Electrolux opens laundry studio for more sustainable housing

The future of living spaces will be studied by researchers from around the world over the next ten years at the HSB Living Lab in Sweden. The goal is to develop more sustainable homes and a key area of the lab is an Electrolux laundry studio.

The HSB Living Lab is a unique, portable housing and research arena. Around 30 students and guest researchers of all ages and nationalities will live there while undertaking research on innovative technology, sustainability as well as architectural and social context. Around the clock. For the next ten years.

The building will be located at the Chalmers University of Technology campus in Gothenburg and will be ready for occupancy in the spring of 2016. A number of research projects related to the HSB Living Lab are already underway and the results of the research will be presented while the building is on site.

Researchers will also experience the Electrolux Laundry Studio as part of the HSB Living Lab. For Electrolux and its professional laundry business, the project opens up further opportunities in sustainable laundry solutions and adds global insight into how our products can innovatively contribute to homes of the future.

“The laundry studio is a central item. We’ve cooperated with Chalmers’ lecturer, adjunct professor Larry Toups – who brings experience from NASA in Houston – to develop new ideas to reduce water and energy consumption and create a good social environment,” says Greg Morrison, Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Chalmers.

Ideal testing environment

“This project gives us the opportunity to challenge how we currently deal with textiles as well as develop simpler, more pleasant and sustainable ways of handling the laundry in the future,” says Mattias Johansson, Electrolux Professional Innovation Manager.

“With energy-efficient and silent machines, the laundry room becomes a social meeting place for the residents,” he adds. .“We have access to a unique research platform that gives us the opportunity to work closer to the researchers at the university. We’ll manage projects in textile care together with partners and/or the researchers.”

Johansson concludes: “By interacting with those living in the lab in a structured way we can learn a lot about how our products may contribute to future living spaces.”

The ten-year project will result in new solutions for more sustainable and qualitative housing.

Facts about the HSB Living Lab

A flexible building in which most things can be replaced!

HSB Living Lab is planned as a four-storey building that can be dismantled. There will be a residential area offering homes and an exhibition section for offices, meeting rooms, a showroom for research results, a laundry room, etc.

The façade will be replaceable to an extent as testing various different façade materials may be of interest. This may also apply to other external or internal parts of the building, where options for testing various materials and solutions may be required.

A building which takes a holistic approach to future living

Short and long-term research projects will be taking place inside HSB Living Lab throughout the project’s ten-year life span. The project as a whole will provide a new, forward-thinking feel of a home environment, and the intention is to take a holistic approach to living. This means that sustainability – among other things – is central to the research. Research results can be presented in exhibition areas in the building. These exhibitions will provide a venue for enhancing understanding of sustainable solutions, along with an area which is always accessible to anyone who is interested in our research.

Students to live in research projects

This project is sometimes referred to as the third generation of Living Lab. This means that students will be living in the research building – various research projects will actually be ongoing while they live there. These projects may involve anything from new materials to surveys linked to behavior in the accommodation. The results will then be kept on display in the exhibition area. The materials and methods tested for our homes may then result in improved quality when building and renovating accommodation in general.