Philips Design is launching the latest Probes project called 'Microbial' Home at Dutch Design Week 2011, which opened this weekend and runs until Sunday the 30th of October.

The Microbial Home Probe is a domestic ecosystem that challenges conventional design solutions to energy, cleaning, food preservation, lighting and human waste.

On display at the Piet Hein Eek gallery in Eindhoven, there are five lifelike models of concepts for visitors to see which all propose a cyclical system of living; where each function's output is another's input.

Amongst the ideas on show is a 'Bio-digester' island; a kitchen island that consists of a methane 'digester' which converts bathroom waste solids and vegetable trimmings into methane gas, which then feeds a 'Bio-light' concept using bio-luminescent bacteria.

Another concept is the 'Paternoster' plastic waste up-cycler that uses mycelium to break down plastic packaging waste. Designed to teach children about the environmental impact of household waste, it also, amazingly, can mould toys while producing edible mushrooms for use in the kitchen too.

Our favourite though, is an 'Urban Beehive' - a concept for keeping bees at home and designed to allow a glimpse into their fascinating world as well as enabling the harvest of honey.

Philips say:

"Our world is sending us warning signals that we are disturbing its equilibrium. A drastic cut in our environmental impact is called for.

This Probe explores how the solution is likely to come from biological processes, which are by nature less energy-consuming and non-polluting. We need to go back to nature in order to move forward."

This is awesome stuff.