Tag Archives: terrarium

This eye-catching terrarium is the tabletop air purifier you never knew you needed

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Recent events have made people more conscious of the air they breathe indoors, leading to a rise in the purchase and production of air-purifying appliances. Of course, these machines are not new, and they have been undergoing a phase of evolution in terms of features as well as aesthetics. At the end of the day, however, air purifiers and humidifiers still use artificial methods and non-sustainable materials that eventually harm the environment while trying to enhance human lives. Thankfully, all hope is not lost, thanks to an innovative and sleek device that purifies and hydrates the air using more natural means by harnessing the power of Nature’s secret miracle worker: moss.

Designer: Yoonsang Kim of Mosslab

Click Here to Buy Now: $79 $99 (20% off). Raised over $580,000.

Moss might carry some negative connotations, but these rootless plants play a critical role in the survival of animal and human life on the planet, thanks to how much they contribute to the oxygen in the atmosphere. These are nature’s natural air filters that require so little maintenance that they can survive for months without a single drop of moisture. It is this superpower that Moss Air is using to deliver clean air to your home in a sustainable and elegant design that will have you become the talk of your neighborhood and friends. Especially when they behold the LED mood lightning that lets you witness the moss waking up from slumber as the mist falls and fills the panel.

Moss Air’s moss panel filters out fine dust and converts carbon dioxide into oxygen, providing a fresher and greener living environment.

Why Moss? It removes fine dust particles and has an incredible capacity to convert CO2 into oxygen much more efficiently than most types of trees.

At first glance, Moss Air looks like a mini terrarium, but it definitely stands out even among its peers. Its predominantly white body, transparent facade, and tall, slender form make it a perfect fit for any desk, coffee table, or bedside drawer, practically anywhere you need a breath of fresh air and a sight for sore eyes. The visible moss filter adds a much-needed touch of green to modern homes, and its refreshing scent makes you feel like you’re taking a relaxing stroll through a fresh forest just after sunrise.

The magnetic ball at the top of Moss Air acts as a mechanism for mode switching. Simply roll the magnetic ball across the top of the device to open and close the humidifier hole.

Humidifier Mode – Ball in rest position.

Terrarium Mode – Ball covering humidity opening.

Of course, Moss Air isn’t just a pretty face to show off. Behind the moss is an invisible water tank that serves two purposes, depending on the device’s mode. It creates a gentle mist that falls upon the wall of moss to keep it green and in tip-top shape, but at the push of the strong magnetic ball on top, that mist becomes a gentle upward spray of purified and humidified air. The secret to this process is the moss’s natural ability to filter fine dust, remove impurities and toxins from the air, and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. It’s the ultimate green air purifying solution that would put HEPA filters and UV light chambers to shame.

The Moss Filter panel is super simple to change if needed. Simply press the two side tabs in, pop out, and press the new one in place until it clicks.

With up to 8 hours of battery life, Moss Air can be moved around the home with you.

Bring Nature with Moss

Despite the seemingly magical way the Moss Air works, using it couldn’t be simpler. That stylish magnetic ball on top is really the only thing you need to move to switch between modes, and you don’t need to worry about it rolling or falling off because of the strong magnetic force that keeps it in place. The terrarium is self-watering, so all you really need to do is refill the water in the tank periodically. Best of all, the moss panel and paper filter for the water tank are easily replaceable and sustainable, making the Moss Air nearly immortal. So why settle for ugly, hulking appliances just to breathe clean and hydrated air? With the Moss Air terrarium, air purifier, and humidifier in one, you not only get a more natural and more sustainable way to get healthy air anytime, you also get a beautiful piece of decor that brings a touch of nature into your life.

Click Here to Buy Now: $79 $99 (20% off). Raised over $580,000.

The post This eye-catching terrarium is the tabletop air purifier you never knew you needed first appeared on Yanko Design.

This DIY terrarium sits inside a massive icosahedral infinity mirror!

