surfaces lend a more artisan feel. Handles would not allow for side-by-side placement with multiple ovens.
Recessed handles are sleeker, and different materials add interest to the form.
Standalone thermometer added per Blackstone’s request, and logos and the knob are updated to match current design language.
Material choices
Powder coated back, sides, and bottom match Blackstone’s current design language.
Brushed stainless steel front matches many existing indoor kitchen and outdoor cooking appliances.
Mirror-polished platform highlights the function of the oven and is easy to clean.
