With the exception of us energy-hog Americans, much of the world dries their laundry electricity-free, on a rack.

You might assume that after the clothes are dry, everyone folds them up and puts them away. But Lukas Bazle and Lukas Stotz, while studying Industrial Design at Germany's Hochschule für Gestaltung Schwäbisch Gmünd, looked into it and learned different. "Our research has shown [that] many people skip putting clothes in the wardrobe and use the clothes directly from the drying rack," they write, describing the impetus for their Haarlem design. "The goal was to create a product that adapts to this behavior."

Prototype

Prototype

Prototype

"Haarlem is a systematic solution for storing and drying fresh laundry. It combines the traditional closet with a drying rack. In the process of going from dirty laundry to having the clothes freshly washed in your closet again, there are several unnecessary steps that can be simplified."

"Additionally it becomes more clear which items are being worn often and which ones you could manage to live without."

(Text reads "Now the next wash cycle can be hang-dryed.")

While this might not be ideal for an enclosed and non-ventilated closet (think humidity problems), at the student level I love this kind of outside-of-the-box thinking based on a better understanding of how people actually behave.

Both Bazle and Stotz are now graduated. Bazle works as a designer for Ikea, while Stotz is working in the model making department at Königliche Porzellan Manufaktur (@kpmberlin) in Berlin.

Bazle also credits design professor Klaus Marek on the project.