Powering your stove with “poo” might sound like a hardcore thing that only permaculturists living off-the-grid would do, but if the Philips company is right with their forecast, that idea may just go mainstream. As part of their Design Probes program, a research initiative aimed at exploring lifestyles of the future, Philips designed the Microbial Home, an “integrated cyclical ecosystem where each function’s output is another’s input.”
The Microbial Home employs the permaculture design principle of self-sustainability; viewing the home as a biological filter which processes and recycles what would normally go out the door or down the pipes as waste. Some of the concepts — such as methane digestion — are not new or highly-advanced technology, as you could see them in the developing world, but Philips has added some high-tech bells and whistles to their conceptual design which inject a heavy dose of future shock.
City green-waste collection programs and backyard composting are great, but wouldn’t it be better if your waste never had to leave your house? The Microbial Home’s kitchen features an integrated chopping surface, waste grinder, and gas cooking range. Simply cut your veggies and scrape the refuse into the grinder. The refuse gets fed to a methane digester that breaks it down. The resulting biofuel is then pumped into the cooking range to cook your meal. It’s not exactly “instant trash to fuel”, but over time it’ll produce the fuel you need to cook — without it leaving the kitchen.
Now you can save water, exercise your bowels, and power your kitchen all at the same time, using the one-liter squatting flush toilet. This holy throne from the future channels excreta to the kitchen’s methane digester to add even more power to your cooking range. Sound gross? According to Philips “the [squatting flush toilet] provokes discussion and evaluation of toilet taboos and ablution habits.” Maybe we just need to talk about scat some more and we’ll realize that what goes in must go out. So why not let it go back to the kitchen from whence it came?
Beyond the environmental benefits, this toilet style and squatting will quickly become your bowel’s best buddy. Studies into toilet behavior reveal that those who squat have significantly less chance of getting colorectal cancer. Not to mention the fact that squatting opens up the bowels to a more natural evacuation position.
Forgot to add carrots to your salad? No problem — just reach down into the vegetable storage system built into the dining table and pluck one out. Using a twin-walled terra cotta evaporative cooler with varying wall thicknesses, the larder will keep foods with different storage needs fresh without refrigeration. “This concept shows how, without any recourse to energy-intensive or synthetic chemical technology, we can extend the shelf-life of our food,” Philips states on its website. “It has an educational effect, as it revives forgotten knowledge and techniques of storing and preparing food.” Indeed, people have been using root cellars for thousands of years to keep their foods fresh. This “futuristic” concept is really just a remembering of days past.
The Microbial Home also features a funky urban beehive which attaches to a window, letting you see the bees at work; a bio-lighting system that uses bioluminescent bacteria fed with methane and compost from the methane digester to provide low-intensity light; a super-futuristic health monitoring system which tracks your health by analyzing your scat, urine, and other bodily secretions while you go through your daily bathroom routine; and a plastic waste up-cycler that uses fungus to break down and metabolize heaps of plastic trash. It can even make mushrooms out of your plastic bags.
So the next time you bring a plastic bag into your house, think about its potential lifecycle in a Microbial Home: Eat mushroom – defecate – turn excreta into fuel – use fuel to power your kitchen – cook next plastic bag. Philips calls its conceptual design an exploration into “far-future lifestyle scenarios.” While it may seem a far way off, the idea of a self-sustainable ecosystem that uses one output to power the next input couldn’t be older — it’s been around since the beginning of time. It is just how nature always has and always will work.
