2026

Design Awards Gold Winner - Auk

Auk Mini 2

Entrant

Auk

Category

Smart Home - Kitchen

Client's Name

Country / Region:

Norway

Auk Mini 2 is an indoor smart garden that lets you grow fresh herbs, salads, chili, and tomatoes – all year round. It's the successor to the award-winning Auk Mini 1, redesigned from the ground up with feedback from over 200,000 customers.

Innovation:
The first innovation is the new LED light: A new optical lens system centers the light onto the plants instead of spilling it into the room. Traditional grow lights are harsh and illuminate the entire kitchen; Mini 2 is the first to solve this, making a grow light that's actually comfortable to live with—without sacrificing growth.

Its third-generation hydroponic system delivers up to 20% faster growth than its predecessor. Despite its 12% smaller footprint, the redesigned water tank holds 25% more water, reducing refill frequency and making it easier to maintain. Auk Mini 2 also remains an open growing system, so you can grow anything that sprouts: any seed, any cutting, no proprietary pods. You can even pre-cultivate seedlings for the outdoor season.

Form:
It's all wrapped in a timeless Scandinavian design, built like a piece of furniture rather than an appliance: clean lines, rounded corners, a braided cable, and carved dowels that sit flush with the base. Now available in five new colorways: Espresso Walnut, Espresso Oak, Cream Oak, Terracotta Beech and Sage Ash. Materials of the highest quality: FSC-certified wood, Norwegian recycled aluminum, and food-safe, recyclable ABS, built to last for years.


Impact:
Most of us live in cities, with no green space and no time to garden. So we are stuck with supermarket herbs: sprayed with pesticides, shipped across continents, wrapped in plastic, wilting within days and mostly ending up as waste. Auk Mini 2 replaces that with clean, fresh greens, harvested the moment you need them. It's a small piece of nature back indoors, giving you both incredibly tasty herbs and the subtle, proud feeling of "that basil, yeah, I grew that myself".

Credits

Johan Schreiner
Industrial Design
Magnus Bjørnstad
Project manager
Jostein Kvitvang
Chief Product Officer
Didrik Dimmen
Project Contributor
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