Tag Archives: refrigerator

The key to a healthier diet starts by redesigning the refrigerator.

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“Displaying vegetables and fruits makes me remember to eat them”, said one of the target users in an interview with designer Tati Ferrucio while she was developing The Fresh Fridge.

The Fresh Fridge relooks the very brief of the refrigerator. Most fridges are designed to perform one prime function – keeping your food fresh for long. The Fresh Fridge, however, also considers other aspects like the contents of the fridge and the behaviors of the user, and promotes a lifestyle that gets you to eat healthier, more nutritious food like fruits and vegetables. With a transparent door, the Fresh Fridge feels like the produce section of the supermarket. The fruits are kept on display, reminding you to eat them when you’re hungry, and the transparent window actually discourages you from wanting to keep unhealthy food in the fridge, in case other people see it and judge your eating habits.

The Fresh Fridge is an ecosystem featuring the fridge itself, and a smart display above it. Designed by IDSA Student Merit Award-winner Tati Ferrucio, the Fresh Fridge focuses on the complex system of a healthier lifestyle, rather than just on individual food items. The smart display above the fridge comes with a touch-sensitive surface and a built-in camera. It acts as a sort of hub for all information, allowing you to manage inventory, order fresh food online, watch recipe tutorials, and bond with friends or family members while you prepare food or while eating (you also get the added bonus of being able to show your mum you’re eating healthy!)

Underneath the smart display sits the main fridge, designed to be a slightly more compact companion to your regular fridge (where you’d store all your day-to-day meals, groceries, drinks, leftovers, etc.) The Fresh Fridge comes with compartments designed specifically for different kinds of healthy foods – leafy greens go on top, where it’s cooler, while fruits and veggies occupy the lower spaces. The trays even account for prepared/cooked items like salads, burrito bowls, smoothie bowls, or cut fruits, with slide-in areas for airtight containers.

The top of the Fresh Fridge becomes the perfect area to prep your food. The ingredients remain easily accessible below, while the smart display on top lets you tick off items from your inventory and even prepare meals by watching recipe videos or chatting with your nonna who guides you with their tips. Plug-points built into the top of the Fresh Fridge let you hook up appliances like blenders, induction stoves, or rice-cookers, while a slide-out tray makes mise en place easy, allowing you to chop, dice, peel, mash, season, or garnish your food.

As you take food from the Fresh Fridge, the smart display on the top lets you tick it off, helping the fridge track inventory for a more planned grocery shopping experience. It’s not entirely clear if the Fresh Fridge also reminds you when food’s spoiling, although that would be an extremely handy feature in making sure you don’t waste anything!

The Fresh Fridge approaches the appliance’s design rather uniquely. The clear (slightly textured) glass on the front really helps inform the interiors, which Ferrucio designed keeping organization in mind. Each of the trays (made from recycled plastic) come with horizontal shelves that help you neatly organize and present your food. The trays feature a modular section on the right too, letting you add containers with dividers, airtight storage boxes, microwave-friendly lunchboxes, etc. Lastly, a mild light on the inside helps illuminate the Fresh Fridge like the refrigerated aisle at supermarkets. The light activates the minute the camera on the smart display notices someone approaching the fridge or walking by, and the fact that the healthy food’s put on display for you really helps condition the mind into eating healthier, more nutritious meals!

Designer: Tati Ferrucio

Red Tool Chest Mini Fridge: Beers Are Tools, Right?

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Inspired by the red tool chests seen in garages everywhere, this is the Portable Tool Box Refrigerator with 2 Drawers and Lock from Whynter. Available on Amazon (affiliate link), the fridge is going to look perfect next to my actual red tool chest, which is directly below a classic 1989 swimsuit calendar. You know it was most recently accurate again in 2017, and will be again in 2023.

The mini fridge has 1.8-cubic foot capacity and measures 17″ wide, 21″ deep, and 32″ high. It features caster wheels with locks, two functional heavy-duty drawers on top for actual tool storage, an LED light inside the fridge, and a keyed lock to keep others away from your most valuable tools. I’m talking about beers here, just so we’re clear.