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Robert’s Infinite Terrarium literally has the best of all worlds – infinity mirrors, LEDs, plants, and an enclosed environment that doesn’t require you to take care of the plants. All you really need to do is keep admiring the terrarium as it shines and self-sustains… I think that’s going to be my motto for 2023 – Shining and Self-sustaining.

The DIY project for Robert started when he decided he needed a nice set of plants and a sculptural unit for his kitchen. It wasn’t like he was setting up a kitchen garden, so the two ideas could easily be combined. A self-professed plant killer, Robert knew that his best bet was a terrarium, which would never need human intervention… and it was just a matter of time before he decided to build a massive icosahedral terrarium lined with one-way reflective panels and bright LEDs.

Designer: Robert (Ideal Idea)

Creating the terrarium’s shape wasn’t challenging in theory – an icosahedron is just 20 triangles joined together to form a geometric solid. However, the logistical challenges seemed pretty big, considering the terrarium had to hold itself together, be relatively watertight, and still reflect light internally to create an endless series of reflections. This meant building the structure first in 3D.

The icosahedron would be made of acrylic sheet paneling, with specially designed corner-modules sitting at each vertex. These modules would be the anchor points for the solid’s harness system (which would hold it all together using tensile strength) but would also house the infinity mirror’s LEDs. Each corner module was 3D printed to give Robert precise control over the overall design.

LED strips were cleverly fitted into the corner modules, which were then connected to one another using 3D-printed channels that hid the wiring almost perfectly. Eyelet screws were then fitted onto each of the 5 sides of the corner modules to help them hold the entire structure together.

Robert relied on machine-cut acrylic panels, with each one individually coated with a one-way reflective vinyl wrap. This one-way reflection would allow the terrarium to look endless on the inside, but would also allow viewers to see through the glass… just like in car windows. The reflective film was removed around the areas where the corner module would sit, because the vinyl would end up reflecting some of the LED light rather than allowing all of it to pass through into the terrarium. The individual acrylic panels were also bonded together at their edges using chemical solvents.

Once the terrarium’s structure was built, it was up to Robert to actually make the terrarium – the toughest part, in his opinion. Terrariums work rather cleverly by recycling water in an endless cycle. The structure comes with two layers of soil – a lower gravel layer, and an upper mud layer. Plants and moss would absorb water from the soil, transpire it out into the air as water vapor, which would then condense and enter the soil again. The water-tight terrarium would maintain the humidity levels to ensure the plants lived on endlessly… leaving the viewers (and Robert) to just be enchanted by the magic of it all! And those kaleidoscopic reflections!

You can visit Robert’s YouTube page to read the video description and build your own terrarium. He also has plans to make miniature versions that will be up for sale.

The post This DIY terrarium sits inside a massive icosahedral infinity mirror! first appeared on Yanko Design.

Adorable tiny keycap terrariums add a touch of greenery to your keyboard!

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Add a bit of ‘Magical’ to your Mechanical keyboard with Dwarf Factory’s beautiful terrarium keycaps. These resin-cast caps come with adorably tiny plants and succulents suspended within them, bringing a little square of floral dreaminess to your otherwise structured keyboard layout.

Each terrarium keycap is handcrafted by artisans down to the very last detail, including even small rocks and soil. With different flora to choose from, the keycaps come with a tiny basket with succulents, cacti, flowers, and ferns of different kinds. Obviously, these ridiculously tiny (and cute) greens aren’t real, but they’re modeled with stunning detail, and when preserved in resin, add a wonderful pop of life to your mechanical keyboard.

Designer: Dwarf Factory

The keycaps come in two shapes – the rounded DOM profile, and the SA R1 (pictured here). Available in multiple styles, they work with all Cherry MX switches (or similar clones). Owing to the fact that they’re individually and meticulously handmade, each keycap costs $44, but then again, you’re paying for the artistry. Pop them into your keyboard and they become almost like a doorway to another world, right on your laptop. You could capitalize on that metaphor by using the terrarium keycap on the ‘escape’ key, as shown below!

The post Adorable tiny keycap terrariums add a touch of greenery to your keyboard! first appeared on Yanko Design.

