Indoor plant growing systems with varying degrees of automation control the lighting, watering, fertilizing, and other needs, while others tell you when the ambient room temperature isn’t optimal. You can even get robotic planters that will crawl over to a light source as needed.

This compact tech-assisted planter has a unique feature of its own. A telescopic multi-spectrum LED grow light popping up from the PICO pot can be raised or lowered in a single motion, effectively growing with your plant. Made of food-safe, recyclable BPA-free plastic and corrosion-resistant stainless steel, the PICO boasts “the smallest grow light module ever,” powered by high-performance grow lights from OSRAM.

All the necessary wavelengths of light are present to grow plants year-round, even if your space lacks natural light altogether. Each color wavelength stimulates a specific biological function in plants, like supporting healthy leaf growth or flowering. The planter’s telescopic arm is reminiscent of a vintage radio antenna, extending up to a foot in height to accommodate most small houseplants and edible plants like herbs.

Crucially for people who need a lot of plant care help, the PICO is self-watering, too.

The PICO’s official crowdfunding page explains that “regardless of how busy you are, PICO’s watering system makes sure your plants have as much water as they need — no more, no less — to sustain their health and beauty. All you need to do is top-up once a week. Watering too little can kill your plants, but so can too much. Getting it right takes time and experience. Not many of us have it. With PICO, that’s all taken care of for you!”

“The transparent window lets you know when it’s time to top up, typically once a week. Employing just capillary action and gravity, this design does not require any power supply or involve a motor or pumps. Your plants will also grow quicker and healthier due to root oxygenation from below, provided by the ventilation holes.”

Two USB-C cables are included to power the PICO, including a short double-ended option and a ten-foot cable with magnetic organizer loops that will help you route the cable around objects and appliances in your home. Any phone charger power block can be used with these cables. Multiple ports in the grow lights allow you to daisy chain up to three PICOs together to form a mini garden, or you can create an “indoor jungle” of six units connected through a 5V charger.

This mini all-in-one planter is perfect for ultra-small spaces, too. A variety of different mounting options including magnets, velcro, and wall mounts make it easy to put it up out of the way almost anywhere you can imagine, including refrigerators, glass windows, and even vehicle interiors.

PICO’s creators recommend plants like English ivy, spider plants, pilea, zebra plants, succulents, aloe, rosemary, and lavender for room-freshening effects like boosted air quality, pleasant scents, and meal embellishments. Get the details for pre-ordering at Kickstarter.

The post The PICO Mini Garden Features Lights That Grow With Your Plants first appeared on Dornob.

In previous decades, fake plants made of silk or plastic offered a common solution to this problem, but most of them weren’t exactly convincing. Today, you can occasionally find some pretty authentic-looking artificial houseplants, but they aren’t cheap, and you’ll have to keep them dusted to preserve the effect. So why not do away with the pretense altogether and move in a different direction?

Artist Raya Sader Bujana lets you enjoy the looks of every single one of those trendy houseplants without requiring even the slightest bit of care. Her incredible miniature creations are made of paper and stand just a few inches tall. Each individual sculpture in her series “Tiny Big Paper House Plants” looks so uncannily real, you’ll wonder for a moment whether somebody actually managed to breed tiny versions of these snake plants, cacti, and more.

Even more incredibly, Bujana has crafted baskets and planters to go with each one. Look closely and you’ll see that many of them are woven just like their full-sized counterparts, some so intricately that they “almost took my sanity,” as the artist says on Instagram. That’s where you’ll find many detailed shots of her creations, which give us a sense of just how much work goes into each one.

“I’m dedicating an entire post to this basket, cause it nearly killed me,” she writes. “If you followed the process on my stories you saw how long it took me to weave this tiny thing, with a hundred gazillion paper threads that I hand cut. It was fun and nerve-wracking, but fun… I enjoy things that challenge both me and my patience. What do you guys think of this one? I think it’s my favorite basket to date…”

Luckily, you don’t have to be as talented as Bujana to enjoy these little masterpieces. The artist sells her creations on Etsy, so you can collect a miniature paper nursery of your very own. Unsurprisingly, you have to act fast when they’re posted, because they tend to sell out in a flash. Bujana’s paper plant crafting expertise has already netted her over 100K followers on Instagram, many of whom are waiting breathlessly for her next items to appear.

