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‘More than ever, our homes need to be a place where we can find rest.’
AMSTERDAM – Luxury, warmth and the cradle-to-cradle principle: for years these have been interior designer Robert Kolenik’s starting points. And his next step is very much in line with these. Technology is the fourth design principle, ranging from PH-meters in the toilet to green living walls in the bedroom. This is Kolenik’s Room of the Future.
In his Room of the Future, Robert Kolenik demonstrates how a home can deliver exactly the right impulses to its occupant. The interior is optimally designed according to his Eco Chic essentials - luxury, warmth and the cradle-to-cradle principle. The technology Kolenik is harnessing as his fourth design principle means that the home works for you and underpins your health. Kolenik explains: “Because of the huge quantity of impressions that we take in every day, it is becoming increasingly important that our homes should be places where we can find rest. We need spaces that are free of stimuli. That’s why, together with the partners with whom I am working, I demonstrate how your home can strengthen both your body and your mind.”
A key novelty is the hologram private butler, who welcomes you and operates your home. All functions are combined, from lighting to audio, and from video to home automation. Kolenik explains: “If you don't drink enough water, your hologram private butler can read this from the PH-metre in your toilet and advise you to drink a few glasses of water. Fancy seeing a particular film? All you need to do is ask. Via speech recognition, the screen appears and the lights automatically switch to cinema mood. This enables you to spend your often scarce free time as comfortably as possible.”
Elsewhere in the Room of the Future is the Tesla Powerwall – a small battery for residential purpose in which to store your sustainably generated energy. It is a super battery with a sleek white coating that stores the excess solar energy generated instead of feeding it back to the grid. A maximum continual supply of 5kW is enough to meet the needs of the average household.
Robert Kolenik continues: “As always, in the Room of the Future we demonstrate how sustainable design is becoming the standard. A new thing is the comfort upgrade at different levels: both the visible, ‘luxury’ level; and an invisible, yet highly relevant level. For example there is a high-end rain shower with water, steam or snow that visibly creates instant wellness. And a hypoallergenic bed that – with the help of active climate control, subtle ventilation and air purification filters – has been proven to provide a good night’s sleep. The purified air in a FreshBed is supplied at your ideal temperature and humidity, and then spread uniformly throughout the mattress. This means that sleep disrupters such as excessive cold, excessive heat and excessive humidity are a thing of the past, allowing you to sleep more deeply.”
In the air-purifying living wall by green innovator Eduard van Vliet, plants in the green wall extract pollutants such as carbon monoxide from the air. Thanks to their filtering capacity, the plants transform the pollutants into by-products such as oxygen. Kolenik adds: “Greenery is becoming ever scarcer. Especially in urban areas, where air pollution is a huge problem. In the Room of the Future, the living wall is connected to the home’s air-conditioning system.”
Kolenik