So, the question is: is it better to purchase a tool chest mini fridge for the garage to hide my stash of cold beers from my wife, or is it better to get another real tool chest to hide all the expensive tools I just bought? Either way, I’ve got the feeling this fairy tale isn’t going to have a happy ending.

[via The Green Head]

This refrigerator gives us a glimpse of futuristic integrated kitchens

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The good old refrigerator is one appliance that any household cannot do without – be it an expansive mansion or a small student apartment. The home appliance keeps all the eatables fresher for longer – and it deserves all the attention in the world for once. Yes, we need to have the next refrigerator evolution in the form of Venine – a design conceptualized by industrial designer You-jin Syn. The idea is simple – preserve the core function of the refrigerator – but with the infusion of a design overhaul and added features.

The motive is to make it convenient for a single-person household in the smallest footprint possible without compromising on the inherent function of the appliance. Syn’s concept germinates from the need for young apartment dwellers to have a smart and convenient way to gulp down quick meals without much fuzz. Rather than taking all the eatables out of the refrigerator and onto the dining table, Venine brings the possibility of dining on the refrigerator counter. Yes, this home appliance has a slide-out counter to keep the meals. This eliminates the chances of spillage too while carrying them elsewhere on a busy Monday morning.

The top half of the Venine refrigerator is where the action happens as the user knocks on the segregated container compartments to reveal the amount of food left in each container. If there is enough, simply opening the door by pressing with a hand is all you need to do. The section of the eatable containers opens at a convenient 45 degrees angle to take out the eatables easily and munch down the meal there and then. When everything is done, simply close the container section and slide the tray back into the refrigerator. Surely, a modern refrigerator my mom would love to see in my apartment!

Designer: Youjin Syn

Summers just became more bearable thanks to this portable air conditioner with a built-in mini fridge

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It keeps you cool and chills your brewskis too.

Meet the Fufu. What it lacks in name catchiness, it makes up for with function. Designed to work as a tabletop air conditioner as well as a mini-fridge, Fufu is your ultimate weapon against a hot and sweaty summer day. With the proportions of a backpack, Fufu sits anywhere in your room, cooling your space as well as preserving your food and drinks. It uses two semiconductor cooling systems that run simultaneously, balancing energy efficiency and cooling efficiency together.

It’s worth noting that Fufu is more of a concept than a real product (otherwise I’d have 5 of them by now). With the design brief of being the ultimate appliance to beat the heat, Fufu keeps you cool externally as well as internally. Its small blower is about the same size as a tabletop fan, while the two-tiered fridge has enough space on the inside to store 12 cans of the beverage of your choice, or you could take a healthier route and store fruits and juices inside too.

Fufu comes with a pretty simple interface that gives you control over the air conditioning. A knob on the front lets you adjust wind direction by orienting fins just like you would on a car air conditioner, while a dial on the side lets you switch the air conditioner on, select wind speed, and desired temperature.

The Fufu’s schematic details how its cooling system would work on paper. Two semiconductor cooling systems work in tandem, creating an efficient balance between cooling the room (or the person sitting in front) and the fridge cabinet. Dual exhausts on the back pushes hot air out, which would probably mean Fufu is best suited for being kept near a window as opposed to against a wall. The designer has even hacked together a proof-of-concept based on the schematic, so maybe we’re close to seeing a working prototype soon?

Fufu was built for the Asian audience, Hong Kong in particular. Referred to as the Most Air-Conditioned City in the World, almost every flat and building in Hong Kong is outfitted with air conditioners that run around the clock, keeping rooms as much as 10°-15° cooler than the outdoors. You could also watch this video that details how “Hong Kong became a giant refrigerator” to understand why something like the Fufu would be an instant hit in the region!

Designer: FUFU

Sleek and modern appliances to perfectly match the interiors of your millennial home!

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Home appliances are essentials in our houses. We need them to carry out a variety of activities, from storing food to watching our favorite sitcoms, washing our clothes and even keeping us cool in the summer! Televisions, refrigerators, air purifiers, washing machines – these are a few appliances that you find in every home. However, they often tend to be quite hefty and cumbersome! And that isn’t a look that suits our modern millennial homes very well. Hence, we’ve curated a collection of sleek, minimal, and trendy home appliances that merge perfectly with the modern interiors of our modern homes. These designs promise to seamlessly become a part of your living space, without standing out and looking like an eye sore. They’re a visual treat to our eyes, and not to mention super functional appliances that we absolutely cannot survive without!