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BARCELONA ???? Nos vemos mañana y el Domingo en el @festivaletbcn con muchas cositas nuevas, todas mis plantitas estarán de visita y esta vez traigo lupa ???????? Habrá prints nuevos, pins, collares, miniaturas y ya no me acuerdo que más porque estoy muy cansada ???? Quien viene a saludarme? ???? @leocroma #paperart #paperflowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . #paperartist #pursuepretty #paperengineering #papersculpture #blooooms #dsfloral #DStiny #botanicalpickmeup #urbanjungle #plantlady #plantmom #etsyshop #festivalet2019 #rayasaderbujana #ohwowyes #miniatureart #dslooking #abmlifeiscolorful #thedesigntip #graphicdesigncentral #mymodernmet #molliemakes #designlovefest

A post shared by Raya Sader Bujana. (@littlerayofsunflower) on Dec 13, 2019 at 9:57am PST

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SURPRISE UPDATE to celebrate Small Business Saturday will be live for 24hrs starting in about 6hrs (midnight Spain time) This time I’ve included some slightly larger framed pieces as well ???? 12 Necklaces in total and 9 Framed pieces ????They are a perfect accent for your wall and can also be used as an ornament if you like ☺️ lots of Birth Flowers in this update. After 24hrs, if something hasn’t been sold it will be removed from the shop ???? There is 20%off on everything in the shop except originals through next Monday and all orders above 120€ will automatically be upgraded to express shipping ✈️ (applies to the US and Europe) and also, all orders above 35$ have free shipping to the US AND Spain and very reduced shipping costs to the rest of the world ❤️ All orders will ship on Monday ☺️ Hope you love these as much as I do ???? ???? @leocroma #paperart #paperflowers . . . . . . . . . . . . . #botanicalpickmeup #blooooms #paperartist #pursuepretty #paperartistcollective #etsy #birthflower #plantlady #urbanjungle #designmilk #designboom #graphicdesigncentral #dslooking #designsponge #dscolor #dsfloral #ohwowyes #rayasaderbujana #creativityfound #craftsposure #calledtobecreative #molliemakes

A post shared by Raya Sader Bujana. (@littlerayofsunflower) on Nov 29, 2019 at 8:42am PST

Bujana also crafts tiny cacti contained within miniature bell jar terrariums, wearable pressed paper flowers in glass lockets, life-sized paper flowers and ferns, paper food replicas, and additional non-paper items like enamel pins and framed prints.

Do these tiny paper plants make you want to start a collection that will never die?

The post Black Thumb? These Tiny Intricate Paper Plants Will Never Die first appeared on Dornob.

Even if you don’t mind their dramatic shapes and extensive use of rather unforgiving materials, it’s hard to deny that Brutalist structures don’t exactly age well. The concrete used to create many of them started to crumble within decades, and today, they’re commonly stained, gray behemoths surrounded by buildings in clashing styles. Many of them have already been demolished, or are at least in danger of being lost. But could more of them be salvaged with simple makeovers, even in places where they’re despised?

German architecture firm J. Mayer H. answers this question with “Casa Morgana,” a reimagining of a former Brutalist building in the north of Germany. The blocky home previously had a severe, gloomy feel that was out of step with its lush surroundings. Joining it with that greenery was the first and most important element of its transformation.

The firm hired landscape architect Tita Giese to pull some of that vitality into the structure itself with new gardens full of bamboo, palm trees, and ivy. The result almost makes it feel like an ancient, secret temple accidentally discovered on a long trek through the jungle.

“Casa Morgana is somewhere else,” say the architects. “Surrounded by neighboring homes dating from the late nineteenth century, the building is like an abstract volumetric study for a potential building and seems to have fallen out of context. Surrounding nature simulates a subtropical oasis and locates the residential sculpture between optical disturbance and atmospheric displacement.”

