Quilt + Mike & Maaike: Designing for sustainability

Design Dynamics

Maaike Evers and Mike Simonian share their experiences working with Paul Lambert and the Quilt engineering team. They emphasize the importance of a collaborative approach where design and engineering blend seamlessly, ensuring the product's overall success. Aarron Walter notes that this collaborative spirit is crucial for meaningful work, especially for those early in their design careers 1. Maaike and Mike's thoughtful design approach has been integral to Quilt's mission to create a desirable and effective heat pump for homes 2.

Everybody's there to make sure the product comes out good. And so that means that when we're designing something, we care about how it's engineered and we care about whether it's actually producible.

--- Maaike Evers

Their collaboration highlights the blend of skills and perspectives necessary for innovative design.

   

Collaborative Strategies

The team at Quilt, led by Paul Lambert, adopted a strategy that emphasized deep collaboration and innovation. Maaike Evers explains that early brainstorming sessions helped identify pain points and opportunities, fostering a culture of continuous improvement. This approach ensured that every team member was invested in making the product better 3. Paul and Maaike also discuss the interconnectedness of the project's elements, likening it to an ecosystem where every part must work together seamlessly 4.

It's almost like making this product better in any way we could identify was not a controversial thing that we had to convince anybody about.

--- Maaike Evers

This strategy of mutual investment and thoughtful feedback pushed the team to achieve their best work.

   

Client-Designer Relationship

Paul Lambert discusses the role of design in conversations with investors, highlighting its importance in creating a desirable product. He notes that while investors may not always be designers, they recognize the value of good design in consumer products 5. The team also focused on designing trustworthy experiences for homeowners, addressing pain points like price transparency and installation logistics 6.

The really kind of founding strategy of everything we're doing is, I think you could call design. It's real focus on homeowners and the pain points that they experience will try to bring into systems into their lives today and just trying to solve for them.

--- Paul Lambert

This client-designer relationship was crucial in ensuring the product met both aesthetic and functional needs.