Jihyun Ryou’s project focuses on the present situation of food and how to preserve it. As quoted from her (and what I found particularly interesting), “I’ve learned that we hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to technology, the refrigerator. We don’t observe the food anymore and we don’t understand how to treat it”.
Basically, the cool thing about this is that the concept is actually very simple and quite basic. It is something we have easily overlooked in this modernized world full of technology. This is also my belated “Green” tribute to St. Paddy’s day. A very good example of Green Design, that addresses an aspect of the overuse of energy and food wastage. Enjoy!
Verticality of Root Vegetables
Keeping roots in a vertical position allows the organism to save energy and remain fresh for a longer time. This shelf gives a place for them to stand easily, using sand. At the same time, sand helps to keep the proper humidity.
Symbiosis of Potato+Apple
Apples emit a lot of ethylene gas. It has the effect of speeding up the ripening process of fruits and vegetables kept together with apples. When combined with potatoes, apples prevent them from sprouting.
Breathing of Eggs
An egg has millions of holes in its shell. It absorbs the odour and substance around itself very easily. This creates a bad taste if it’s kept in the fridge with other food ingredients. This shelf provides a place for eggs outside of the fridge. Also the freshness of eggs can be tested in the water. The fresher they are, the further they will sink.
Dryness of Spices
Rice absorbs humidity easily. The spice container with rice inside helps spices stay dry without forming into lumps.
Humidity of Fruit Vegetables
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.
P.S. Really cool ideas that we can try to apply in our own kitchens and in how we store some of our goods. Doing our part in minimizing the use of energy will be a good thing to do for our environment. Cheers! 
P.P.S. In addition, you can check out a video about it below. Functional and absolutely brilliant design!
I was quite worn out for the last couple of days, with all the design stuff (plus a couple of appointments) that needed to be done, attended to and crossed out in my to-do list. An example from yesterday’s to-do list was giving out specifications for stools and a table I had someone customize for me among other things. I had a lot of fun though! (and a bit of a headache. Haha.)
Anyhow, here are a couple of hasty shots from the Green Design Talk I mentioned a few days ago. It was quite an awesome talk by Archt. Joy Onozawa (an awesome lady and a Certified Green Building Designer), packed with so much useful information about our environment, the situation of our planet at present, how we can incorporate Green Design in architecture and interior design.
For those who aren’t familiar with Green Design, its basically environmentally conscious design. When applied in interior design, It’s about us designing responsibly by thinking of the environment as well, of us helping our clients use spaces that respect the environment. It was certainly quite interesting to learn things like how we can use our country’s humidity to our advantage when we are designing or how by simple reconfigurations in our design we can already make interiors a lot cooler without using too much energy (i.e. air conditioners or electric fans).
We were also given a tour of Greenovate Corporation’s Green Model Unit, an earth-friendly home which incorporates an environment-friendly design concept and built using affordable pre-fabricated materials which acknowledge the concept of minimizing the negative impact on our environment (ex. It allows its occupants to save on water and electricity). Yup, I enjoyed listening to the talk beside a nifty solar-powered air conditioning system.
I can go on and on about this (I think I’ll do a separate post all together about Green Design) because its beyond awesome but I think I’ll stop up to here for now. A couple of pictures below.