“The three-story building consists formally of several differently-sized cubes placed at staggered levels on top of one another, connected by a central stairway. The existing building from 1972 and its annexes from 1991 were reduced to their shells and then retaken with targeted interventions: not as a cosmetic makeover, but as a location that distills and continues the archaic and brutalist aesthetic from the time of the building’s original emergence.”

The house is still indisputably Brutalist, but it’s been nicely adapted to the needs and preferences of contemporary times. The architects partially removed some ceilings and walls to create staggered floors and different room heights, allowing the house to slowly unfold in surprising ways as you move through it.

Mirrored walls, speckled terrazzo surfaces, and shimmering metallic accents play with the concrete instead of working against it, brightening it up all throughout. Enormous operable glass doors eliminate some of the barriers between inside and out, as do the concrete elements that continue out into the yard. They also cleaned up the concrete surfaces to give them a bit of a facelift.

Obviously, a home like this still isn’t for everyone, even after its transformation. But perhaps, in the hands of J. Mayer H., it can help persuade more people to give Brutalist buildings a second chance — regardless of whether they think they’re wonders or blunders.

The post Casa Morgana: Brutalist German Home Transformed with Plants first appeared on Dornob.

Planted rooftops can also help lessen heat exposure, reducing the need for air conditioning outside. But one of the biggest benefits of a usable rooftop is its ability to expand access to the outdoors. Many existing houses could be modified to support retrofits, but building new ones specifically with this feature in mind allows for even more creative possibilities.

With “The Red Roof,” a house in the Vietnamese province of Quang Ngai, TAA Design shows how to take full advantage of a small plot of land without sacrificing access to nature or the ability to grow food. The total area of the property is just 80 square meters (861 square feet), which could have easily led to an unsatisfying compromise between indoor and outdoor space in a more conventional house/yard arrangement. Set on the main road of a rural village that has seen rapid urbanization in recent years, the house was designed to meet the needs of a married couple in their 50s who wanted access to garden space and room to dry rice paddy after harvesting.

The architects immediately knew that maintaining this kind of traditional lifestyle would be hard in a community where big, modern houses were increasingly infringing upon the remaining green space. They decided to go with a stepped roof design full of built-in planters to make gardening tasks as easy as possible on the aging couple. The house itself stretches to the full boundaries of the property, maximizing space inside as well as creating room for numerous courtyards outside, complete with a bicycle repair space, traditional outdoor wood stove, paddy drying yards, a rice warehouse, chicken yards, and more.

The TAA team adds: “In the search of a new appropriate typology for the context, we [were] convinced that adapting the new architecture based on the traditional cultural lifestyle of the couple [was] the most important task. Vegetable gardens and multi-purpose playgrounds become the soul of houses in this village. We proposed small courtyards in the front, middle, and back of the house to connect indoor spaces with nature. Instead of having a large yard like other houses in the village, we create[d] many courtyards with different heights suitable for the height of the house structure. On the mezzanine floor, there is a small yard connected to the yard in the middle of the house.”

“The rooftop garden is adjacent to the courtyard of the mezzanine floor, creating a playground and vegetable garden that connects from the roof to the ground floor. The products from the garden go directly to everyday meals, fresh and always available. The couple has happy hours together growing their own food, and a lot of times, sharing their products with the neighbor[ing] families. The architecture has [unexpectedly] been generating community social interactions as its by-product. The rooftop garden also has the role of insulating the house. The internal temperature is significantly reduced compared to [that of houses employing] corrugated steel [rooftops].”

The post Stepped Rooftop Creates Space for Urban Farming in Vietnam first appeared on Dornob.

Thankfully, more and more gyms are getting the memo. Among them is Waterbeat Society, the first and only hydrospinning center in Italy. Located in Milan, it’s got a highly memorable (and Instagrammable) look courtesy of NoMade Architecture and Interior Design.