Inspired by the Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s composition of form and color, the Mondrian setup was made to allow a wide range of applications and blend into any interior setting. The aim was to solve three issues we experience with watching TV as we currently do – taking up space, not matching with the aesthetics, and lack of expandability. Urban apartments and single-person households need to maximize their space and should not have to choose between a large appliance and furniture when they can have both. Talking about interior aesthetics, TVs are now increasingly slimmer while the furniture remains warm and cozy – this causes a visual mismatch when the two are put together. Mondrian’s design serves both purposes with one seamless structure. TVs are now being used in many ways and need to be able to adapt to the different content it supports, not just static pre-made products.

The Hide Washing Machine, as its name suggests, features a hiding door that helps it occupy a little less space when in use. In the event that your washing machine’s door ends up blocking a pathway if opened, or colliding with a pillar/wall/door, the Hide allows you to simply circumvent that problem by tucking the door right into the machine’s body. This results in a marginally wider machine, but here’s where user behavior comes into play… people usually buy machines after comparing measurements with their laundry rooms, but they don’t always account for the washing machine’s door and how it opens. The Hide’s door opens like any normal one, but then immediately slides into itself, freeing up your passageway so you can walk around and go about your laundry.

Unlike most switches that have an ON and an OFF, Pasque Mawalla’s Switch behaves slightly differently. Designed to be a lamp in itself, the switch rocks upwards, downwards, and rests in a neutral position. While in neutral, the light stays off, but the minute you rock it either upwards or downwards, it turns into an ambient lamp, casting light in the direction it’s been angled. What’s remarkable about the Switch is that it’s a different product with the same UX as its predecessor. Designed to be switched on and off just like a normal switch, the lamp explores new ideas, making it rather innovative. Plus, it only seems natural that the lamp should go off when the switch is in its neutral position, flush against the wall!

Designed by Difei Wang of Hisense Industrial Design Center, the Art Fresh Bar refrigerator is the first in a handsome series that aims to mimic the look of traditional furniture pieces. In fact, it’s not even intended to be placed in your kitchen. Rather, its ultra-thin profile and fine finishes are designed to blend in with your living room, giving you and the rest of the family easy access to all sorts of snacks, beverages, and one-off items like wine and fruit. With an anticipated selection of various finishes and colors as well as customizable compartments, there’s sure to be one to satisfy any taste or use.

This conceptual coffee machine is very unlike the espresso makers in the market and it’s the aesthetics that set it apart. It is a dream machine for people who love coffee and space exploration equally (like me!). The compact capsule shape makes it look like a moon lander for your counter and is obviously powered by caffeine which is only the second most powerful fuel after rocket fuel! The designer’s main focus was to retain some of the rawness and the mechanical steampunk look of the traditional Italian espresso makes while maintaining a clean shape that adds character to the product. There is a tubular water/steam container at the back which I feel can be extended down for added support for the appliance. There is also another container for your beans which I assume leads to a small grinder mechanism inside so you only get the freshest cup of joe each time. Overall, the shape is very unique and combines the nostalgic steampunk elements with clean, smooth curves for a balanced modern machine.

Just when you thought you’ve seen it all, we have another cool appliance to add to this list – say hello (from 6 feet away) to Drawsher which is the child of a washer and dehumidifier! Laundry is one of the most disliked chores and so it is no surprise to me that many of us just let the clothes be in the basket till we run out of fresh underwear. It may not be stinky or filthy, but it is certainly not the most hygienic practice because you are lettings the bacteria from the clothes spill into the air around you. Also, if you don’t air out your washing machine after using it, it can lead to molds and malfunctioning of the appliance. Keeping all these details in mind, designer Kikang Kim created Drawsher which is a sanitary machine that functions as a laundry basket and a washing machine. You’ll notice that it also looks good unlike any washing machine you’ve seen before, and that is because Kim has based the design on a modern dresser that optimizes space and blends well with your interiors.

