The home cultivation project : designing for a self-sustainable world

Abstract

The Home Cultivation Project began with the idea that we can in theory, practice vegetable gardening in our immediate environment, such as our homes, offices and our schools. Food can be such a good way to communicate with each others, weather it is for special occasions or just as a part of the daily ritual, when family members sit down together and reflect on the day or share other knowledge. It is through communication that we learn and grow and family meals are often the only moment the family unites during the day. Yet over the last decades food is gaining less importance in today's household. The underlying motives for the research is based on the idea that our immediate environment influences our behavior and well being and can also play a large role in promoting environmental awareness. It is also based on the believe that an essential factor in promoting a fair and sustainable society is by designing systems that celebrates the potential of the individual to make good changes.The Home Cultivation Project is an attempt to design a low-tech soilless culture suitable for homes with the focus on local biodegradable materials. In the search for low tech local material I was captivated by the possibilities of alginate hydro gel. It can serve both as a growing material and the system itself as it stores nutrition, maintains the oxygen level in water and contains many of the nutrition plants need. It can replace systems that are powered by pumps and water stones and are highly dependent on electricity. With the study I explored the potential of alginate hydrogel as growing material by studying its properties and application of hydrogel both as a cultivating material and the use of it in other fields such as pharmaceutical industry. I went into the laboratory and did some experiments with hydrogel which gave me ideas for further experiments. I also was able to materialise the end product for the user and did a user test on possible user. In the final exhibition I mediated the project by visualizing the concept to visitors. I learned from the audience that the presentation was persuasive and triggered a sense of revaluation. The purpose of design is to vision and put into practice future possibilities on how we can improve our system so that it increases our sense of well-being. With my work my hopes is that I have created a platform for further interdisciplinary collaboration as an effective means to create innovative solutions to deal with our most urgent life task.