Located just around the corner from the city’s iconic Duomo, Waterbeat Society is a two-level space decked out in a soothing palette of blues, greens, and violets, emphasizing its connection to aquatic sports. While a lot of standard gyms are more evocative of grunts and body odor than anything else, Waterbeat hits the trendy #wellness vibe with living plants, neon signs reading “BE A HYDROLOVER,” billowing curtains in rich marine blue velvet, and spaces that feel minimalist and welcoming all at once.

The architects explain: “Waterbeat Society was conceived and designed as an innovative place, significantly different from any fitness gym you are used to. WBS is a place where ‘cool,’ ‘friendly,’ and ‘pop’ are the key words, connoting an innovative character able to convey a fresh and colorful mood. The goal was to make you feel immediately Californian atmospheres. The colors of the project focus on a range of green, light blue, and blue, [with] walls and ceilings pervaded by the freshness of these colors.”

On the ground floor is a reception area with a small waiting room and three massage cabins, two of which are housed within velvet “cocoons.” The workout spaces themselves are underground, including a swimming pool that fits 13 hydrospinning bikes, another waiting area, and several changing rooms.

The NoMade team says they wanted the space to feel fresh above all else, accented by unexpected materials and bright colors that are “the ingredients that characterize Waterbeat Society.”

They add: “From the waiting room, it is possible to see the swimming pool through a large window. Through a long, white, and bright corridor, a sort of chromatic pause, you can access the male and female changing rooms and the pool. The access to the pool is through a short staircase, where the back wall is covered in water-repellent wallpaper, on which there are [a] logo and foliage.”

“The niches, used for storing exercise tools and showers, are covered with the same tiles present in the reception. Changing rooms are characterized by very fresh accents. Here, there is a game of two colors, water blue for women and blue for men, while the showers are covered in white tiles, with black grout in this case.”

The fact that it feels so much cooler than the average gym probably says more about the standard lack of ornamentation than it does about any real innovation, but it works nonetheless. Do you care about whether your gym has an interesting look? Do aesthetics enhance your experience while working out, just like they might in other aspects of your life?

The post Waterbeat Society: A Stylish Gym Full of Neon Lights and Plants first appeared on Dornob.

As the population of the planet continues to grow, conversations are increasingly aimed at ways to deal with waste from consumptive societies. More and more shoppers are looking for long-lasting products, preferably made from recycled materials with fully sustainable product life cycles. That’s why designers Andrew and Martin came together to create the POTR, a self-watering planter made with the enviornment in mind.

The plan for the POTR took months of origami practice, since the basic design relies heavily on aspects of the ancient craft. Endless variations were meticulously considered before the final version of the POTR came to be. In the end, the design was very simple: a flat pattern that’s gathered up to form a planter-shaped container.

Andrew and Martin knew they wanted to use recycled products from the outset of the project, and they achieved that goal using recycled cotton for cording and polypropylene made from recycled plastic for the main body of the pot. But despite being recycled, these materials go above and beyond when it comes to performing the tasks required of them. The recycled plastic is strong and durable, and well able to endure a lifetime of knocks and bumps. It also adheres to the need to fold and unfold countless times and is the perfect material for making dependable planters that won’t break down, crack, or leak. Best of all, you can always just recycle your POTR again should you decide to get rid it at some point.

Another part of the sustainability equation involves sourcing materials, manufacturing, and transport. The company behind the POTR, based out of the UK, sources their materials from nearby countries in Europe to minimize transport emissions. They’ve also partnered with a local manufacturing plant to ensure minimal cut-off waste and efficient die-cutting techniques.

The design of the POTR allows it to lay flat when not in use, which makes it especially great for storage. It also makes it easy to pack for a move or for shipping. As a matter of fact, the POTR even arrives in a flat envelope — one of the cheapest forms of shipping. Even better, the envelope can go directly into your mailbox so it doesn’t require an additional truck that contributes to air pollution.

