“Alexa, tell Ori to hide my bed,” says Ori CEO Hasier Larrea.
Voice control with Amazon’s Alexa is just one of the ways his new product, Ori Systems, strives to transform the tiny apartment market. “When we think about transformation, it needs to be effortless,” he exclaims.
And in today’s home, it also has to be connected and autonomous. Larrea was inspired by robotics when he helped develop a moveable furniture system at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“It’s a system that divides the space, a system that hides the bed and a system that has a ton of storage,” says Larrea.
But before you get flashbacks of the Murphy bed at grandma’s house. “The nice thing, here, is that everything happens with basically a finger touch, so there’s basically a brain,” says Larrea. “This is a computer, you know, the brain of the system, so you just touch. And with just a gentle finger touch, you’re moving a huge wall as if it was weightless.”
A media room, bedroom, closet and office are all built into that “huge wall.” The idea is to offer an option to Millennials who want to live in the city but can’t afford it.
“Look at the news, and you see young Millennials being priced out of the market. That is terrible, because we are kicking out of these cities the very people they need to remain globally competitive,” says Larrea.
With that said, Ori is primarily looking to build relationships with builders. Larrea has already partnered with Samuels and Associates, Boston Properties and Skanska among other developers in Florida and D.C.
“If you are thinking about a new building, think about fitting 20 units where you were fitting 15. And the reason you can do that, now, is because with this technology you can prove that a smaller apartment can act like it was a much, much bigger apartment.” This particular Ori beta system was installed at Watermark Seaport, a new multifamily development in Boston built by Skanska.
Right now, Larrea is choosing ten developers to be a part of a beta showcase program. “We are looking for those explorers, you know, those developers in these city areas that understand that we have a big challenge, which is urbanization. And by building things the way we were building 20 years ago, we are not going to solve this challenge.”
The full Ori launch is set for the second quarter of 2017, when a whole family of different systems will be released.
