German industrial designer Luigi Colani has been rethinking the future since the '40s, and over the course of those many decades he has applied a rounded, streamlined look to cars and trucks, kitchens, spacecraft, furniture, and whatever else he can dream up. We call him a designer, but he calls himself a "3-D philosopher."

"The earth is round, all the heavenly bodies are round; they all move on round or elliptical orbits," Colani once said. "…I am going to pursue Galileo Galilei's philosophy: my world is also round."

Pictured above is Luigi Colani himself sitting in his "satellite kitchen," designed in 1969. It may look a bit cramped, but every appliance in the fully-featured (for 1969, anyhow) kitchenette is easily reached by someone sitting at the orb's center. Colani remarks that his concepts aren't mere propositions, but rather answers to questions that design proposes. And those answers aren't unheard: Colani has won numerous awards and his work influences the course of contemporary design.

Check out the gallery below for more of Luigi Colani's futuristic designs.

Luigi Colani, via Dark Roasted Blend