Your POTR is easy to construct once it arrives. Simply weave the cording through the holes along the outer edge of the plastic and pull, drawing the whole thing together in a planter shape. Then assemble the small plastic platform that sits inside to support your plant. Set your potted plant on the support and tuck one end of the cotton cord into the soil. Through wicking, your plant will drink whenever it’s thirsty. The POTR maintains a consistent amount of water by allowing the plant to decide when to drink. The opaque sides allow you to see when the water is getting low so you can refill the reservoir.

Now fully funded through a Kickstarter campaign, the POTR is entering its production phase, with initial orders expected to ship later this fall. It’s currently available in two sizes, small and large, in the hopes that they’ll provide for the needs of most standard houseplants. Still, they do plan to add additional sizes in the future. The cords are available in five color options to match decor or personal preference.

The post POTR Packable Self-Watering Planter Made with Sustainability in Mind first appeared on Dornob.

These digital creatures were fun (and they’ve been revived, if you missed out the first time or just want to revisit Tamagotchi parenthood), but there’s now a way to take that experience to a whole new level. The Lua Smart Planter adds something that’s actually alive to the equation: a houseplant.

If plants do have feelings, we humans haven’t yet figured out how to read them. That’s where the Lua comes in. It uses a host of sensors to trigger 15 different “universal animated emotions” in response to the plant’s current state. More specifically, these sensors measure the soil moisture, light exposure, and temperature. A face on the front of the pot provides useful visual cues as to how well you’re treating your plant “pet.”

When your plant is thirsty, the face opens its mouth wide and sticks out its tongue. When you’ve watered it too much, it looks sick. If its exposure to light isn’t sufficient, it displays a toothy vampire face, while too much light makes it squint. If your plant is too hot, the face takes on a pained expression and starts to sweat. When you’ve made it happy, it smiles.

Other animations reflect your interactions with the Lua, like a puzzled face when it can’t read a QR code or a tired face when it’s going to sleep. The Lua also has a motion-tracking feature, so every time it detects a movement, it actually follows it with its eyes.

Of course, needs like water and light vary depending on the kind of plant you put inside the Lua. The accompanying app lets you choose your plant’s family (like foliage, succulent, fern, flowering plant, or climber), select the exact plant species, or manually set your own preferred thresholds.

For people who aren’t good at taking care of plants, Lua’s immediate feedback in the form of fairly universal facial expressions acts as an effective reminder and removes the guesswork that’s often associated with keeping plants happy. Even seasoned, successful growers of houseplants don’t always know whether a particular plant is drooping or getting brown around the edges due to inadequate light, too much sun, overwatering, or neglect.

The Lua also brings in an element we humans sometimes need in order to relate to other living things: an anthropomorphized personality. Naturally, this makes one wonder how our care for all of the plants on this Earth might change if each one had a face. Even more so, what does the answer to that question say about us?

The Lua Smart Planter recently completed a round of crowdfunding on Indiegogo, with backers expected to receive their pots and accessories in December 2019. That means the product will likely be available to everyone else sometime next year.

The post Turn Your Houseplants into Pets with the Lua Smart Plant Monitor first appeared on Dornob.

SOLO Arquitetos, an architecture firm based in Curitiba, Brazil, was founded in 2015 by six architects who had previously collaborated on independent projects for architectural competitions. Most recently, they designed and built a new studio for themselves, reflecting their consummate creativity in a space that perfectly combines comfort, practicality, and tranquility.

The Perfect Palette

Equipped with a set of impressive floor-to-ceiling windows, this fourth-story studio is constantly being washed in natural light, simultaneously soaking in views of the charming tree-lined street below. Simple plywood shelves serve as room dividers, with several openings being left in them to promote the open exchange of ideas and basic communication. Window frames and other décor accents are painted yellow and green to enhance the space’s natural brightness.

From the onset of the project, the architects knew that they wanted to respect the unit’s original design while working in a few of their own touches to reflect a gentle, natural sense of coziness. A spokesperson for the group explains: “In a sense, our office is also our home. It is the result of a process, a story, and personal reflection of six young architects.”

