Furniture
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The Issue: People living in small apartments frequently have to deal with a lack of storage space. While it’s possible to “just” add cabinets and bookshelves, these take up valuable floor space and make the apartment more cramped. Proposal: There is a surprisingly underutilized storage method that preserves your limited floor space: “just stick things…
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The Issue: Marriage ceremonies traditionally involve an exchange of vows. Strangely, only very rarely does a marriage ceremony include an obstacle course, “pub quiz” component, co-op video game challenge, or other method of allowing two people to demonstrate their suitability as partners. As a result, people occasionally get married and only later discover that they…
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The Issue: In the “open plan” office (a more-cramped version of the classic “cubicle” office plan), there are typically there are many rows of desks with narrow aisles between them (Figure 1). Often, these aisles are quite long, and they may be completely cluttered with office chairs. Proposal: Although in a perfect world, people would…
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Background: The ability to clean bedsheets is what separates humans from the animals. But removing, washing, and replacing bedsheets is a hassle. Who has time for it in this modern world!? If only there were some way to replace the sheets on a bed without all the work! Proposal: Shockingly, a technology that almost solves…
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Background: Some older home have “simple” built-in drawers that are just a wooden box that slides on some wooden rails (instead of metal drawer slides). These drawers are fine for rarely-accessed items, but can be quite annoying in frequently-used situations (such as kitchen utensil drawers). The Issue: Since these drawers typically don’t have any sort…
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Background: Boat aficionados occasionally claim that sleeping on a boat is particularly relaxing due to the way the boat (and bed) is gently rocked by the waves. The Issue: Unfortunately, buying and maintaining a boat is expensive and might be completely infeasible for people who don’t live near a large body of water! Proposal: The…
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Background: Convenience stores occasionally sell hot dogs from a heated glass enclosure with a conveyor belt-like mechanism inside that rotates the hot dogs and moves them closer/farther from a heat lamp (Fig 1). The Issue: Unrelatedly, people often find it hard to get to a comfortable temperature when sleeping at night: it often feels like sleeping…
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The issue: The presence of windows in a house is a major factor in determining of whether a house is dark and cavern-like or bright and uplifting. Unfortunately, it is usually impractical or impossible to add windows to a home after its has been constructed. Additionally, windows generally have a negative effect on climate control:…
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Background: When the weather is cold, it’s often unappealing to wake up and get out of bed (Figure 1) to start your day. Proposal: The proposal is simple: a person needs something to look forward to when getting out of bed. This is essentially a “waystation” or “halfway point” of waking up. A person can…
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Background: Back in the days when fireplaces were a common method of heating a home, houses typically consisted of a number of smaller rooms with doors between them. However, modern homes tend to have open floor plans with large rooms that cannot be sealed off by doors. The Issue: In the open-floor-plan home-design world, heating…
WorstPlans: updated every Monday since July 2014! 