Even as a child, Anna Øren recognized the power of design.
Øren grew up in Høyanger, a small industrial town in Norway. Divided by a fjord—the Sognefjord—the town is surrounded by mountains and has a population of just over 4,000 inhabitants within its municipality.
“I was utterly bored in this town, because there was absolutely no movement apart from avalanches every now and then,” said Øren. “It was like time stood still—the same hardworking people in sad surroundings every day.”
But the core industry of Høyanger, aluminum production, served as creative fodder for Øren’s imagination during the region’s dark, rainy days. “In Høyanger, they produced aluminum and sometimes it was spilled into weird shapes on the ground outside the factory,” she explained. “My imagination grew and I [spent] most of my childhood wondering what to make of this spilled aluminum and how to make my surroundings and things beautiful. I understood early on that if we surround ourselves with sunlight and open spaces, charming nature, wonderful gardens and architecture, we will become more happy.”
Building a Career
After studying industrial design in Manchester, England, Øren returned home to Norway, and learned that Einar Hareide, former design director at Saab Automobile, was establishing a new industrial design company there. She applied for a job at the firm and became the first designer in Hareide’s Norwegian office. “Every day for 11 years, I was so happy and thankful that I could work for this super designer,” said Øren.
During her tenure as creative director at Hareide Design, Øren won several international and national awards for her designs, including Red Dot “Best of the Best,” “iF Gold” honors and several Awards for Design Excellence from the Norwegian Design Council.
Following a three-year professional hiatus when she got married, moved to Moscow and started a family, Øren returned to Norway and started her own industrial design company, NokoAnna.
“Now, I am back in Norway, in a charming town called Fredrikstad, with a picturesque coastline, lots of sun, and my own design business and creative space—finally living the dream I had when I was a child,” she said.
Designing in 3D
“Being creative is like a never-ending roller-coaster ride, but I always follow the same process,” said Øren. When approaching a new project, she begins with a brief from the client and then researches a theme. With a combination of freehand sketches and quick 3D models, she creates as many ideas as possible for the client to review.
“I am an industrial designer,” said Øren. “My customers need to see every detail of the product before starting production.” Øren uses Solid Edge to create 3D models and lifelike renderings that can easily communicate design concepts to her customers. After receiving feedback from the client, Øren then uses the 3D CAD software to complete the design. “3D is a good tool for evaluating every detail of the product in an early stage, and a good tool for gaining an understanding of how to assemble the product,” she said. “When the customer is satisfied, I then send the 3D files to the constructor in the company, and we play with the files before the start of prototyping and production.”
Øren has used Solid Edge for the past 15 years and she stays current with the latest version of the software. “Solid Edge is the best tool to create and communicate my ideas,” she said. “I also like the fact that I can send my 3D models for prototyping directly—that gives me full control over every detail.”
Scandinavian Influence
Scandinavian design is known for combining clean lines and nature-inspired aesthetics with practical functionality. To push this traditional envelope of design, Øren partners with Oh Yeah Studio, which is owned by her brother, graphic designer Hans Christian Øren, on a project dubbed OGN to develop creative skills without any strict parameters or deadlines. “In this cooperation, we challenge the built-in knowledge that form follows function,” she said. “We first start with beautiful graphic shapes and give them a function, just to widen and challenge our creative knowledge and horizon.”
One result of the OGN project was The Stone, a minimalist cube to organize cords and cables. “I have designed everything from trucks to wheelchairs, but my favorite is to design furniture that we can see, use and that will last,” she said.
But even as she invents modern iterations of everyday objects, Øren’s cultural roots continue to influence her designs. For example, her “flygande teppe,” or flying carpet chair, was influenced by her grandmother’s handmade rug and the fairy tales her grandmother told her when she was a child.
“The Scandinavian culture is inside of us, and is somehow visible in an abstract way in all our designs,” she said. “Our respect for nature. Our honest use of materials in harmonic and functional shapes. Our culture, fairytales and history are in every pencil stroke of the Scandinavian designer, I think. And ‘form follows function’ is a golden rule.”
Siemens PLM has sponsored ENGINEERING.com to write this article. It has provided no editorial input. All opinions are mine. —Lisa Lance
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