Open Space, Open Minds

On a larger scale, the studio consists of a foyer and reception desk, an area for personal workstations, a large meeting room, two restrooms, and a small kitchen. Instead of creating traditional blueprints and specs for the renovation, the SOLO team decided to go with the flow, creating and designing as they went along so as to facilitate the fusion of new ideas and existing components.

The group concurs: “The construction of our space results from several conditioning factors and pleasant coincidences. We did not make a detailed and delimited project for the office, [nor did we] propose any kind of skin between the main spaces in order to propose a wide and free work atmosphere. Even the meeting room is segregated by a dividing and glazed shelf, promoting visual communication between spaces.”

Delectable Details

The design’s appealing character sprung from the studio’s original dark parquet flooring, which itself is made from Brazilian Walnut. It ended up being the perfect complement for the new space’s natural brightness, creating a sense of innate balance all throughout.

Pillars add old world charm to the space while a white brick wall provides the perfect canvas for a sprinkling of framed abstract art. Pendant green lights made of metal hang down from the ceiling in front of this wall to illuminate the work below, reminiscent of the fixtures found in old barns. The green of these lights helps connect the space to both the deep green outdoor foliage outside and the healthy houseplants strategically placed throughout the studio.

Of course, the thing that really offsets all the studio’s design components is the plywood. Unlike more conventional lumber, the light color and variegated grains of the light yet sturdy plywood tie the space together in the drafting tables, storage room under the desks, and shelving units.

The post Sublime Simplicity: SOLO Arquitetos Use Plywood to Transform Their Own Studio first appeared on Dornob.

Imagine growing enough greens and veggies for you and your family to fit your daily needs – in a corner of your apartment. All the kale and herbs and melons you need. A whole tower of kale, if you so desire! The Nutritower makes it possible.

Urban and vertical farming have been gaining steam around the globe as of late. They could be a potential key factor in feeding our planet’s exploding population. But let’s just think of you and your veggie-growing kitchen for a moment. The NutriTower is an ingenuous indoor gardening system. The vertical hydroponic constellation allows you to grow fresh food right in your home. Size-wise, it comes in at just three square feet and a bit over seven feet tall. It can hold 48 pots! Its height is the key factor in producing enough food to yield a decent harvest every single day of the year. Built-in lighting permits you to grow anywhere in your house, regardless of light conditions.

The vertical system allows you to customize what you’d like to grow, including fruit and veggies such as tomatoes, melons, cucumbers, all kinds of fresh herbs and lettuce, as well as sturdy greens like kale and Swiss chard. Maintenance is rather minimal. The concept was designed by Bryce Nagels in Montreal, Canada, where folks deal with long winters. Besides the shortage of daylight for a long period of the year, Nagels was also concerned with limited space, since many of us live in urban areas in small condos and apartments.

The NutriTower arrives with a seedling starter kit featuring seeds, a three-month supply of plant nutrient formula, light bulbs, pump and timers. This indoor gardening system started as a Kickstarter campaign and received help from www.sparkinnovations.com. It will be available as of December 1, 2015, but it can be pre-ordered now.

Learn more at nutritower.com

The post Grow a Daily Harvest with the NutriTower Vertical Farm first appeared on Dornob.

The monsteras inside these two white plant pots seem to have grown minds of their own, fusing with their vessels to produce long root-like appendages that can free them from their usual spots on the windowsill or table. Designer Tim van de Weerd’s ‘Monstera’ series ‘liberates’ plants to give them back a sense of the freedom that they have in nature.

Debuting at Dutch Design Week 2014, the Monstera pots appear to be an extension of the plants rather than just a means of holding soil. The ‘Magnifica’ design stands tall, while the ‘Fugiens’ crouches slightly on hand-bent steel bars molded with industrial epoxy clay to create a single solid object.

More from the designer

“The Monstera planters are a family of distinctive plant pots. This is not only because of their elegant legs and high gloss finish. The Monstera series is in fact a new “species” of plant pots; one that liberates the plant from the windowsill and in which plants can regain their natural freedom, even within the interior. The Monstera-plant pot – with its ornate roots – is an extension of the plant, rather than a separate object (which is also why the pots bear a botanical name). The design casts a new light on the otherwise rigid and oppressive traditional plant pot.”

