Tag Archives: garden design

A smart compost tracking system that analyses soil conditions to send alerts to users

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Monty is a smart compost tracking system that analyzes soil conditions with Bluetooth and smart technology before sending alerts to users through a mobile app of when their soil could use some extra care.

Everyone thinks about composting at some point. Whether you have a small, windowsill herb garden or a full grassy yard, composting helps keep greenery abundant and healthy while also recycling organic waste back into the soil. While the benefits are many, actual compost gardens are few and far between. Making the composting game accessible and easy for everyone, Monty is a smart compost system that connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth to track compost data and break the process down into simple steps.

“Compost can reduce our waste, feed our food, and save our soil but not enough people do it,” as the creators behind Monty put it. Monty Compost Company developed its smart compost system to help make composting more efficient and approachable for people with all types of gardens. Using integrated smart technology, Monty’s soil sensors connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth and use an app-based management system to help track the conditions of the compost in your garden. Monty is comprised of a mobile app and sensor wand that analyzes the state of your soil to indicate when more compost can be added.

Stocked with first-class smart technology, Monty tracks the key compost health indicators such as soil temperature, humidity, and VOCs. Wireless by design, Monty can be disassembled and plugged into an external charging basin, where the batteries can power up before hitting the soil again. Through the mobile app, users will be alerted when their soil needs water, less sunshine, or more compost as the wand tracks its conditions.

Designer: Monty Compost Co.

The post A smart compost tracking system that analyses soil conditions to send alerts to users first appeared on Yanko Design.

This at-home plant cultivator keeps a minimalist design and grows any plant indoor, in your kitchen!

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Balance is an at-home plant cultivator that keeps a small enough size and minimalist design to fit into any modern kitchen.

The pandemic proved that having access to your source of produce should be as commonplace as having access to clean drinking water. Still, the majority of us rely on grocery stores and delivery apps to get our produce and fresh greenery. While keeping our eyes peeled for buzz words like organic and local harvest is a personal choice, there’s no way of knowing exactly under what conditions and where our produce is harvested.

Balance, a plant cultivator designed by Designer Dot, is designed for those of us who’d like access to a personal supply of fresh produce at home without the hassle of tending to a garden day-in, day-out.

Designer Dot is known for its extensive catalog of household appliances. Designer Dot is all about merging minimalist aesthetics with convenient design from wireless portable chargers to self-contained coffee brewers.

When creating Balance, the team at Designer Dot sought to conceptualize an at-home plant cultivator that’s compact enough to fit into any modern kitchen and inconspicuous in its minimalist design to adapt to any interior design scheme.

Stocked similarly to most plant cultivators, Balance comes with pull-out drawers that contain pods and sprout cavities for produce and crops to germinate from and grow. The drawers themselves can be removed to allow ceiling height for taller plants to grow, which users can swap in and out for different plants accordingly.

Once the seeds are planted, Balance takes care of the rest. Inside Balance, LEDs pour nonstop grow light over the seedlings to ensure healthy crops come time to harvest. To prevent the LEDs from busying the kitchen too much, Designer Dot built-in scroll blinds to shield the cultivator’s light from view.

Keeping a rather minimal exterior, Balance originally comes in a blush pink shade, which users can customize to fit their tastes.

Metallic ribbing with integrated haptic sensor technology runs down the length of Balance’s front facade, functioning as the appliance’s control panel. There, users will find the on/off button, temperature dials, as well as other control switches that work to optimize growing conditions for the plants inside. Additionally, like most modern home appliances, Balance comes with an accompanying app that suggests the best care for each user’s specific plants.

Designer: Designer Dot

Balance’s integrated smartphone app alerts users when plants require special care. 

Intuitive app reminders signal to users the overall conditions of their plants. 

When placed in the kitchen, Balance’s scroll blinds provide a stylish way of covering the appliance’s bright LEDs. 

Along Balance’s front facade, metallic ribbing encases haptic control panels.

The post This at-home plant cultivator keeps a minimalist design and grows any plant indoor, in your kitchen! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This floating bubble visualization by Carlo Ratti emphasizes forestry by showing how much carbon dioxide each tree absorbs

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Escaping city sidewalks and standstill traffic for a botanical garden’s grassy lawn lined with rows of trees, butterfly gardens, and flower bushes seems like a deal most of us would be willing to make. While they offer a nice respite from the bustle of city life, trips to the botanical garden also make for insightful learning experiences. In the Brera Botanical Garden, in Milan, energy company Eni and international design and innovation office CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati have introduced Natural Capital, one of the largest data visualizations ever produced to showcase the importance of trees for a sustainable world.

