Student’s design wins Glasswells furniture of the future competition

Ethan Miller is the winner of a furniture design competition, where his design has been made into a prototype by West Suffolk College. (Image: Archant)

It looks like something from the set of Star Trek, Star Wars or a future world appearing in Dr Who.

Ethan Miller’s flight of fantasy – his design for a piece of furniture for the home of the future – is a real winner.

Ethan’s design is a space-saving combination of table, chairs and 3D television screens which descends from the ceiling.

It was chosen as the winner in a competition run by a Suffolk-based furniture company which is celebrating seven decades of trading.

Ethan Miller is the winner of a furniture design competition, where his design has been made into a prototype by West Suffolk College. Ethans's winning design. (Image: Archant)

Glasswells issued a challenge to young designers. As part of its 70th anniversary, the firm staged a display of ‘furniture through the ages’, looking at iconic designs, patterns and styles from across the years.

Along with the EADT, a competition was launched inviting young people to design a piece of furniture that would be suited to 2087 – 70 years in the future.

There were around 50 innovative entries and Ethan Miller’s was chosen as the best.

His design was then made into a prototype by students at West Suffolk College.

Richard Ball, Glasswells’ buying director, said technology played a big part in many of the children’s drawings.

He added: “Congratulations to Ethan for coming up with a design that was both inventive and a commercially viable product. We may well have found the next big furniture designer here in Suffolk.”

Thirteen-year-old Ethan is a student at Felixstowe Academy.

His winning design is a bluetooth-powered table, which is lowered down from the ceiling when required.

It has 3D television screens in the middle and eight chairs that fold out from the sides, and it incorporates lighting too.

Many items from science fiction, later become viable products such as robot vacuum cleaners and airborne drones that can deliver goods. Driverless cars will soon be here.

Young people today accept mobile phones as a fact of daily life. Their parents remember a time when making a telephone call, while away from the home, required several coins and finding a vacant telephone box.

There were many exciting ideas from the young ‘imagineers’ who took part.

Among the other design entries was a “cloud-like” bed, which had a anti-gravity feature, and an armchair that incorporated air con, heating, mood sensors and lighting.

There was also a sleeping pod and a portable, folding sofa.

And I also liked Aileen Taylor’s invention, which was a sofa with memory foam, for comfort, which could also detect pain and heat up areas to soothe it.

Perhaps some of these ideas will become the household furniture of the future?