Before there were electric fridges, many people had root cellars. Those were essentially underground rooms with stable cool temperatures year round. You can now buy a Groundfridge from Weltevree, the company co-founded by designer Floris Schoonderbeek, famous for the Dutch Tub.

Sized for the average person standing up

I like their mission statement: “Weltevree wants to contribute to a sustainable, social and inspiring environment.” Root cellars certainly are the definition of sustainable. The Groundfridge has a capacity of 3000 liters, which the designers claim is the equivalent of 20 refrigerators, holding half a ton of food. However those must be teensy European fridges; the average American fridge is 18 cubic feet or 500 liters, so it is really the equivalent of 6 fridges here. The hand-laminated polyester unit with tight sealing door is going to be as vermin-proof as you can get.

Self-contained design

It appears to be designed so that you don’t even have to take away any dirt; dig a hole, drop it in and put the dirt back on top. Keeping it partly out of the ground also helps deal with high water tables like they have in the Netherlands; you don’t want it popping up.

Like a walk-in refrigerator only below ground

“It meets the requirements of people with their own vegetable garden, who choose to live in a modern and self-sustaining way.” And as we have noted many times before,living in a modern self-sustaining way is often just an update of how Grandma lived. No word on cost. More at Weltevree; found on Core77, who say it is shipping this summer.

Image Credit: weltevree.nl
Article via treehugger.com