With sights set on being one of the largest data visualizations in the world, Natural Capital demonstrates how trees store carbon dioxide and produce oxygen, driving home the importance of forest protection. Extending over Milan’s 500-square-meter garden, Natural Capital showcases plots of floating bubbles that project the amount of carbon dioxide their corresponding trees can capture and store during their life cycle. Walking through Brera Botanical Garden, guests will be met with three-dimensional graphics that showcase the key role that forests play in providing living things with healthy air to breathe, hinting at the symbiotic relationship between trees and humans. Bringing the point full circle, guests will be greeted at Brera Botanical Garden’s entrance by a stationary, giant sphere that illustrates the average amount of carbon dioxide produced by the human body per year.

Speaking on the contrast between the trees’ floating bubbles and the park’s giant stationary sphere, the designers say that it “illuminates the fundamental role that plants play in guaranteeing the planet’s health and limiting global warming. The comparison allows visitors to understand the symbiosis between humans and nature: the former produces carbon dioxide, the latter stores it.” Continuing their collaboration in exploring new circular economy and sustainability paradigms, CRA and Eni remain committed to protecting and conserving forests through decarbonization projects that aim for a more sustainable world.

Designer: Eni x Carlo Ratti Associati

Floating near their corresponding tree or shrub, each bubble will display the plant’s scientific name, age, and amount of carbon dioxide it will store during its lifetime.

Walking through Brera Botanical Garden, guests will learn about the symbiotic relationship between humans’ need for oxygen and trees’ ability to produce it through storing carbon dioxide.

Designers behind Natural Capital note that “Natural Capital aims to experiment with a new design medium, turning data visualization into a tangible, spatial experience, bringing the natural and the artificial worlds a little bit closer together.”

These tables with built-in gardens is the perfect gardening hack every home needs!

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Living in smaller spaces often requires a lot of rearranging. I probably switch up my studio’s design on a monthly basis all in order to fit the ideal furniture to make the most out of the little space I have. Despite my efforts, I usually end up having to choose one item between three different pieces of furniture simply because my studio won’t fit more than that. This often makes it difficult to merge functionality with style. Of course, I’d much rather go for the loveseat over the desk, but where would I do my work? BloomingTables, dubbed “the world’s first living furniture line,” creates household tables that double as indoor gardens to cater to that exact dilemma.

It seems nowadays that people are trying to get closer and closer to nature, even in their own homes. Biophilic design is on the rise once more, and many of us who live in smaller spaces want to embrace nature indoors too. BloomingTables is a new biophilic desk design that embeds living plantlife into each table, just beneath the transparent, glass surface. BloomingTables comes in four variations: desk, coffee, entryway, and side tables. Each table is equipped with an acrylic tub that keeps the plant life, soil, and water in an airtight, designated space so that we won’t ever have to worry about leakage. The acrylic tubs are filled with layers of gravel and activated charcoal to absorb water and also to avoid the chance of overwatering the plant life. Once the soil layers are filled, we can then create our own arrangement of succulents, ferns, herbs, or even pebble art, ideal for those who like to cook, but don’t have enough room for both a desk and herb garden. The transparent glass surface adheres to suction cups and can be lifted to water the plant life below.

Each pinewood table comes in varying sizes, but come equipped with the same features, including a waterproof tub for soil and a twist-to-open drain valve on the off-chance your plant life is overwatered. BloomingTables, depending on the size ordered, can support up to 400lbs, which means this table design has successfully merged functionality with style. Everything from the painted steel hairpin legs and sheet of 6mm tempered glass, to the endless array of possible biophilic designs, echoes BloomingTables’ commitment to bringing the beauty of nature indoors.

Designer: BloomingTables

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A modern terrarium with a little bit of easter and a lot of zen!

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Happy Easter! Yes, I know it was on Sunday but we are all still at home and I am pretty sure we all still have our chocolate bunnies so might as well extend the holiday celebrations while we can (it’s the little joys!). Most of us are under lockdowns and spending Easter in quarantine means doing egg hunt at home. If you have a backyard, count yourself lucky but if you don’t then this zen egg garden will make up for it!

This beautiful glass terrarium is almost as perfect as the egg that broke Instagram – remember that? And you can still host your egg hunt in it by hiding Maltesers instead of real eggs – at least you can eat your reward which is better than holding on to painted eggs that can actually be breakfast before people start hoarding those too. This glass egg garden radiates zen energy and brings a sense of calm to the room it is placed in. The minimal terrarium matches the Easter theme but will work all year round too because of its evergreen (literally) visual aesthetics. Switch up the rabbit for holiday-appropriate decor and maybe even add a string light to create an attractive centerpiece. Having plants in your house purifies the air and adds to the aesthetic but the color green is also associated with soothing energies and we all could use that right now.

Easter may feel different but who knows, maybe this pandemic will help us to find our own metaphorical Easter eggs in life. Let’s just pray they are well-designed like this modern terrarium!

Designer: Jerzy Galus