This glass terrarium encases biologically inactive moss to create an indoor garden without the upkeep!

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While decorating desks and coffee tables with plants and potted greenery does help to liven up our rooms and offices, taking care of them can sometimes get messy. Water spills and loose soil have a habit of muddying the spaces where potted plants reside, creating more trouble than the plants might be worth. Creating a means for people to adorn shelves and counters with greenery, without the stress that comes with the upkeep of potted plants, TerraLiving designed Vertex Zero, a geometric preserved moss terrarium that requires no sunlight, water, or upkeep for that matter.

Requiring no water for maintenance, Vertex Zero is a terrarium that encases real, biologically inactive moss, cultivated in TerraLiving’s own greenhouse and preserved in labs, inside museum-grade geometric glass containers. Live mosses are grown and cultivated in TerraLiving’s greenhouse dubbed the “Moss Lab,” before reaching the peak of their health and preserved for encasement. Using proprietary advanced preservation technology, each patch of live moss is stripped of any water content in low-pressure zones and subzero temperatures to freeze their proteins and biological components, rendering them inactive, but frozen in time.

Before reaching the gilded gates of their terrariums, each moss cell is first pumped with chlorophyll dye, plant fluid, nutrients, food, and cosmetic grade preservatives to help make the contained moss look more alive. As varying mosses populate the inside corners of their terrariums, the makers at TerraLiving curate each glass container to appear almost as a miniature moss-ridden forest. Requiring no light or water for nourishment, the creators behind Vertex Zero advise against storing the terrarium in direct sunlight and warn users to not water their terrariums as this could lead to mold or condensation within the terrarium.

Designer: TerraLiving

Each moss configuration is hand placed for a one-of-a-kind terrarium.

The glass containers used for each terrarium are museum-grade for the ultimate preservation and viewing experience.

Lightweight, yet sturdy by design, the terrariums were built for beauty and convenience.

When placed together, the hand-placed moss-ridden interior resembles a miniature forest.

Users can feel and smell the inside of Vertex Zero, but Terra Living advises against eating or consuming the moss.

Grown and harvested inside TerraLiving’s Moss Lab, the collected moss is hand-picked when they reach the peak of their health.

This sculptural terrarium brings the worlds of nature and architecture together

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No, it isn’t another Stefano Boeri building! The Chloroplast 2.0 is an absolutely captivating vertical terrarium that’s small enough to fit right on your tabletop. It combines aspects of architecture along with botany to create what TerraLiving calls a ‘botanical sculpture’. The terrarium features a microbiome of moss growing within a beautifully organic 3D-printed tower. The tower comes with a design that’s heavily inspired by the cellular structure found in plants, and the moss grows right within the towers, occupying individual cells to create a beautiful contrast of green against white.

The Chloroplast 2.0 is a custom-made, hand-grown terrarium designed by Malaysia-based TerraLiving. It comes with ZERO Moss, a preserved moss that requires virtually no care and automatically feeds off sunlight and CO2 to release fresh oxygen. The terrarium comes completely encased within a bell-jar which can be lifted to reveal the complex, self-sustaining natural biome within. Designed and developed by a group of passionate scientists and designers, the Chloroplast 2.0 is one of many unique offerings from TerraLiving, a company that’s dedicated to preserving and showcasing the complex world of mosses – one of the greatest survivors of evolution in the earth’s lifetime. The specially preserved ZERO Moss within the Chloroplast 2.0 doesn’t need watering at all, and can theoretically live for decades in its own self-sustaining microbiome. Place it on your desk, mantelpiece, or on your coffee table (preferably a place that gets sunlight) and the ChloroPlast adds a unique touch of living, breathing artwork to your space!

