This is what IKEA thinks your future kitchen will look like

Have you always wondered what the future holds for kitchens? Like food in pill form or super-tiny blenders for single vegetables or maybe automated composting? Maybe we’ll all have slushy machines in our fridges! Dare to dream.

Students at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands and Lund University in Sweden have thought a lot about what our kitchens will look like in 2025. They collaborated with IKEA and the design firm IDEO on Concept Kitchen 2025 — 12 predictions on what they envision kitchens to look like 10 years from now. They unveiled the predictions at the recent Saloni design fair in Milan. A decade doesn’t feel that far away, but most of their predictions have us doing life in a completely new way, and it’s super interesting.

Here are their predictions: we’ll be living in more urban areas. Reducing waste and saving water will become a necessity, and as populations grow food prices will rise, so we’ll eat more cost effective manufactured protein and less meat.

We’ll have fewer children, so our homes will be smaller. Technology will make working from home the norm, and computers will be everywhere — allowing them to communicate more efficiently with humans and each other. Shopping will mean home delivery, and commerce will continue to thrive globally while personal connections will remain local.

Western culture will incorporate Eastern values, and taste preferences and rituals will converge to be universal and kitchens will continue to be the focal/social point of homes. All that, and awesome automatic recycling machines will be in your future. And that’s not all…

Your kitchen table will double as a stovetop (and a cookbook)

In addition to heating your food, charging your phone and measuring your ingredients, this block of wood will basically do all of the work for you. If you don’t know what to cook with items you already have in your kitchen, a camera and a projector on the ceiling will show you recipe options and ingredient combinations. Excuse us, what? Can this happen now please?

Your cutting board will tell you exactly how to prep your food

That’s right, more wood telling you what your food options are—from slicing to dicing and everything in between.

Your shelves will be able to keep food warm or cold

Since automated food delivery will be happening way more often than actually going to a physical store, we will be able to store less and waste less. The clear containers will show us what we have, as opposed to a regular pantry or refrigerator that is always rudely hiding things from view. The shelves contain sensors that read an RFID sticker so it can maintain an the proper temperature for that particular food. Move the container to the living table, and it switches from cooling mode to cooking mode. Woah.

Every home will have its own mini recycling plant 

This amazing system will take your recyclables, crush them, scan them and reward you with credits or debits (yay for rewards!). A composting system will turn organic waste into small pucks and reserve the leftover water for your houseplants.

You’re going to recycle your water, too

With this new plumbing system, you’ll be able to recycle “grey” water (for washing dishes), while contaminated “black” water will be shipped straight to the sewage pipes.

But let’s go back to that amazing chopping block table that will soon run our households. Here’s a video all about. Really, wait until you see what this thing can do.

Featured images via