“The Monstera Magnifica is the high, exalted version of this elegant design and the Monstera Fugiens shows the plant as fleeing object. This year a new member is added to the Monstera family: The Monstera Crescens. With its height of one meter twenty it stands out above all tables and sofas. The fragile-looking legs of all three plant pots are made of steel bars. These are bent by hand to form the ‘roots’ and moulded with industrial two-component clay. This approach gives the Monstera design its fragile look, yet it is unexpectedly strong and stable because of the chosen elaboration.”

The post Long Root-Like Appendages Make These Plant Pots Playful first appeared on Dornob.

It would be difficult not to be enamored of miniature towns figurines, but when those miniature towns take the form of a whole series of little planters they become completely irresistible. The Ienami Bonkai planters from Metaphys are ridiculously adorable and resemble green-roofed homes.

The bright white stone containers are all square-ish with tiny steps leading up their outsides, making them look just like houses. The insides of the containers are meant to be filled with dirt and plants to make the houses complete by adding a green roof.

The “buildings” come in a few different configurations: some have several planting chambers while others have just one, and different stair styles are used on some of the planters.

The planters are cute enough on their own, but they look their best when grouped together into a little village. And if you equip the village with tiny animals and people like in the picture, you’ll no doubt have hours of fun playing with your villagers and your town full of beautiful mini architecture

From Japan Trend Shop:

“Metaphys, our favorite Japanese household accessories brand for people with regular budgets, has come up with this awesome plant vessel, Ienami. The name means a row of houses and that’s what you get here, an elegant model of a residential building, complete with stairs leading up to the roof where your greenery is flourishing.”

“It is ideal for planting and growing small foliage like moss. You could also vary the greenery color and type between each rooftop planter for a spectacular result that you will never tire of watching develop.”

“The miniature ‘town’ allows you to indulge in the ancient Japanese art of Bonkei, a micro landscape of foliage. There are also four distinct versions to choose from: hiroba (which means ‘square’ or ‘plaza’), roji (‘alley’), zigzag or tunnel. Or you can get all four and create a whole street!”

The post Tiny House-Shaped Planters Bring Green Roofs Indoors first appeared on Dornob.

You might not think that plants and electricity are very closely related, but these two lamps use the power of nature to provide illumination. One uses soil to light a lamp and the other uses a plant to control the amount of light that is sent out into the room – but both meld the natural and the man-made in an elegant manner.

The Soil Lamp from designer Mareike Staps uses the natural conductive capacity of soil to light up an LED bulb. The lamp is quite simple, having a transparent body that lets you see all of its inner workings. Conductive plates buried in the soil react with water (which you have to add every now and then) to create enough clean, free energy to keep the light burning virtually forever.

“Free and environmentally friendly energy forever and ever. The lamp runs on mud. The metabolism of biological life together with the chemical reaction of copper and zinc produce enough electricity to keep a LED lamp burning. The mud is enclosed in various cells. These cells contain copper and zinc that conduct the electricity. The more cells there are, the more electricity they generate. This technique offers a wealth of possibilities. The only thing that the lamp needs is a splash of water every now and then.”

The Plamp from Dutch designer Twan Verdonck is half plant, half lamp. A small container of soil is suspended within a wire frame, while a light bulb pokes through the top of the frame. A plant grows from the soil and wraps itself around the wire frame. As it grows, it begins to obscure the light. The plant can be trimmed to allow more light through. No matter how much light shines from this lamp, the elegant shapes of the plant leaves provide a lovely natural lamp shade.

From Wired:

“Like something lurking in the background of a scene from Robyn and Rand Miller’s Myst series, these metal lights, snarled up in living greenery, could add a touch of eco-friendly magic to any drab office or study. The makers at Dreamingreen offer the frame, designed by Twan Verdonck, with Hedera, Woodbinue, Grape or Tomato. The plant itself grows from a bottle at the bottom part of the spherical ‘shade,’ and costs €50, shipping included. They also offer it as a DIY kit for half-price, and the make-it-yourself instructions for two bob.”

