Mittee

A better home for produce.

A University of Houston industrial design project exploring terra cotta, moisture, and adjustable ventilation as a simple response to household food waste.

Updated product visualization of Mittee with its original terra-cotta lid, sliding vent, clear container, and branding — Mittee’s clear container, terra-cotta lid, and sliding vent.

When: University project 2021 · Entrepreneurship collaboration through 2022
My role: Industrial design · Human-centered research · Material exploration · Prototyping
Where it stands: University design project · Concept & prototypes

Begin in the kitchen.

Food waste is also a problem of everyday routines. Busy schedules, uneven knowledge about produce, and the way food is stored can make fresh ingredients easy to neglect. Mittee began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the home became an especially important place to examine those habits.

The project asked how an ordinary storage object could make caring for produce simpler. Research and observations informed a concept that considers the environment around food: moisture, air movement, and the behavior of different produce.

Rather than adding a digital interface to the task, the design explores whether the qualities of a material and a few direct adjustments could do useful work.

Updated visualization of the original Mittee produce-storage design containing tomatoes on a kitchen counter — Mittee holding tomatoes on a kitchen counter.

Let the material help.

Terra cotta is central to the concept. Water in the lower tray works with the porous modules to introduce moisture around the produce. Adjustable vents provide a way to retain or release air and ethylene gas.

Those physical relationships informed the object: a base for water, internal terra-cotta elements, a container for produce, and visible adjustments a person can understand. The material strategy and the interaction strategy were developed together.

The design proposes a way to influence the storage environment. How well it extends freshness across different foods and conditions remains a question for comparative testing.

Updated Mittee visualization highlighting the original sliding terra-cotta ventilation control — Sliding terra-cotta ventilation control and मिट्टी branding.

Original Mittee CAD rendering with the lid, clear body, moisture-control modules, and lower water tray separated in an exploded assembly — Lid, clear container, terra-cotta modules, and lower water tray.

Research into a real object.

The process moved from food-management research and stakeholder observations into sketches, material experiments, prototypes, CAD, and product communication. Testing terra cotta meant thinking about porosity and moisture alongside the practical questions of cleaning, assembly, and use.

Form development explored how the modules and tray could be combined into a legible household object. The product needed to make its controls understandable while fitting the ordinary spaces and habits around food storage.

Mittee was featured in the 2021 Industrial Design Student Exhibition. It was also selected for a University of Houston entrepreneurship collaboration that continued through May 2022, extending the design question into a potential business proposition.

Overhead view of a hand placing a green pepper in the open Mittee container, with its terra-cotta lid set beside it — A hand placing a green pepper in the open container, with the lid set beside it.

Care can be ordinary.

Mittee remains a useful counterpoint to my software and AI work. It asks what happens when a solution is grounded in material behavior, a familiar habit, and the place where a problem occurs.

The lesson I carry forward is to choose the kind of intervention that fits the need. Sometimes that means a connected software environment. Sometimes it means an object that does a small, understandable job in the kitchen.

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