CRI听力:Grand Design Live London

New technology for the home is one of the big draws at the just concluded Grand Designs Live exhibition in London. The latest gadgets and space-saving devices are drawing in the crowds at this annual event for innovative designs for the home and garden.

Our reporter Li Dong has the details.

Once upon a time the humble bathroom mirror did only one thing. Now, as well as reflecting your face for that early morning brush and shine, the Cybertecture Mirror is a multimedia information platform.

It will do everything from telling the time and weather forecast to keeping you up to date with social networks and live news coverage. In health mode, it will display your weight and give health and fitness tips and exercise routines.

Crowds of people flock to the Grand Designs Live show each year, looking out for the next new angle on designs for modern living.

Petra is a space-saving, remote controlled kitchen.

With the flick of a switch, worktops can be extended or rotated and otherwise unsightly sinks and stoves hidden away or revealed. There's also a media centre for watching TV and using the Internet while dinner is on the way. Surfaces in the Petra kitchen are made from travertine stone and oxidized iron, blending traditional craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology.

Architect and interior designer George Clarke says keeping up to speed with all the new tech is tough:

"Home design is changing so quickly in Britain, which I think is great. When you think over the last one hundred years it could have been fairly slow and that we built in a fairly typical and traditional way. I think the way you build a house, the way that you build your house sustainably, and the way you absorb modern technology is amazing. It seems to be changing year after year after year. I have to work pretty hard myself to keep up with all the new gadgets out there and new ways of doing things."

And that applies to the garden as well as the home. If you don't trust your own green fingers there's always the electronic flower pot. Technology journalist Shem Pennant says it more or less guarantees a perfect floral display every time:

"This is the Click and Grow which is an electronic flower bed. It's quite cool actually because rather than a conventional flower pot its rammed full of sensors and technology and software and there is some sort of onboard graphics chip and batteries as well. What it means is that you can put your seeds inside, walk away, come back in two or three weeks and you get one of these - which is a fully grown flower bed you don't have to worry about if its watered or if your if your under-watering it or over-watering it, or light conditions or anything like that. All the sensors take care of that. So it basically grows itself."

Back in the home the Liftbed is a high tech design to maximize space.

A variation on the old idea of the foldaway bed, the Liftbed can be completely retracted into the ceiling, and lowered for use at the touch of a button.

Technology blogger Anthony Goodey says with space increasingly at a premium the 'one room - twice the space' philosophy is sure to become more significant in the coming years:

"It comes down from the ceiling so in a general house you would actually have it built up into your ceiling so you could operate that space during the day for maybe an office space or just a communal area, and then the bed drops down from the ceiling and you have your bed there in the evening too."

For CRI, I am Li Dong.