A couple is currently conducting an original experiment in Boulogne-Billancourt, near Paris. They have been living independently in a 28 m² apartment since July to prove that it is possible to live normally while emitting only two tonnes of CO² per year per person.
Published on 03/11/2024 16:46
Reading time: 2min
Let's transport ourselves to 2040. We are welcomed by Caroline Pultz in the “apartment of the future” in Boulogne-Billancourt. “I'm just going to close the door to keep the heat in, because in fact we insulated the inside with hemp wool and we have a lot of living things here that require a little bit of heat, like crickets for example “explains the 31-year-old interior designer, who has been working with Corentin de Chatelperron for several years now. This 41-year-old engineer “has been looking for low tech innovations all over the world for around ten years”.
Low tech refers to a set of technologies that are simple to use, inexpensive, easily repairable and obviously environmentally friendly. The couple tested around twenty of them in this apartment, sometimes incongruous like this composter created with a bicycle crankset. “This is a prototype manual crank grinderpresents Caroline. The crushed food goes back into a pipe and falls into a bin.” The compost is then used in the plants grown here to be eaten. Precisely when it comes to cooking, these DIYers have a limitless imagination. “We call it the casserole of the futureindicates Corentin. It is a pressure cooker which is connected to the solar panel. Underneath, we glued heating resistors and it is in fact in a kind of box which is very well thermally insulated.”
The couple also created a very special shower: “The mushroom shower, we grow pink oyster mushrooms which we eatexplains Caroline. This shower has the particularity of being water and energy efficient.” Their installation allowed significant savings. “We don’t heat the apartment, we insulated everything from the inside with hemp wool”explains Caroline. “The hot water tank, the kettle, the cooking system, the fridge, everything has been designed to reduce energy consumption”continues Corentin.
Another fifteen days of eating crickets and living in this bubble of the future. On November 15, the experiment ends. The couple returns in 2024. The results will be made available to the general public on their website at the end of the experiment, mid-November or on their Instagram account.