C SEED, a company known to make high-end outdoor televisions, has debuted the M1 – a whopping 165-inch 4K MicroLED beast that folds up and tucks away right underneath your floorboard. Before you get any ideas, the television retails for nearly half a million dollars, so it’s safe to say that only a select few will be able to afford this bad-boy. It may be the world’s coolest party-trick, but imagine being able to summon a television from the underground as your guests watch in sheer astonishment. Hit a button on the remote and the floor splits apart, with this pillar rising from within the chasm. The pillar then unfolds into a wide 165-inch screen, perfect to watch the Golden Globes on. Fashioned with 5 display panels that open and close like a folding fan, the M1 television really knows how to make an appearance. Its elaborate structure features a base that the display panels lock into once they open out. This base also houses the television’s powerful speaker system, including two 250W broadband speakers and one whopping 700W subwoofer to really pack that punch. While those stats may be impressive to a few, it’s the TV’s design that really gets my heart racing! The M1 doesn’t come with a single folded display, but rather features 5 panels that can seamlessly merge together to appear as one singular panel.

Kim Hyunsoec of hs2 studio created ‘Crevice’. Crevice is a beautiful 900x1970x920 mm double door fridge. Inspired by the experience of drawing your curtains wide open, the handles of the double door of Crevice completely resemble the opening of a curtain! The neat slit with its widened edges facing opposite directions brings to mind the exact moment when you grab the corners of your curtain, to tug them apart on a lazy Sunday morning. Created from stainless steel and featuring a matte black sheen, the aesthetics of Crevice have been designed to complement the interiors of your home. More than an electrical home appliance, it gives the impression of a piece of furniture. The furniture-like feel it resonates makes it suitable to be placed not only in the kitchen but also in the dining or living area. Spacious from within, it is divided into four vertical compartments with six shelving areas, providing ample space for your innumerous groceries. Not only is Crevice a storage wonder, but we must commend the visual appeal it possesses. This is a refrigerator with style!

The difference between Löv and every other air purifier on the market is evident in the way it’s designed. The Löv does to air purifiers what the Nest did to thermostats. It comes with a sophisticated design that just beautifully blends into its surrounding decor, looking modern and artistic rather than antiquated and technical, and comes with a user experience that’s so simplified, anyone could use it. The Löv air purifier is a pleasure to use, but it’s also a pleasure to look at… and that’s a design direction most smart home product manufacturers try to take, be it Google, Amazon, Apple, and even companies like IKEA, that are only now entering the smart appliance market. The key to a well-made smart-home product is to not only realize its relationship with the user, but also its relationship with the space it’s in. The Löv looks quite unlike any purifier you’ve seen, with an aesthetic that embraces the minimalism of Scandinavian Design. Created to seamlessly blend into your home, the Löv comes with a soft, rounded form, and an abstract grille design that balances art and engineering. The grille pattern is inspired directly by natural details like branches and the veins of a leaf, becoming an ode to nature, the world’s own air purifier.

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Winter is on its way out soon, but you can keep it coming every day of the summer season, thanks to the atypical Lora. Unlike most air conditioners, Lora is not boxy nor an air curtain. It’s more like a pendant lamp that hangs from the ceiling and showers you with cool air. Adding a touch of ambient lighting to the mix (think Northern Lights), Lora goes on to showcase the fan speed, temperature, and air blast in correlation to mesmerizing twinkly lights. What I really appreciate is the attempt to break the clutter and give a new form to air conditioners. Adding lights and intuitive UI UX is just a bonus.

Watch Samsung’s CES event in under 9 minutes

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Samsung didn’t hold back at CES just because the pandemic forced a virtual event — if anything, it picked up the pace. Thankfully, you don’t have to spend ages catching up. We’ve compiled all of Samsung’s big announcements in a nine-minute video that...

Samsung’s smart home vision includes more intelligent fridges and vacuums

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CES wouldn't be CES if Samsung didn't have a slew of new appliances to announce, and the longer the company invests in its vision of a connected home, the more we at Engadget wind up writing about refrigerators and vacuums. That said, they are admitt...

A kid-friendly refrigerator to keep all the members of the house happy with great food!

