英国家居设计展览

A toilet that unfolds, and folds away at the touch of a button. Ideal for anybody struggling for space in a cramped city flat!

Donbracht's space saving toilet, which retracts back into the wall after use, even senses how much water to use.

Another solution from Dornbracht is the Horizontal Shower - which means showers can be taken lying down.

Preset programs allow the user to enjoy a variety of water temperatures providing either an invigorating or relaxing shower experience.

Willow Horlley is a design consultant at Dornbracht

"The uniqueness of this shower by Dornbracht is that you can lie down. You can pre-program your shower so that you can control the temperature and the quality of the water so you can have a revitalizing, relaxing or energizing shower."

500 exhibitors and thousands of visitors flocked to London's Excel Center to see the very latest in solutions for sustainable home living.

Technology journalist Shem Pennant has been analyzing the latest trends at this year's show. For him, it's all about appealing to the consumers' wallets.

"Companies more and more are emphasizing how this product can save you 'x' amount of pounds over a certain amount of years which is a really helpful way of pushing that message to people and getting them to see some of the benefits."

Outside the house and into the garden, Polysolar is exhibiting the world's first domestic solar PV Greenhouse, incorporating transparent photovoltaic glass.
This product offers the combined benefits of renewable electricity generation with an improved greenhouse environment in which to grow plants. Hamish Watson is the CEO of Polysolar

"The driver is mainly the cost of energy these days and if you can produce free electricity for yourself you also tend to get a feed in tariff which is a government subsidy for it as well. It means the greenhouse pays for itself and you get free electricity for life."

Polysolar's photovoltaic glass is designed to be integrated into any building structure.

The transparent thin-film PV glass works on both sides, in lower light conditions and at high temperatures. This means position is less important compared to typical solar panels and - according to Polysolar – it offers annual energy yields 30 per cent higher than conventional systems.

This year's show also caters for water-dwelling solutions with the first two-storey Eco Floating Home. Dan Fowler with Eco Float explains:

"As the earth's surface is 71 percent water we are running out of space and we are going to need to use it more effectively, this is where the Eco Floating Home comes in. As well as it can be completely sustainable in a way that you can live off the grid with all the technologies we are using."

The efficient and cost-effective Eco Floating homes can be large, two-story units, which can harness solar energy through solar hot water panels as well as photovoltaic panels and photo-galvanic cladding, all of which create electricity from the sun's rays.

More down-to-earth technologies are also on show, including the latest mobile phones, audio equipment and home cinema systems.

Grand Designs Live 2012 runs until May 13.

For CRI, I am Li Dong.