Designer: TerraLiving

This wall-mounted desk holds a terrarium to improve your mental health while working from home

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Even before stay-at-home orders were put in place, my green thumb was itching, but living in a small apartment doesn’t seem to get me close enough to scratch it. So I buy flower bouquets and ivy house plants to get a little taste of what it might feel like to have a garden. There’s no denying that my plants give me a sense of calm when I work next to them. With the double whammy of the quarantine forcing us to work from home, along with the onslaught of snow with winter, some calm is much needed for all of us. Mental health is known to improve when a little bit of nature is brought indoors, which represents a core logic of biophilic design. Showcasing his own biophilic design, Jake Round recently debuted visuals for Terrarium Desk, a wall-mounted desktop that integrates a removable plant terrarium, providing a mental respite for those of us in need.

While Terrarium Desk was initially designed in order to help mitigate the mental stressors that come along with both the colder seasons and working from home in the year 2020, the desk’s compact nature might also feel inviting for city-dwellers. In other words, my wall of dried flowers might be moving out sooner than expected. Round’s design is wall-mountable and incorporates plenty of storage space for clutter that would otherwise claim space on our desktops – laptops, tablets, magazines, books, the works. At the desk’s focal point, Round placed his glass terrarium, which includes a warm light for cozy night viewings or brighter workspaces during the day. While the light can be dimmed, the terrarium itself is always in sight, whether the desk is opened or closed.

When closed, the desk’s minimal front face hinges at and displays the plant life inside the terrarium. When opened, the desk’s terrarium promotes your focus by stimulating brain function and emitting oxygen as well as positive carbons. What’s to gain from caring for houseplants might appear as just a list of temporary relievers, but they each hold their own weight. While the list of mental health benefits is short and more attainable when put to practice, the peace that comes with it could stay awhile.

Designer: Jake Round

Terrarium-inspired backflow incense burners are the perfect combination of tranquility and zen

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The Japanese have a practice known as shinrin-yoku, where they ‘bathe’ themselves in nature, allowing the multisensorial experience of being surrounded by natural beauty to heal/detoxify them both physically and mentally. Being connected to nature can have a powerful effect on your body and your mood, and it would be safe to say that the Kin Objects’ terrarium-inspired incense burners offer a similar zen-like connection to nature, both in the visual and olfactory sense.

Kin Objects is the brain-child of Bill Yen, an award-winning architect born in Taiwan, raised in USA, and with a design studio in Shanghai. Clearly, his surroundings influenced him in countless ways, and Kin Objects was his way of combining sino-western traditions and cultures into a series of incense holders that are truly contemporary and multi-cultural. Kin Objects’ incense holders come with a unique brutalist style and concrete construction that has a certain raw appeal. Designed to be relaxing and minimalist at the same time, these incense holders help calm you, along with the aroma from the incense sticks and cones.

The Terrarium collection relooks how an incense holder can also be a decorative item in its own right. Made out of a blackish concrete, these incense burners have a unique sculpted design that guides the smoke from backflow incense cones – an unusual type of incense cone where the plume flows downwards rather than up – down like a fog on a hillside, or a slow-moving waterfall. The Terrarium collection comes with 3 designs that mimic the feeling of having a miniature eco-system within your incense burner, with designs inspired by mountains, trees, and volcanic lakes. The concrete terrariums sit under cylindrical glass containers, allowing smoke from the top to gently flow down and collect at the base before it diffuses from the jar, filling your room with the aroma of incense. Named Caldera, Karst, and Nelumbo, the three incense terrariums are an absolute beauty to look at as they depict the magic of smoke, gravity, and the wafting fragrance amid the beautifully cast concrete sculptures. The low-poly elements help guide the smoke in a magical way, almost slowing down time in the process. Everything happens behind the glass vial, practically enshrining the incense burner’s beauty!

The Terrarium joins Kin Objects’ existing catalog of incense burners, featuring holders for both stick and cone incenses. All of Kin Objects’ incense holders come with the iconic use of a fine, high grade concrete, along with elements made from bronze and wood to help really elevate the space it’s kept in. Combining eastern and western cultures and styles into a singular product, Kin Objects’ designs fit right into any home, uplifting the space they’re kept in, both visually as well as aromatically!

