By Justin on September 27th, 2009, 11:32 pm 1 Comments

Interesting design idea from Brittany Veitch and Ben Landau using plants, laser-cut components, and a dystopian view of our future.

Bio-Accessories suggest a personal take on the responsibility of greening our cities, or at least our personal space within them, while imagining new and very personal relationships with ecology.

[via Inhabitat]

Tagged: air city design DIY fashion green plants

By Justin on August 29th, 2009, 1:44 am 7 Comments

Our magnetic planters have finally been finished and installed (temporarily) along the alley that runs behind our headquarters. Consider yourself cordially invited to take a planter or two and move them to some other space in the city in need of a micro-garden.

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Tagged: BCL installation interventions magnetic planters plants research

By Justin on August 24th, 2009, 11:49 am 0 Comments

I don’t mean for this to be such a lazy post/reblog, but there’s a few images I’ve been meaning to post for a while. I figured they were good reference points for our magnetic planters project, among others, given the variety of display and function of these planters and the use of recycled materials (see below). So, consider this less any sort of critical discussion of these works, and more just a compilation of image research for stuff we’re doing and would like to do. That being said, I’d highly recommend following the links throughout to read more about the projects.

First up, pictured above is, “The Hanging Smoking Garden”, 2007 by Mikala Dwyer from vvork.

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Tagged: architecture gallery gardens installation plants recycle

By Justin on March 24th, 2009, 11:19 pm 0 Comments

It’s a product made by MIO from recycled paper, and is available at Target, but I mainly wanted to post this as a note. As we’ve now “mastered” the process of making paper, we should consider different shapes for the planters we’re working on, which will likely help to guide the process of making the planter frames from the wire we have.

[via Inhabitat]

Tagged: paper plants projects recycle

By Josh on February 27th, 2009, 9:00 am 2 Comments

I’m not sure if anyone visiting this blog has seen this specific project, but from an ecological standpoint, this house seems quite easy on its surrounding flora and fauna. I also think it’s quite elegant and well designed. Compartments are integrated into the home for trees and surrounding soil doesn’t look like it’s been modified much. I’d imagine this type of structure would only be inhabitable in tropical-type regions. Nonetheless, where do I sign?

“This house by Hiroshi Iguchi is part of the Fifth World project which aims to promote eco friendly, sustainable architecture. The house takes natural elements and blends them all into the design of the interior. Warm, natural materials are used. Wood for the floors, light, traditional Japanese panels for compartments and white canvas to protect the interior from excessive heat. Even more, some of the trees were literally incorporated into the house, by letting them grow up to the sky in between the walls of the house.”

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Tagged: context greenhouse home plants

By Justin on February 10th, 2009, 1:36 am 1 Comments

Made from reused / fused plastic bags, 600 plants, and used TV aerial towers for the support structure, this living wall made by Adam Harris and Parimal Gosai is currently on display at Toronto’s Gladstone Hotel. The show, Come Up To My Room, is showcasing a bunch of fun and engaging design and some bad art.

[via designboom]

Tagged: green indoors living nature plants plastic bags wall

By Josh on January 30th, 2009, 10:00 am 2 Comments

In the summer of 2008, Broken City Lab’s early days, we discussed using moss for a small number of projects.  While the current weather is not permissive of working outdoors with plants, I wouldn’t mind giving moss another chance come spring.  La Chanh Nguyen is way ahead of us, creating moss carpets for use indoors!  They never need to be washed and are resistant to mould.

“Created by Switzerland-based industrial designer La Chanh Nguyen, the small indoor greenspace features three types of live green mosses – ball moss, island moss and forest moss – that grow in individual “cells” of plastazote, a decay-free foam. This lovely little bathmat can even thrive under the dubious care of the green-thumb challenged: mosses flourish in damp, humid places, making bathrooms ideal homes for these comfy carpets.”

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Tagged: carpet context moss plants

By Justin on September 17th, 2008, 11:03 am 0 Comments

Botanicalls is this incredible project I came across sometime last year. Essentially, it uses a microcontroller and sensor along with PHP and an open-source telephone system to allows plants to make phone calls and ask for water when they’re getting dried out. The project, as part ofConflux 2008, has become a walking tour in New York during which, “Participants call the Botanicalls main phoneline and navigate to the location-specific plant. Each tree or plant, speaks in their own ‘Botanicalls’ voice – which is based on their botanical habits and characteristics.” Not only do I think the project is a really great use of simple hardware and technology to create a novel experience, but the way in which they document and visually describe their project is really, really good.

Tagged: nature plants technology telephone

By Justin on July 31st, 2008, 9:35 pm 0 Comments

Saw these two installations, made me wonder about the potentials for filtering water hydroponically, in place of using something like a Brita filter. The first project is Local Riverby Mathieu Lehanneur. The installation consists of a refrigerated aquarium that include live fish and vegetables working together to clean the water and provide nutrients for one another. 

The second installation, DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee, by Britta Riley and Rebecca Bray creates a demonstration of a closed-loop system where viewers are encouraged to sit on the toilet facing the water fountain, thereby closing the loop of tubes that form the installation. The tubes carry urine from the toilet, filtering it through two aquariums and a “biomechanical  reaction mechanism” and a plant that is fertilized by the reaction’s byproduct. There is also a DIY kit to carry out the process at home that was available at the Eyebeam Feedback show back in March.

I think these two projects are interesting in that they tackle a roughly similar idea with two very different types of execution. Lehanneur’s design is very clean and less science-diagram-ish than Riley and Bray’s installation, but I wonder if something like DrinkPeeDrinkPeeDrinkPee is more along the lines of what we might like to show (the aesthetic of naturally filtering water as a science-type project), rather than a demonstration of our collective design skills.

Tagged: ecosystem nature plants reuse water