Posted 08.28.2009 at 3:00 pm
16 Comments
Meet your kitchen of the future. Electrolux Design Lab has announced the finalists in their annual design competition. Undergrad and graduate industrial design students were challenged to envision new home appliance ideas for the year 2100 that create new ways to prepare and store food, wash clothes, or do dishes. Of 900 entries, these eight were selected as the most inventive, eye-catching, and forward-thinking.
The finalists have conjured ideas that make food appear from thin air, grow herbs on Mars, clean clothes you’re wearing, photocopy meals, and grow a steak. Check out the gallery to see them all.
Last year’s winner, Austrian designer Stefan Buchberger, took the prize for a compartment-style fridge. The Flatshare has individual, stackable modules so that people living with roommates can keep their food separated and avoid pesky things like putting initials on milk cartons or yelling at someone who just ate your last cupcake.
The winner will be announced in London on September 24 and will receive 5,000 Euro and an internship.
[Electrolux Design Lab via Unplggd]
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None of these ideas are really practical. They focus on aesthetics instead of actual functionality, i think. Waste of time. :/
Haha you are right... check out these more realistic home designs and future homes. they are pretty cool.
http://maggwire.com/articles/index/popular-science/published:month/category:home-design
Come on David Seong and David Choi - they aren't that bad. I like the idea for the dishwasher/cabinet.
arnt aesthetics really the point? why do we have TVs if radios can do practicaly the same? its because of the video content...in essence, aesthetics. in a comparasin of cost the aesthetics properties of the TV are through the roof.
What is there left of practical functionality, weve pretty much hit the limit(there are exceptions).Time for AESTHETICS
FOOD PRINTER!?! HOW DID WE NOT THINK OF THAT?!?!?
I mean for craps sake we have a building printer, an ORGAN printer (http://www.devicedaily.com/misc/bio-printing-technology-to-produce-functional-human-organs.html), why cant we print food?
I mean if the computer snaps a shot of the exact molecular structure of your favorite bowl of soup or your favorite kind of cake why couldn't it reproduce it?
Could this be the first generation of the protein resequencer/Replicator from Star Trek?
c'mon davids, why would you deny credit to these innovative thinkers??
form is the step forward after function. it would have been much easier if they just said "hey! this works well already so thats that, who cares about how it looks"
in any case. we need become more active in future thinking. its the only way to speed up progress. the past few years have been stale and dull (relatively speaking). it is as if we became too comfortable with the way things are.
progress should outpace everything else.
Yeah, i can design a Teleportation fridge too, But tell me if anyone can actually build it! My Tele-fridge also beams in giant Wonka bars too, maybe i should win!
Quite interesting I must say but most of them have technical problams in the econonmics of it. I mean a fodd "teleporter"? This isn't Star Trek
The only practical thing there is the dish washer
This makes me remember those old magazines were they used to predict year 2000 with flying cars and stuff.
There isn't one single practical thing here, not one. Just fire to your eyes!
GUYS!!! FOOD PRINTER!!! WHAT THE HELL!?!? NOT PRACTICAL??? WE COULD DO THAT NOW!!! COME ON!!!
Why not teleport the food directly to my stomach, or how about a car that runs on dreams and pixy dust.....I want cash for coming up with worthless junk. How about tiny little scrubbing bubbles that float around and clean everything for me.....oh wait I saw that on a commercial somewhere. Give me a minute, I can come up with about a million more.....
You can get these ideas out of a science fiction novel. It seems to me a waste of time to hold a contest for "magical machines whose properties are nowhere close to fruition".
i like the dishwasher/cabinet thing......these are good ideas, but some are a bit far fetched.....
sox all the way
a food printer would be nice
Everyone, the point is for them to be a bit far fetched. Restrained Design is great for manufacturing, but doesn't create massivly innovative ideas. Sure you could qoute about the Iphone or what ever you please, but even those could be ten times better. These design competitors created solid, beautiful designs based on futuristic concepts and user interface. Think you can do better? I highly doubt it. Leave the designing to the designers please and go worry about engineering on another article :P.