Modular multi-compartment fridge for student houses

This concept (?) fridge from Electrolux uses modular stacking mini-units to provide personal refrigeration compartments for everyone in the household -- it's designed for shared student accomodation:

Happy flatshares often fall apart over the politics of the shared fridge. There’s always a flatmate with low hygiene standards and another with light fingers and a baked bean addiction. With the Flatshare fridge, everyone gets there own very separate compartment that still has a tall section for bottles and a smaller side for veg and there can be no arguments about who’s turn it is to clean it out. When another flatmate moves in, thay can simply buy another unit to go on top.

Electrolux Flatshare fridge designed for squabbling students (via Cribcandy)

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Sirmittenz

where does the beer go?
klaradox

@21 it is beter than a “night-stand-fridge, because it can stand in your kitchen, where you actually need it, and you don’t have to run in and out of your room when you want to have breakfast.. :)
moonracer23

A neat idea, but there are far simpler, cheaper and more efficient ways of doing this. Like creating partitions within a fridge (perhaps with cardboard and duct tape). A trick I actually use is to initial any food I don’t want to share with a sharpie.

Unfortunately I live with five other people so we would be better off having two full sized refrigerators.
themindfantastic

Only really useful if you can lock your section.
EH

This was my goldanged idea, only mine was gonna be larger for apartments. Also, there should be a dishwasher module and maybe a microwave.
grimc

@24

Good point. I guess it’s just that when I think of students’ refrigeration needs it’s the kind of stuff that really doesn’t need a kitchen.
TEKNA2007

Your roommates will still be ripping off food from other people’s compartments.
long-orange-arms

Better than individual fridges in people’s own rooms from an energy point of view, but fundamentally inefficient on space.

Best flat share I ever had was where we pooled the whole fridge from day one, and pretty much everything was up for grabs.

The slightly larger sum we seemed to spend on food was more than made up for by the lack of bulshit, and knowing everyone else would tuck in to what ever I bought helped restrain my extravagant iplulse purchases at the supermarket.

I’m always slightly disappointed by the tendency people seem to have to carve out and define “territory” after they’ve agreed to share a space. I must do it myself in some ways I suppose, but that doesn’t stop me thinking it’s a shame……

ramble ramble ramble ramble
dewexdewex

Could be used in conjunction with individual transparent rubbish bins to see exactly how much of what goes in each fridge compartment gets chucked away as opposed to being eaten.
dewexdewex

I don’t see the point in the L interlock, it ups production costs for little benefit.
Anonymous

Add the ability for a locking device and you’re golden.
sammich

themidfantastic @ 1 et al – lockable fridges? Noooo!
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1964to1979/filmpage_disused.htm
Sebas van den Brink

I think the design is brilliant and I wouldn’t be surprised to see these things popup in the city I live in (lots of students here). But personally I prefer my own fridge. As in; a whole fridge just for me.

But then again I do already own one. Spoiled little me.
gonzilla

I agree with the previous folks. What’s the point if there’s no locks. Plus, there’s hardly any room for a case of Natty Boh and a bottle of yager.
Gillagriene

I’ve never had problems with food disappearing. (Seriously, we have to mark the food we want people to help us eat, maybe I’ve just been really lucky?) What I’ve a had problems with is space. And the amount of space that design kills makes it impractical for any household I’ve ever lived in. Can you even fit a gallon of milk in there?
Dave Faris

I think thay need an editor for there website over their on Electricpig.
rrhobbs

what, no locks? Food thievery (or suspicion of same) seemed to be a never ending source of angst in many of the communal households I lived in or knew of in college.
BrotherPower

Besides looking cool, how is this an improvement over the usual cube-style minifridges? Can you not stack those?
seraphwings

@29: I shared an apartment with three other people in college. We each brought our own mini-fridges and stacked them up. So yes, you can.

If each of these individual cubicles were bigger and had more space, I can see it working if provided in the dorms. And yea, locks would be nice too. Even with handmade refrigerator dividers, you would still be tempted to reach over and grab something on the other side. This way is a little less tempting I think.
kaiza

Based on the bottom section I sorta imagined that you could incorporate a safe-style dial to open the fridge. Having said that, the go-to tech for locks in concept products would have to be biometric – fingerprint, retina or perhaps even DNA? Maybe the door could jab you, take a sample of your DNA and store it forever inside itself… and then grow a clone of you, using the stored food as amniotic fluid supplement.