The post 2 Plant- and Soil-Themed Lamps first appeared on Dornob.

At one extreme there are ultra-minimal, super-modern white-and-black interior designs that seem almost medical in their clean simplicity – at the other, this lushly vegetated house in tropical Singapore feels more like a forest or jungle landscape than an indoor living space or work of architecture.

With more plants and trees than you can shake a stick at, each room has a combination of green growth that goes beyond simple decorative houseplants or a small semi-interior tree. The greenery blurs boundaries between indoor and outside areas, while the combination of warm wood and cold concrete, steel and glass suggests a hybrid of natural and man-made throughout.

In some spaces, series of saplings stretch from floor to ceiling and beyond. In other rooms, the walls are creeping and crawling with living systems of green and brown plants, grass and roots. Imagine a living wall not just in your bedroom but right behind your bed – or walking through a set of thin trees to navigate your own entryway, living room and kitchen space.

Combinations of strategies employed by the designers of Chang Architects lead to a set visual climaxes in common spaces, where overlapping elements make for an all-encompassing eco-living experience. The plant life is so pervasive in this unique environment that various micro-climates exist throughout the home depending on vegetation density and type.

Via Archello:

“The design of this three-story intermediate terrace house was completed in August 2005. The scheme was able to fulfill the owner’s brief, part of which was to cater spaces for six persons, a couple, three teenage children and a maid. There was a need for privacy for the couple and the children, but not total separateness. In addition, an experience of living close to nature, re-living their love for nature since their childhood days.”

About Chang Architects:

“We believe that great design is a work from the mind, and the heart. We are passionate about creating innovative and exciting designs, evolving unique characteristics of each project. Our design aims to add values and enhance living for the users, while co-existing harmoniously with nature and the environment.”

“Designing from the spatial point of view is key. Space, which is intangible, is the essence of architecture. When designs are conceived this way,
the most appropriate form ensues. The other important aspect is to understand the various elements of a project, including users’ needs and aspirations. It is through assimilation of the grounds and active collaborations that set the path for a meaningful design.”

The post This Singapore Home is an Indoor Jungle first appeared on Dornob.

To call this ingenious plant potting idea a clever contemporary design would be an understatement. The simple inversion of typical round planter is space-saving, sure, and sustainable to be certain (since it saves water) – but best of all: yes, your plants will hang in a pot suspended upside-down from the ceiling (or even quite literally off the wall).

These planters by Boskke are simple and round, black and white – they are almost intentionally generic to emphasize the eccentricity of their inversion. They require water a fraction as frequently as normal right-side-up potted plants. How does it work? A disk holds the hanging plant and soil in place and the process of pouring water in the pot from above is suddenly mess-free as well.

“You can have a room full of plants but the minute you hang one upside-down, boom: 💥 You’ve done something pretty magical with your space. Remembering to water your plants can weigh on your mind but our Sky Planters have an internal reservoir that will keep your beloved greens hydrated for up to two weeks. We try to design planters that let the plant be the hero… because plants are heroes. The Sky Planter’s simple and classic colors will harmonize with any space while the plant can do the heavy lifting.”

About Boskke

“Boskke cofounder and designer, Patrick Morris grew up in rural New Zealand and learned to throw pots from his dad, Anthony Morris. While later attending Central Saint Martin’s in London, Patrick developed the first upside-down planter. It was called Antipode – a fitting name for a planter that basically pointed down to the other side of the earth, a constant reminder of our home.”

“We don’t want to greenwash or pretend we are the most sustainable small business because we are not. But, we do use repurposed plastic (scraps from the floor) to make our products and work with a family owned and operated ceramic factory in Sri Lanka. We don’t come out with new products every season “just because” and all new products must be made better.”

The post Upside-Down Sky Planter Makes it Easy to Grow Greenery Indoors first appeared on Dornob.