Jihyun Ryou, Design Academy Eindhoven graduate, did his Master Thesis about food preservation. By accumulating traditional oral knowledge, he looked at a feasible way to bring the knowledge into everyday life.
"Through the research about the current situation of food preservation, I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, refrigerator. We don’t observe the food any more and don’t understand how to treat it.
Therefore my design looks at re-introducing and re-evaluating traditional oral knowledge of food, which is closer to nature. Furthermore, it aims to bring back the connection between different level of living beings, us as human beings and food ingredients as other living beings."
Verticality of Root Vegetables -carrot, raddish, leek...etc. Keeping roots in a vertical position allows the organism save energy and remain fresh for longer time. This shelf gives a place for them to stand easily, using sand. At the same time, sand helps to keep proper humidity.
Dryness of Spices Rice absorbs the humidity easily. The spice container with rice inside helps spices stay dry without forming into a mass.
Humidity of Fruit Vegetables -zucchini, aubergine, pepper...etc. We tend to think zucchini, aubergine, cucumber, etc. as vegetables. But they are biologically fruits. This shelf gives them a space to be outside the fridge. Also through the ritual to water them everyday, they will stay fresh.
There are so many born-dead projects floating about we sometimes forget that - before anything else - design is an exact discipline in which function gives nothing away to style, and technical innovation is there to serve real user protocols and not just the sales pitch. With their 'Silver Art' range, Elium Studio has made this clear, demonstrating how French elegance can inform industrial design.
Five pieces compose the breakfast set - espresso machine, coffee percolator, toaster, electric jug and juice extractor - enacting subtle crossovers from kitchenware to tableware, and from function to décor. Purity of line and high finish given to materials (brushed stainless steel, wood chrome) in series products opens a new window on these archetypes of modern living: in the 'Grand Hotel' spirit, modest everyday accessories for preparing and serving access to the status of potential collector's pieces. The range reflects the way Elium Studio uses technology - efficiency must always be user friendly. This is the right stuff in the French vein, expressing clear balance between function and form.
A life-saving student design that could replace the smoke alarm as the essential home gadget has won the international James Dyson Award.
Automist, which was chosen from the final shortlist by inventor James Dyson, can both detect fires and put them out by aerosolising the water from a standard kitchen tap.
Automist can be fitted directly onto any standard kitchen tap to create domestic alternative to a sprinkler system. In the event of a fire, a wireless heat detector triggers the under-sink pump driving water through a nozzle – quickly filling the kitchen with a fine mist to put out the blaze.
London product design graduates, Yusuf Muhammed and Paul Thomas, will receive a £10,000 cash prize. There university department at the Royal College of Art will also receive £10,000.
James Dyson appreciated the inventors’ ingenuity, saying, “This simple but clever device should become a permanent safety feature in the home. Smoke alarms are essential part of modern life but have remained fundamentally unchanged for forty years. Automist not only detects a fire but can put it out as well.”
60% of domestic fires originate in the kitchen. Each year more than 400,000 fires occur in US homes, resulting in thousands of deaths and injuries.
The idea for the design came from a brainstorming session with a number of firemen at Chelsea Fire Brigade in London. The team worked on the design with trauma and stress experts, fire engineers, international sprinkler specialists and fire fighters. A working prototype was tested in a fire facility.
Muhammed was thrilled to learn his idea had won, “It’s fantastic news. Paul called to let me know we’d won at 2.30 in the morning. We’re hoping to use the prize money on testing and getting Automist on sale.”
The James Dyson Award is an international design award that celebrates, encourages and inspires the next generation of design engineers. It’s run by the James Dyson Foundation, James Dyson’s charitable trust, in 21 countries.
Studio Gorm is a collaboration between John Arndt and Wonhee Jeong. They met while studying at the Design Academy Eindhoven but their office is now located in Eugene, Oregon where they also work in the product design program at the university.
'Flow' is a kitchen they have designed where waste products are used to grow plants.
'Flow' is a living kitchen where nature and technology are integrated in a symbiotic relationship, processes flow into one another in a natural cycle, efficiently utilizing energy, waste, water and other natural resources. It provides a space not only for preparing food but an environment that gives a better understanding of how natural processes work. A kitchen where food is grown, stored, cooked and composted to grow more food.
The flow products can be used independently but are far more effective when they work in concert as part of the larger system. The individual objects are relatively uncomplicated, acting as simple vehicles for the more complex natural processes to do the work. This kitchen is developed as a flexible system where resources are reused by several elements creating a dynamic flow between the products. The flow kitchen focuses on three major problem areas in the kitchen Waste, Water and Energy. The hanging dish rack offers vertical storage for drying dishes saving valuable counter space, water from the dish rack drips on the herbs and edible plants, which are grown in the planter boxes positioned below the rack.
The refrigerator is one of the largest consumers of electricity in the home. The majority of the items we refrigerate do not need to be kept as cold as a standard fridge temperatures. The evaporative cooling fridge box keeps food cool through evapo-transpiration. The space between the double walls is filled with water which slowly seeps through the outer wall and evaporates, causing the inside temperature to cool. It is deal for storing vegetables, fruit, eggs, cheese and butter. The evaporative cooling fridge reduces the need for a larger conventional fridge.
The Storage jars are made from unglazed earthenware with beech wood lids. They utilize the natural porous properties of earthenware, which creates an ideal environment for maintaining the consistency of bread, extending the life of garlic and onions, storing grains and growing herbs. The beech wood lids which have natural anti microbial properties can also be used as cutting boards or serving trays.
Up to 40% of household waste can be composted. The integrated cutting board can be slid forward allowing scraps to be swept into the composting bin. Kitchen scraps, newspaper, junk mail and paper scraps can be added to the vermicomposter. Worms breakdown food and turn it into worm castings, a nutrient rich fertilizer (about 2 weeks start to finish). By pulling the handle finished castings are sifted into the collection tray where they can be dried out until needed. The fertilizer can be used in the herb boxes, added to houseplants or the garden.
The dish and utensil drawer provides the necessary space for storing plates bowls cups and cutlery in an economic and easy to access format.
The bag rack is used to hang net market bags, these can be used to hold onions potatoes or produce form the market. The rack can also be used to hang most any other type of shopping bag.
The gas cook top is made up of a floral pattern, offering an alternative to the conventional standards. The continuous surface allows pots to be easily moved on and off the heat source.
Italian manufacturer Boffi is reissuing Joe Colombo's Minikitchen, a monobloc kitchen on castors, designed in 1963.
The Minikitchen is now made in Corian® and includes the following functions: hob unit, mini-refrigerator, drawer, storage compartments, small cutlery drawers, sockets for small electrical appliances, big chopping board and pull-out worktop.
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