MHIAA scores gold for design

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Air-Conditioners Australia (MHIAA) has been recognised at the 61st annual Good Design Awards ceremony.

The Avanti Plus split system air conditioner received a prestigious gold accolade in the product design category for outstanding design and innovation.

“With the rise in electricity costs and awareness around climate change, along with many air conditioners considered ‘bulky’ and ‘unattractive’, our goal was to develop a modern, sleek and stylish air conditioner that could easily integrate into any home interior while delivering higher energy efficiencies, complete user comfort, lower running costs and ultimately, a reduced environmental impact than current air conditioning models on the market,” said the company in its submission for the award.

“By conducting extensive market research within our target market, reviewing current designs of competitors and by working closely with the industrial designers at TENSA, we were able to develop an elegant, modern and minimalistic design that featured contoured corners for a ‘slim’ feel and large louvres for even air distribution.

“By improving component design, including new convenient and energy-saving features and by utilising a newly developed refrigerant we were able to develop our most efficient air conditioner yet, with our 2.0kW model achieving a 7 star ‘super efficiency’ rating – the highest of any AC in Australia.”

The Good Design Awards attracted a record number of submissions with close to 700 design projects evaluated this year.

“We would like to thank Good Design Australia for this important accolade and we are both honoured and proud that our Avanti Plus unit has been recognised in this way,” said MHIAA managing director Yuji Ito. “We are committed to bringing Australian consumers the latest innovative products with improved features and energy efficiencies.”

The award was presented to Ito as well as Hiroyuki Otake – general manager of technical division at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Thermal Systems in Japan – who flew to Australia on behalf of the MHI Group companies.