Talk about going back to the future. The new R2B2 prototype by the forward thinking folks at Are you wheel? is a kitchen countertop of handsome wood, an ingenious electricity-free mechanical device, a versatile multi-pronged approach and potential solution to the problems of kitchen clutter—the unaccountable accretion of useless “stuff,” the wasteful and ineffectual “automation” that drives the core of so many Western households. If I’m getting carried away, it’s only because I’m rather taken with the concept. The latter, in a nutshell, is reverting to a turn-of-the-century (that’s 20th rather than 21st) ethos about powering appliances. R2B2—with the help of impressive innovations in materials science and nearly friction-free mechanics—can free your kitchen from the tyranny of coal-powered electricity and (re)-introduce the liberty of the leg.
Credit designer Christopher Thetard with the concept. Beneath the handsome countertop resides R2B2’s large, impeccably polished—and beautiful, I might add—flywheel, which, with the help of some easy pedal pushing, harnesses momentum and torque to turn the aforementioned appliances. Though it may seem unlikely that said apparati could be on a powerful par with their electrified counterparts, Are you wheel ensures us that, yes, they are: “smart transmission ratios and different gears enable more than 10,000 rotations per minute. Chopping herbs, grating cheese or mixing cocktails can be accomplished with a few pedal kicks only, in an unexpectedly silent way.”
Not that silence wouldn’t be a welcome addition to the kitchen environs, but R2B2’s prime selling card is its energy-efficiency. And don’t believe this achievement comes with the price of superfluous space. R2B2 houses beneath its sleek surface a clever bank of niches and small sliding drawers. And the mounting points for the appliances include cutout pieces that fill the small voids, thus keeping the surface smooth and continuous for prep.
