Futuristic flat where hologram butler follows you to bathroom and tells you if you’re not drinking enough
The bed filters the air to help you sleep better, the toilet monitors your health, and TV screens appear by voice command; it may sound like science fiction but the Room of the Future, by Dutch designer Robert Kolenik, is about to become (mostly) real
You might think that the creator of a project called Room of the Future would have filled such a space – either real or imaginary – with a lot of high technology.
Granted, there is a hologram butler – named Emily – in Dutch designer Robert Kolenik’s idea of a future home, but that’s where the gimmicks end. The rest is undoubtedly hi-tech, but also highly functional, in a home he says can deliver “exactly the right cues” to let the occupants feel cool, calm, and blissfully free from electronic stimuli (there’s a noticeable absence of screens).
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Design wasn’t an instinctive calling for the Amsterdam-based marketing graduate and part-time model, who joined his father’s home renovation company for something of a career “gap year” in 2004. But five months in, his father died unexpectedly.
“I had to decide whether to look for a job in the marketing field, or continue his company. I chose the latter,” he said.
Kolenik began renovating restaurants and bars, and fixing up houses. After completing a project for an international brewery, the client asked him to design the interior. “Through that I rolled into the interior design field,” he said.