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‘Assorti’ translates to ‘harmony,’ in French, and a new line of refrigerators, designed specifically and equally for both children and parents, from Designer dot embraces exactly that. When it comes to household appliances, it sometimes seems that the usability or user-friendliness is tailored for young adults or older adults – children typically are left with the appliances that they’ll soon grow out of, but Assorti changes that.

Assorti aims to decrease the overall distance between children and adults – Assorti is a refrigerator designed with both parents and children in mind as users. The designers behind Assorti have designed and constructed a refrigerator that provides separate compartments for children that are easily reachable even from low heights. The refrigerator is comprised of two main sides, the child and the parent. The child’s side is found on the left of Assorti and is made up of two sliding cupboard-like compartments. This is the ‘ready-to-eat’ side so that children can easily grab a juice pack, cool pack of fruit snacks, or a yogurt cup whenever they choose and parents won’t have to worry about any mess popping up before dinner from children climbing shelves to reach their favorite flavor. The child’s side is equipped with a three-tier, refrigerated sliding shelf that comes out to full extension so the children of the house can peruse the snack shelves at their leisure. Assorti grants your kids limited access to the refrigerator’s goodies in order to instill both a sense of know-how in the kitchen for young people and a sense of respect for thoughtful boundaries set by parents.

Right above the child’s cupboard, parents will find an additional sliding shelf, this time only two-tier, where they can store their ‘more adult’ items like liquor or skincare products. Moving over to the right side, the parent’s side, a classic refrigerator model takes shape. Inside, you’ll find plenty of shelf room, pull-out drawers, and a freezer section, so that you can store all of your ingredients for cooking, like meats, fish, poultry, fruits, and vegetables. Assorti also comes with a display screen, located on the right side, which informs users of the temperatures for each section of the refrigerator, including the storage cupboards, the refrigerator, and the freezer. Assorti also comes in three different colors, rose pink, taupe gray, and slate black, so that no matter your kitchen space, Assorti can easily slide into the harmony of your home.

Designer: Designer dot

This Modular Refrigerator uses an innovative shelving system to tackle food wastage

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Those of us who use small kitchens know the importance of storage space, especially when it comes to the refrigerator. So, staying on top of what food is expired is key. Produce gets smelly and leaks, leftovers just take up entire shelves and clearing out the food that’s gone bad feels like a day’s task. In the UK, 5.8 million tons of avoidable food waste is garnered each year, which can be traced all the way back to a simple problem: frustrating refrigerator design. Thalis Nicolaou brings us his solution: PRESENTA, a modular refrigerator design.

Most of today’s refrigerators are like deep bookshelves that come with air conditioning. They store a lot and keep our food items fresh, but as they fill, older food items just pile up and rot, so cleaning out your refrigerator ends up being more laborious of a task than it should be. In order to combat this, Nicolaou created PRESENTA, a new fridge design that keeps the storage capacity of the typical refrigerator but ditches the unfriendly depths. Three modular, three-tier shelving units comprise PRESENTA and thankfully they make both storage organization and inevitable clean up much more approachable. Detachable, plastic shelves line the swing-out design of this refrigerator and they can be swapped out and reorganized in order to optimize storage and cleanability. When the user opens the refrigerator, each of the inside contents is immediately made both visible and accessible. The refrigerator’s slide and swing door allow for the interior shelving units to expand outside the refrigerator, making the contents inside of PRESENTA apparent within a matter of seconds. Below the main door is a deep, pull-out drawer that extends to the refrigerator’s full-depth in order to store bulkier items. Nicolaou also integrated a color-coded signal that alerts PRESENTA users when the contents haven’t been checked for more than 24 hours – an orange, LED light indicator lets users know to check on their food items.

The modular design of this refrigerator is impressive because, in a market full of technologically smart, but massive refrigerators, PRESENTA finds a solution in constructive simplicity. In this simplicity, rests accessibility since Nicolaou addresses the need for active and collective food waste reduction measures by creating a tangible solution that doesn’t require costly changes to your lifestyle or diet. So, say goodbye to those days filled with procrastination before a big fridge-cleanup because PRESENTA makes it as manageable as it always should have been.

Designer: Thalis Nicolaou