NGIN Workplace is overjoyed to welcome a MIT Media Lab spin off company called Changing Places Research Group to our offices this week! They are here to strategize how to push their innovative product, CityHome, to market–and it is truly a piece of innovation you want to check out!
The MIT team has solved a problem we all assumed to be a permanent obstacle: living comfortably in a small space. Their product, CityHome, is quite literally a cube of all essential home furniture puzzle pieced in a compact, highly intelligent arrangement that is then able to be summoned forth using strategic arm motions and motion sensors.
Genius.
Drop a CityHome cube into a shoebox apartment that meets your budget and make that space enormously more versatile. For instance, flip down a spacious kitchen counter and spread out to cook some dinner. Then return it to the CityHome cube, invite some guests over and have space to dance. You can even download lights from apps! A party in a box indeed! When it’s time for bed, summon your bed from the wall.
Another plus especially for those of us will weak arms: no heavy lifting! You can quite literally boss your furniture around to meet your current needs. (Hopefully you can remember how to summon your bed after stumbling home from the bar.)
Not only is the furniture customizable but you can also transform the very layout of your apartment! Push a button and the CityHome cube slides across the floor. Temporarily borrow space from your main room to enjoy a large bathroom and then, when finished, simply return the rooms to their original sizes.
This group truly knows how to use apply new technologies to solve a problem that we all thought was a permanent obstacle for the city liver.
The CityHome idea can undoubtedly be used in an endless amount of situations in the future. Our minds are blown and we are grateful to have them within our NGIN walls so we can pick their brains.
Next project for these visionaries: a swish and a flick on my wrist and my work desk tumbles forward revealing a lovely bed beneath. Of course with an upward swoosh motion, an LED screen would slide up through the floor displaying a perfect, believable 3D image of me typing away at my desk!
Hmm maybe they should hire me…
Make sure to check out the CityHome video demo!
For more groundbreaking inventions make sure to view the Changing Places Youtube page including their new compact car project called CityCar and see what else Changing Places is up to on twitter!
by Emma Favorito
NGIN Worplace
