A former Dragons’ Den star is set to shake up the property market by building homes that offer four times the rooms and features as a typical one-bedroom flat, but within the same confines.
Simon Woodroffe’s new property boasts more space than a typical one-bedroom flat but with more rooms, including a descending bedroom (pictured)
Simon Woodroffe has created a living area that offers more space by hiding rooms which appear at the touch of a button or the pull of a wall.
These ‘hidden rooms’, including a bedroom which descends from the roof, are operated via 12 mechanical moving parts and are designed to create four 80sq m rooms in one single 80sq m apartment.
The hidden rooms, including a sunken sitting room (pictured), appear at the touch of a button
The property boasts a master bedroom suite, second bedroom, a sunken sitting room, cinema, dining room, office, full-size kitchen, breakfast room, bathroom, party room and even a wine cellar.
The YO! Home prototype is the culmination of seven years of design and development.
During the day this space could be used as an office before transforming into a bed
Mr Woodroffe, 60, who lives on a luxury river boat on the Thames, said: ‘I think homes help shape our lives. They are our refuge, and our rock.
‘Since the invention of the city centre apartment, we’ve never really re-invented it. YO! Home is that new invention.
‘Twelve moving parts draw on a wealth of engineering technology taken from fields as diverse as yacht and automotive design and the mechanics of stage production, allowing the transformation of an 80 sq/m space into a much bigger home.
A home cinema is one of the features that you wouldn’t normally see in a typical one-bedroom flat
‘The technologies we have used are already established in car design, super-yachts and theatre, their application in the home is long overdue.’
Mr Woodroffe, who used to work as a rock show stage designer, took inspiration from the way experts manage stage mechanics on West End musical shows.
This dining table comes up out of the floor. Mr Woodroffe said the ‘high-tech elements such as sensors and electronics will make the concept easy to use and family-proof’
He has also been heavily influenced by the principles of Japanese living, where the simple and adaptable layout of traditional rooms allows many activities to take place in the same space.
He added: ‘The time-honoured architecture of the stage brings with it the basic principles of counter-weights and moving parts, allowing safe, easy and low-energy movement of large elements such as the bed and wall.
‘More high-tech elements, such as sensors and electronics, will make the concept easy to use and family-proof.’
The entrepreneur is so far refusing to reveal a price for a YO! Home, with each being dependent on the design.
But the businessman, who appeared on the first series of Dragons’ Den, does not want it to be so expensive that customers could instead just buy a larger home.