Designer: Bill Yen

Click Here to Buy Now: $68. Use Code: YANKO50 to receive 50% off on incense cone or incense stick when bought with the incense burner.

Nelumbo Terrarium Backflow Incense Burner

Nelumbo is the name of the plant genus that includes the Indian Lotus and its many variations, the inspiration for the design. This incense burner takes the form of a faceted geometric cone – an abstracted hybrid between a lotus bud and a pine cone. As the smoke plume descends from the backflow cone, it breaks into a multitude of tiny streams, winding around each of the cone’s geometric petals.

Caldera Terrarium Backflow Incense Burner

This incense burner takes its name from the large cauldron-like hollow which forms when the magma reservoir empties shortly after a volcanic eruption. Caldera is a self-contained miniature geological formation. The incense plume drops into the upper pool of the mountain, and then gently overflows into the large fog lake below. It is a portal to a mythical landscape.

Karst Terrarium Backflow Incense Burner

Inspired by the unique clusters of cone-like hills found in Guilin and Zhangjiajie, Karst is a geometric abstraction that conveys the other worldly feel of these landscapes. The incense burner’s plumes dive and billow around the cluster of cones in varying heights, finally gathering at the foot of the mountain to completely obscure it. Then only the peaks remain and the seemingly unfathomable depth of fog that surrounds it.

Click Here to Buy Now: $68. Use Code: YANKO50 to receive 50% off on incense cone or incense stick when bought with the incense burner.

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

Playable, stackable terrarium blocks that bring mother nature to your desk!

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Just about the size of a matchbox, these acrylic cuboids contain a living, breathing, self-sustaining terrarium. Designed to be conveniently compact enough to be placed anywhere, the Level Scapes are a great way to bring a bit of nature with you anywhere. Not just a simple plant but a real natural floral habitat. Terrariums are wonderful micro-habitats that have a knack for surviving on their own, replenishing their needs, living in harmony, like a miniature forest. Just a touch of water and a few beams of sunlight and the terrarium is capable of self-sustaining. When stacked together, they’re a great alternative to potted plants, as they’re compact, resilient, and easy to maintain.

Terrariums often occupy a couple of square-feet of space… Level Scapes manages to fit them into palm-sized boxes that you can easily place on your table. Housed inside an openable acrylic box, which acts as a greenhouse, these tiny ecosystems can be placed singularly, or even in groups, stacked one upon the other like play-blocks. Unlike plants that require care (because they’re being made to exist outside their natural forest-habitat), terrariums are, in fact, habitats in themselves. Made up of a variety of mosses and ferns that can live and sustain well within their closed environments, taking care of terrariums is incredibly easy. The Level Scapes just require a moderate amount of sunlight per day, and a few drops of water every few days or so. The closed-acrylic setup is almost like a greenhouse, retaining moisture to create the perfect temperature and humidity needed for the plant to grow.

In their compact form, the Level Scapes are a wonderful way to give yourself (or even someone else!) the gift of nature. Great to cherish and easy to maintain, these tiny, playable, stackable blocks add a touch of living greenery to your desk that beats a bonsai or succulent as they are way more interactive and fun!

Designer: Level Scapes

Click Here to Buy Now: $29.25 $39 Hurry 25% off only for the first 100 YANKO DESIGN Readers! Use Code: yankodesign

Click Here to Buy Now: $29.25 $39 Hurry 25% off only for the first 100 YANKO DESIGN Readers! Use Code: yankodesign

Yoda Approves of This Dagobah Terrarium Does He

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If you want your frogs, lizards, and other cold-blooded creatures to undergo their Jedi training, this is the perfect place for it. They will enter as humble pollywog padawans and emerge as powerful swamp Jedi.


Aside from not having any Luke and Yoda figures in here, this is an awesome habitat for frogs and the like. It is absolutely beautiful. It looks just like Dagobah and has a great smoky atmosphere. Of course you have to give your animals little lightsabers now and hope that they survive their training. Maybe throw a backpack in there so they can recreate Luke’s training scene.

I wish I had one of these in my house.

[via reddit via Nerd Approved]