I just came across this most interesting entry on the Treehugger blog that is one of the best examples of how design and functionality meet to create sustainable solutions. Korean designer Jihyun Ryou has developed the amazing designs above to serve as sexy storage containers for items that have in more recent tradition been stored in the our refrigerators, taking up valuable space and energy, but actually do not need to be kept in these expensive cooling devices if properly stored. Some of these items may surprise you (eggs for example). Ryou developed these designs after listening to her grandmother or others in her community who learned these techniques from "traditional oral knowledge which has been accumulated from experience and transmitted by mouth to mouth."
What I love most about this article is what the designer says about how we understand our food: "We hand over the responsibility of taking care of food to the technology, the refrigerator. We don't observe the food any more and we don't understand how to treat it." Isn't that so powerful? I think that statement is the essence of why we fail so often in our daily relationship with food and why waste is so prevalent in our culture. It would seem as though good design has once again taught us an important lesson, for if we truly are what we eat, we must take a deeper look at ourselves and our past and let our collective creativity show us the way.