Words Anna Bates
Home hero is a lightweight, 18-inch fire extinguisher designed to sit on kitchen surfaces, where 34 per cent of home fires start.
“People either don’t have an extinguisher, or it’s so ugly they’ve hidden it,” says New York-based designer Peter Arnell, who worked in the fire safety industry for five years before designing the object.
Home Hero is light enough to lift with one hand. A docking system will soon be available that sounds an alarm advising other occupants to “Get out” when the canister is lifted.
Arnell hopes the “calm, minimal aestehtic” will encourage people to keep it out where it is needed. “It’s one of those products that has a lot of liability attached to it,” he says. “It wasn’t easy to redesign it and break the codes of an industry that hasn’t changed for 125 years.”
©2007 – The Home Depot OrangeWorks