Wow, I’m totally building this fridge when I get hold of my first lot of Grey GooÂ®
klaradox

i dunno why everyone is saying this is not a good idea..i think first of all, that you can lock it if you really want to.

but actually, when people are living together, they have respect towards each other, but sometimes when yyour flatmate’s chockolate cake is infront of you, you just need to taste it. however if it is in another compartment, not infront of your nose, you will probably only open his!her compartment when you are totally out of milk for your morning coffee..and then during the day you buy yourself what you need.

and another thing. I know many vegetarians who in the end turned me into a veg because they would not even bare the sight or smell of meat, therefore i stopped buying and puttink meat in the fridge..i think these compartments are best for that problem.
dbarak

Not a bad idea, I guess, but what happens after a few moves and all of a sudden you have everyone with all or mostly left or right modules — no way to interlock them. Or can they be turned upside down?
Xander43

I shared a house with three other folks in university and we never had a problem when we all bought communal food. It was when we all eventually drifted off and started buying our own food it became a problem.

I often thought something exactly like this – with the addition of locks, would be extremely useful in non-communal food situations.
Sijay

@11: Looks like you should be able to invert them, though from the photo I’m not sure how the in-door storage on a “top” unit is supposed to work. Maybe some snap-in or fold-out accessories?

Not a bad idea. I agree that pilfering from other’s cubes could still be a problem, but in my experience the problem is more the blurred line between shared and private property. At least with these boxes the line is clearly defined. The stuff in MY fridge/room/car/wallet is NOT YOURS, there’s no pretending that you thought it was yours, and if my sht starts disappearing you’re finding a new place to live.

While I’ve lived in situations where the food was all considered communal, you wind up with problems because you generally have at least some of your meals separate from your flatmates, and can’t always plan together who’s going to grab the last juice bottle for lunch…
Miss Cellania

After reading these comments, I’m glad I am no longer so young that I have to live with people I don’t trust.
Anonymous

We had refrigerators just like that in govt. supplied student accommodation in East Germany back in the 1980s

the compartments even had locks on them :)
error404

On the one hand, novelty modular fridge or on the other, better house mates.

I’m going to go with better house mates.
Gillagriene

@34 Excellent point! The last place I was at would have shorted if it had more then three in the kitchen. Or you turned on a light (it was old, slummy and wired oddly). If they all individually have to get power, is it even safe to have that many hooked to the same outlet?
Mike

I love the idea, but it doesn’t look like you can put very many Hot Pockets in there.
Baldhead

my only question is: where’s the freezer?

My problem right now is I have a full size fridge with a packed freezer and a mainly empty main section (don’t leave much leftovers and only buy enough veggies to last a couple days) So what I need is a half- size main compartment with a full size freezer.

And i never had a problem with folks stealing my food. heard of it from others but never dealt with it.
strathmeyer

I wonder if, like normal fridges, they will asplode if run while upside-down.
Kaiser Leib

Can the sections without flat bottoms stand on their own, or does the owner get hosed when he moves out?
Caroline

Yeah, I always had the most success when I agreed with roommates that the food would just be communal. We’d go shopping together and just split the bill down the middle (or three ways, or whatever). It really saved drama, and communal dinners were more fun anyway. Yeah, I’d eat some stuff that they wouldn’t, but they also ate some stuff that I wouldn’t, so it all worked out.

I did once live in a house with 5 other people who weren’t into that, and frankly I didn’t like it much. There was neverending drama. One of them was so paranoid that she accused me of stealing her jeans, which was ridiculous on so many levels. I had jeans of my own, and I’m sorry but her jeans were not so awesome that I would want to steal them. And we weren’t even the same size!

Sorry, can you tell I’m still bitter?
squirrelgirl

I have never had a communal fridge situation work, except with my room mate with Crohn’s disease who had a very limited diet. What always seems to happen is one person buys food and everyone else eats it while that person’s at work or school. A lose-lose situation – you’re the one spending the money and the one going hungry.
LightningCrash

s/thay/they/
Anonymous

Who pays for the repairs if the cooling/power system fails?

Plus, is the design Wheelchair friendly for the doors opening to 180+ degrees of arc?
ChunkyMonkeyBrain

Question:
when you stack them, is there an electrical dock so the base is the only module plugged into the wall?

Because I can see some serious circuit strain from a high stacked module of 6 or more. especially with the questionable wiring in most of the run-down “student housing” available near so many college campuses.

save your files often when working on those term papers kids!
grimc

How would this be better than a mini fridge in each person’s bedroom? Aside from the footprint (not really an issue; mini fridge = nightstand), mini fridges would have more ‘security’ and storage space.

It’s a cool idea, but practically speaking it doesn’t seem to be better than what people can do now.
Hmpf

Wow, I never realised my roommates and I were so unusual: I’ve shared flats and fridges with about seventeen different people (not all at once *g*) over the past eleven years, and I’ve never had any problems with any of them stealing my food or anything. The only seriously strange thing that I can remember is that once we had two bottles of a really bizarre drink turn up in one of our fridges that nobody could remember ever having seen before – let along bought. But mystery food (or drink) turning up is rather the opposite of people nicking your food, so, again: no problem there.