IKEA has revealed the kitchen of the future, which includes a build-in composting system, a transparent fridge and even a table that teaches you how to cook!
IKEA, the Swedish furniture maker known for its minimalist designs, unveiled its vision for the kitchen of 2025 at this year's Milan Design Week in Italy.
One of IKEA's kitchen ideas that grabbed attention at the exhibition was its high-tech "Table for living." This used a camera to projects graphics of recipes that complemented the foods placed on the table and worked within the chef's time schedule.
To create the kitchen, IKEA collaborated with design firm IDEO and the design departments at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and Lund University in Sweden.
The team's hypothesises for the world in 2025 included a 40 percent increase in food prices, drones delivering shopping and cities levying charges on non-recyclable rubbish by the kilogram.
The kitchen was opened to the public on April 9 and has been in the works for 18 months. It is not yet for sale, although the "Concept Kitchen 2025" official website states that the findings from this project will be used in future development.
Other features of the prototype kitchen include built-in weighing scales and hidden sensors and induction-cooling technology that keeps food at just the right temperature.
Many of the design elements involving saving waste and protecting the environment, such as the "mindful water" system which filters water, and uses any left over water for other purposes, such as in the dishwasher or to feed indoor plants.
IKEA has proved eager to incorporate technology into its designs, displaying furniture that wirelessly charges portable digital devices at the Mobile World Congress in March.
Other designs proposed for "Concept Kitchen 2025" included Robvan Kasteran's "Creative Cook," which uses augmented reality to encourages children to enjoy cooking, for instance, by projecting an image of a crocodile design onto a cucumber.
Daphne Menheere's "Smarker," meanwhile, is a toolkit that encourages children's interest in food and art by providing edible ink.
