KOKEDAMA / food growing kit

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This project was made during the first graduate semester of Faculty of Architecture, School of Design in Zagreb, as a collaboration with Klara gardening. The subject is real life design and due to the fact that the company this collaboration was made with operates in the area of gardening, it was decided to explore the principles of self sustainable food growing in urban areas. Considering the growing trends of urban gardening in larger cities, special attention was given to situations where even urban gardens are impossible, primarily small apartments without balconies, student dormitories or homes near polluted roadways. A part of the research was made in collaboration with colleagues from the Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry in Zagreb.

After finishing the research, the project took a turn in the direction of symbiotic cultivation of different edible plants. It is a known fact, even in traditional gardening, that certain plants grow faster and better when planted next to others. By combining compatible plants of higher and lower ranks, for example certain edible plants with certain types of moss faster and richer growth can be achieved with minimal fertilizing, also a big problem, because needed amounts of fertilizers are very difficult to make in small spaces, forcing people to use artificial ones. With such symbiotic growth, gases dangerous to the plant are filtered by the fertilizing moss. By finding different combinations of edible plants and mosses the symbiosis can be balanced to imitate natural processes occurring in earth.

The final product is a system of products and education combined to provide information and real results in growing your own food. The forced symbiosis principle is combined with solutions for maximal light absorption and self watering in order to achieve partial homeostasis, a state in which the plant does not need human interventions for prolonged periods of time. Such a radical approach is selected because of the fact that in today’s world of unlimited availability, people have become lede interested in growing their own food. A solution that demands little or no care, and the results of such a solution could be a subtle way to raising awareness and engage people into today’s problems.