While researchers in London suggest that our rampant CO2 production may help us avert a long overdue Ice Age, global warming has yet to fully eradicate the winter season. In the meantime, designer Rochus Jacob has found a solution for urban heating woes: ‘Rethinking the Radiator’ re-imagines the radiator as a campfire, liberating the unsightly clanking metal box from its confinement to the wall and moving it deeper into the living space. More after the jump.

‘Rethinking the Radiator’ works with hot water or steam just like your typical radiator, allowing the system to plug into existing infrastructure with ease. But in Jacob’s design, the rigid form of the conventional radiator is reduced into three light and efficient matchstick forms, which can be sculpted into a free-standing hearth and placed anywhere in the room and neatly stored away in warmer months. The heat source is thus brought closer to its users, and a simple interface offers adjustable settings based on a physically sliding scale. Not only can users more closely monitor their use of heat, which Jacob suggests could significantly cut costs and CO2 emissions, but the social importance of heating once again emerges, as Jacob’s design awakens us to the emotional value of heat in our culture.

[All images courtesy Rochus Jacob]

by Kelly Chan

posted in Product

tagged cities, city, design, heating, product, Rethinking the Radiator, Rochus Jacob, urban

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