Dishwasher history and its role in modern design

The fundamental steps in the development of electrical technologies have determined their strong diffusion in several applications that were previously hand operated and controlled. The household appliance industry is one of the sectors where this permeation had the major effects, fostering a continuous search for new design perspectives. Capturing such product evolution is fundamental in order to preserve knowledge coming from past experiences, which could act as a stimulus for new technical solutions or socio-economic analysis. Starting from the description of the dishwasher historical evolution, in this paper an approach to preserve such precious knowledge is presented: a functional representation of that knowledge is proposed end its role in modern design is discussed.