This public horticultural pod cultivates plants and multi-generational relationships through the act of gardening!

Posted on 25/06/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

The act of gardening provides many proven physical and mental health benefits that alone make cultivating your own garden worth it. Taking it one step further, community gardens carry the same benefits and then some. Interacting with members of your own community while growing plant life, crops, and flowers not only makes fresh food available for all of those who help cultivate it but also brings people closer together in the process. Enrich Group, a team of designers with Virginia Tech University, created their own community greenhouse to help forge human connections and bridge generational gaps within the community.

Gardening promotes many physical and mental health benefits, including an increase in physical activity, relaxation, and access to fresh food. Enrich Group aimed to combine physical activity and mental relaxation with an environment that cultivates multi-generational relationships with their community greenhouse. Following a year of social isolation, Enrich Group built their own community greenhouse because they believe age is nothing but a number and doesn’t change each aging individual’s desire to connect and build meaningful relationships within their own community. Cultivating genuine relationships between people from different generations through the act of gardening is the “embodiment of purposeful living,” notes Enrich Group, ensuring that “we all have the chance to grow, together.”

The greenhouse’s interior is designed to feel similar to traditional meeting spaces, with an island or table in its center that contains the garden’s main communal herb garden. The main island is also multi-tiered to optimize the greenhouse’s interior space. Hanging plant fixtures form an outer ring above the island’s main communal herb plot. In addition to the plants’ tub, gardening spaces around the pod’s perimeter feature health monitors for each plant, sliding storage bins with open handles for easy accessibility, as well as a general working space. The greenhouse appears as an approachable, modern, and public hub with glass-coated acrylic panels, aluminum ribbing, and a wooden entryway.

Designer: Enrich Group

Enrich Group’s community garden, called Enrich features an exterior design close enough to traditional greenhouses to fit any outdoor space.

Inside, community members can develop interpersonal relationships as well as grow crops.

Enrich wears an approachable design, inviting community members to come inside and tend to the garden.

Around the perimeter of the gardening hub, plant pots and tubs can be found alongside workspaces and sliding drawers.

In the center of each pod, a communal herb plot creates more space for gardening.

Before tending to your own plot, Enrich provides a preliminary survey that reveals what type of gardener you are.

The location of your garden can be chosen according to your community of residence.

Gardeners can also select what types of crops they’d prefer to grow.

At its core, Enrich operates as a social hub for multi-generational relationships to thrive.

This smart desk gadget doubles as a stretching aid to keep you moving while working!

Posted on 18/06/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Transitioning from working out of the office to working from home has undoubtedly thrown our daily movement routines for a loop. While our days once consisted of walking throughout the office and completing our daily move goal ring by lunchtime, our workdays are now split between slouching at a desk and laying on the couch for short breaks. Turning to smart technology to help incorporate more mobility throughout our days, a team of designers based in Korea developed a smart stretching device called Root.

The team of designers behind Root incorporated smart technology into the handheld device that mimics the experience of movement tracking from other smart devices like the Apple watches or built-in smartphone health monitors. Built to be the size of a large pen, Root is as compact and portable as any other health-tracking smart device. Most of the device’s operability is integrated into its internal structure, coming complete with an elastic strap inside that extends for full-motion stretching and built-in motion sensors and coils that provide the groundwork for smart technology. Root’s accompanying app receives information from the device’s internal sensors to provide stretching exercises that are most appropriate for each user’s limitations and individual needs.

After pairing Root with the app via Bluetooth, users can return to their own profile to view upcoming stretching routines, exercises, as well as activity training throughout the day. Integrated coaching and in-app expertise guide users through each movement that Stretch recommends, depending on the handlebar sensors to ensure correct body placement and movement. In developing Root, the team of designers hoped to create a stretching device that helps users generate a solid foundation for our daily movement that will ultimately turn into a daily routine to open up the day to new possibilities. With the chunk of our days taking place behind screens and hunched over our smartphones, Root’s minimal screen provides the ideal recharge we all need.

Designers: Eric Kim, Jae Hyeon Lee, and Nemin Jin

The designers settled on the name Root after finding inspiration in three words: root, routine, and infinite.

The charging station is as compact as the actual stretching device, offering a minimalist display for busy workspaces.

Root is a stretching smart device that’s as compact as a large pen.

Root can easily pair with your smartphone and accompanying app.

Inside, Root carries an elastic stretching band for full-body movements.

Root has an ergonomic build and intuitive design for optimal usability.

Root’s PUI display on its 2.5D glass screen informs users when and how to exercise.

Root’s main smart technology is integrated into the internal structure of the device itself.

root can be used anywhere, at any time throughout the day.

The main body of Root is composed of a type-C port and coils for charging, motion sensors, and wire sensors.

The home page of Root contains each user’s scheduled routine for stretching.

Users can swap out exercises as they see fit.

Integrated smart technology signals to users when their stretching is correct.

Activity tracking fills out most of the app’s main purpose to ensure productive stretching tailored for each individual.

Built-in coaching guides users through each exercise.

This at-home physical therapy system tracks the progress of amputees to help improve recovery, health and fitness!

Posted on 04/05/2021 by Shawn McNulty-Kowal

Physical therapy is a crucial step in the journey towards functional recovery for amputees. Taking place soon after surgery, physical therapy lasts as long as the wound takes to heal, most often somewhere between four and eight weeks, but then it’s up to the patient to keep up with the road towards functional recovery. Learning that at-home physical therapy regimens hold a 10% compliance rate, designer Sydney Lang created Adapt, an in-home physical therapy equipment smart system specifically for amputees.

Physiotherapists who specialize in amputee rehabilitation help patients through general conditioning exercises, inflammation, and compression issues, as well as possible endurance routines. Following their time spent with the physiotherapists, patients are expected to continue with their workout regimens at home, which Adapt makes easier. Just before leaving the physical therapy office, patients can have their physiotherapists program their Adapt recovery plan so they can move forward with their at-home rehabilitation.

Following in-depth interviews and comprehensive research, Lang learned that guidance, transparency, consistency, and structure are some of the most important factors when it comes to following through with at-home physical therapy. In designing Adapt, Lang understood that the most important parts of functional recovery ranged from motivation and range of motion to strength and alignment. To help with patients’ motivation levels, Adapt includes a motion-tracking camera that visually monitors the progress of patients. To ensure that range of motion exercises are still worked on, the interactive, digital foot mat conditions the patient’s lower body through stepping patterns that simulate the uncertainty of daily movement.

Comprising three essential components, the physical product includes an interactive foot mat, motion-tracking camera, and versatile support bar in order to facilitate familiar physical therapy at home. In addition to the physical product, Adapt has an app compatible with smart devices that introduces Adapt users to a larger community of those on the road towards functional recovery, allowing users to organize, store, and monitor their personal recovery on a public digital domain.

Designer: Sydney Lang

Adapt includes an interactive digital foot mat, support bar, mirror, and motion-tracking camera.

Following patient’s physical therapy sessions, their PTs can program Adapt to continue on towards functional recovery.

“Adapt enables users to take control of their recovery once the structure of physical therapy ends, by tracking progress, and visualizing the road ahead.”

“The digitally interactive mat more effectively prepares amputees with the ability to create randomized patterns which more accurately simulate the uncertainty of daily life.”

“The patient is able to review their exercise plan for the day by watching a tutorial ahead of time to help prevent distractions and mistakes later.”

A motion-tracking camera records the progress of patients to help them, monitor their improvements and trouble spots.

“Through the use of custom plans for each patient, users are able to focus on problem areas in their recovery, bringing recovery times down and more noticeable improvements.”