A smart garden is an intelligent tool. A tool that can exist outside or inside, being able to cover the size of a park, or to fit inside a small apartment. An instrument that can feed the body with food, and the soul with flowers, while keeping our time free of work. A smart garden is capable of breaking the line between agriculture and landscaping, being able to exist on planet earth, or travel with us to the cosmos. A smart garden gives us freedom, and the free humans of the future will be smart gardeners.
Our proposal for a smart garden, is meant to showcase the diverse possibilities that may occur when mixing robotics with aero and hydroponics. We created a circular base on top of which sculptural growing towers sprout like trees. The towers consist of stackable modules, they can exist independently or together, in a park or inside an apartment, they are a smart garden on themselves.
Performing the task of field operator, we imagine a small multi-terrain vehicle with a robotic arm, which keeps the ‘zen’ of the ground in check, constantly reviewing chemicals and harvesting food and flowers which are ready for consumption, and replacing them with new batches. To accompany this sculptural composition, we propose an open circle enclosure, which provides coziness to the garden, and functions as an hydroponic growing station, where water recirculates to and from concealed water tank and pumps which serve as seating elements for visitors.
We believe smart gardens are a viable concept today, which can provide not only sensorial pleasure, but also food safety and ecological education to the masses, using processes which are more sustainable (hydroponics/aeroponics). A single growing tower can fit inside a small apartment, like the acres of a dacha compressed to the size of a living room, but the technology is scalable enough to be used as a landscaping tool for organizing big territories.
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