EKOKOOK Eco Kitchen

The Ekokook kitchen from Faltazi is just about the smartest and coolest thing I've seen as far as kitchens go. It's compact, environmentally responsible, and extremely practical.

The Ekokook has everything you need in a kitchen: a cooktop, a fridge, recycling bins, compost, dry storage, sink, water recycling, EVERYTHING for a healthy and eco conscious lifestyle. Best of all it takes up much less space than a traditional kitchen with all these things. The design cleverly separates the area into two parts, one side for food preparation and the other side for waste disposal, so you don't have to keep walking around space while doing something.

Overview of food preparation side

Alright, going over the cool points from left to right. In the cooking section you have a steam oven on the bottom, and on the counter you have a hot-plate, a wok, and a gas burner. On the top there's an extractor hood with room for cookbooks on top (I told you they have everything). Storage area is next with room for pots, pans and silverware on the bottom, a cutting board on the counter, and hanging storage for more pots and pans. More storage on top with a timer in front, and next to it are two ultraponics pots (for growing fresh herbs and stuff). Back on the bottom are the dry food storage bins and the cold storage all the way on the right. The cool thing about the Ekokook refrigerator is that it's totally compartmentalized so you only have to open a small door to an isolated compartment to get what you want, saving huge amounts of energy spent on refrigeration. Last on top is the dry storage for bulk items like grains and beans and seeds.

Now the waste-management side is the really amazing part. The Ekokook makes it easy to greatly reduce the amount of trash thrown out. It's crazy how much trash I generate when cooking.

Overview of waste processing side

So, left to right again. The solid waste micro-plant manages your recyclable materials and has a bin for everything else that's not recyclable, but the cool thing is the space saving abilities of this little kitchen. For glass bottles, you place them in the bin, where they are broken as they fall down. The paper compartment shreds then compacts the paper into blocks. Lastly aluminum cans and plastic bottles are crushed when going into the bin. The micro-plant for liquid wastes allows you to save water from washing vegetables into pitchers for watering your herbs in the ultraponic pots above or dispose of other waste water. The organic waste micro-plant is ingenious and I can't do it justice in a description, you have to watch the video. All the way on the right is the compartmentalized dishwasher which saves water and electricity.

Photo and video credits: Faltazi Ekokook
Found via: Inhabitat