Living Lightly - Tools for Future Home Living

Living Lightly is a modular appliance system that extracts the sharing function of rotation and heating in a wide range of products in our kitchen, bathroom, and living room. Inspired by the Whole Earth Catalog, Living Lightly's objective is to empower people through tools in future home living.

CONTEXT

Every year, an estimated 2 million tons of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) items are discarded in the UK (hse.gov.uk). Our homes are cluttered with appliances, while manufacturers keep pushing consumers to buy new items by producing disposable goods.

DISCOVERY

Many home appliances have shared functions and could be used in shared space.

We tend to think about what we need to get done as a service, and rarely consider the

material, energy, and labor that are being generated, used, and circulated in the process. The issue is embodied in the retrofitted design of our home appliances. Many appliances share the same mechanical principles. Energy transfers in dynamic engineering or thermodynamic systems, in the media of air, water, etc. They either heat up coils or compress liquids to cool down, blow out the air or suck in air, spin or rotate blades at different speeds.

DESIGN

Living Lightly is a modular appliance system that extracts the sharing function of rotation and heating in a wide range of products in our kitchen, bathroom, and living room. The motor modules and heating coil modules are connected with attachments to blend, whisk, brush, knead, fan, heat, grill, toast, etc. The system combines shared elements in both physical products and user behaviors. Instead of purchasing individual products with singular functions, users have the freedom to purchase modules based on their needs to achieve efficiency, productivity, and liberation.

Living Lightly aims to inspire people to find contentment in living with less stuff, and to contribute towards creating a more sustainable environment in which less disposable goods are made to be thrown away.

The quantity and speed that electronics are discarded has increased rapidly in recent years due to bulit-in obsolescence and the relatively high-cost of repairs. Electronic waste has become a major global ecological issue, raising concerns about material scarcity, energy consumption, and even labor exploitation. The goal of my approach is to start from the source of the waste. What if we could produce less products and design them to last?

Currently, most of our home appliances have a singular function - a motor rotating a toothbrush, a blender, a fan, etc and a coil heating a kettle, a toaster, a hairdryer, etc.; however, many appliances share the same mechanical principles. Energy transfers in dynamic engineering or thermodynamic systems, in the media of air, water, etc. They either heat up coils or compress liquids to cool down, blow out air or suck in air, spin or rotate blades in different speeds. With the circular economy approach in mind, Living Lightly combines shared elements in both physical products and our user behaviors. Core modules are designed to fulfill different tasks at home. For example, the same motor module could be disassembled from your egg whisker to your toothbrush head, and then turning a desk fan. A heating surface could toast bread and then flip over to iron your shirt after cleaning.