Philips Design’s latest Design Probe ‘Metamorphosis’ explores how we have become separated from the natural world, both in terms of our surroundings and how we perceive and manage our time.

While seasons and time awaken powerful instinctive responses in us, currently the spaces in which we live and work do not reflect the changes outside to allow these effects to take place. Metamorphosis demonstrates how we have become detached from nature and the effect it has on our sensory experience and lifestyle.

Within the themes Light, Air, Sound and Body, the Metamorphosis team has created design concepts that view the home as a filter to limit air pollution, electromagnetic smog, and industrial noise penetrating our living and working space while letting in natural light, air and sound. The concepts work as a filter between people and the natural world from which, over time, people have become detached.

The Philips Design Probes program is a dedicated ‘far-future’ research initiative to track trends and developments that may ultimately evolve into mainstream issues that have a significant impact on business. By visualizing extreme versions of far future scenarios, through provocations, the Design Probe team attempts to gain deeper insights into the issues that affect people today and tomorrow.