The presentation proposes using living bamboo as a design material. I discuss benefits of bamboo as a material, both living and harvested. I also cover experiments conducted to learn how it may be best manipulated.

Grow It Yourself from mike k on Vimeo.

By the time I finished the table, my bamboo had grown very tall, so these photos are to demonstrate the aesthetic of a coffee table growing itself.  I plan on growing new culms through the table once I graduate school.

The planter I build has already warped out of shape, leaving the table to rest on the dirt, instead of on the inside walls of the planter.

There were some mistakes in this print on the account of material thickness.  Luckily, the table still bolts together fine.  The mistakes lessen the structural integrity of the table, but not its utility.  I should be able to fix the errors by recutting the side brackets.

When designing the table, I didn’t include a retainer for the soil and rhizome.  If I packed dirt into the leg itself, harvesting the table would result in a shortened leg (the space that the dirt occupies).  Wanting to stick with the right angled aesthetic, I’ve been designing a planter for the straight leg of the table to fit snugly into.  I avoided plastic because I thought it may crack from rhizome growth or the weight of it’s contents.  Although wood may prove to be a poor choice as well, it’s easier to work with and will take the weight of the table.

Anticipating that the bamboo will not want to grow “down” at second leg of the table, I designed the planter with open sides, allowing for watering at multiple orientations.  I chose Poplar (over Oak and Cedar) for it’s nice grains and ochre hue.  I’m unsure if it will warp after watering the plant, so I will apply a few coats of Polyurethane to lessen the water damage.

Would you still buy something if you knew it could be grown?

If you knew that you could grow it?  What would you grow?  A chair?  A bicycle?   A house?  And how long would you wait for it to grow?  Would you wait six months for a table?  How about a year?   Would you wait longer if it were to the proportions of your choosing?  What is the relationship to that length of time and that which it would take you to earn the money to simply purchase it?  Is there something you would wait for to grow, but never purchase?

Let’s take this a step further.  What if you could design a product and have a machine grow it for you?   Would you wait for it to grow if it required less attention?  Would you buy such an apparatus?  How much would you spend on such an apparatus?   Would you buy multiple apparatuses to grow more at once?  Would you buy items you were capable of growing in the interest of saving time?   Would your items’ value be based on the length of time they took to grow?  By how closely they resemble the initial plan?  Would they lose value if your hand were visible in its shape?

How would you design your objects?  Would you rather wield greater control or allow for innacuracies in your product?  Do these inaccuracies affect its value?

Once your piece grew to its intended size, would you harvest it?  Would you grow it inside or out?  Would you worry someone would reap your product?  Is there a specific piece you would keep alive?  Would you take the time to maintain it?  Would you let it grow to the ceiling?   Would you let it grow thick with leaves and branches?  Would you meticulously prune and primp?

If you were moving out, would you take the extra care to safely pack it? Would you give it away?  Would you throw it out?  Would you mulch it?  Would you plant it into the ground?  Would you take it to a forest?  How much of your current furniture would you take with you if you had to move?  Would you take more if you could change it’s dimensions?   What if you could add or remove features?

Q: “This is all great, but I don’t know how to use a CAD (computer aided design) program .”

A: Fear not, the world is changing. Communities exist such as Thingiverse (www.thingiverse.com), where designers open source their two and three dimensional designs for others to use and repurpose.

Q: “But I don’t own any 3D CAD software”

A: With open source software Blender and Google Sketchup, 3D design is no longer a “pay to play” field of study.

It was a good thing. I was so caught up learning how to properly merge and divide paths in illustrator, I made all edges homogeneous. Or maybe it was the lack of sleep.

You can judge by the photographs how far I could assemble the table with all of the mistakes that existed.  The tops and bottoms were fine, but the side tabs were reversed.  Doh!

Here’s a detail of one of the more troublesome pieces.  All the notes made for a nice acrylic piece on my second iteration.

“Gravitropism (or geotropism) is a turning or growth movement by a plant or fungus in response to gravity. Charles Darwin was one of the first to scientifically document that roots show positive gravitropism and stems show negative gravitropism. That is, roots grow in the direction of gravitational pull (i.e., downward) and stems grow in the opposite direction (i.e., upwards). This behaviour can be easily demonstrated with a potted plant. When laid onto its side, the growing parts of the stem begin to display negative gravitropism, bending (biologists say, turning; see tropism) upwards.”

A good friend of mine and experienced carpenter, Matt Richard, helped to design and fabricate a rotating planter.  I was fretting about engineering a three-axis apparatus for a weeks.  Matt talked some sense into me, suggesting that I fabricate immediately, and settle for one-axis of rotation for a proof of concept.  After we finished the design, we realized that we could rotate the plant inside the holder, making it a dual axis planter.  Thanks Matt!

I have “before” picture on my phone.  Soon to come.

In the meantime, check out the result after ~ 1 wk!

Eureka!

I will also devise supplemental studies of how one can manipulate bamboo through various environmental stimuli that could aide in future development.

I am also developing a modular system for growing a complex shape by stacking or connecting modules.  This may not be ready by the end of the semester, but it seems the next logical step in my design process.

This project will prove a challenge on many levels, as it’s harder to maintain plants in an urban environment.  Also, I’m rather uninformed in cultivating flora.

Here are some sketches of table designs.  The weave pattern is meant to be the table top.  I am unsure how I would produce this complex pattern as a hollow container.  I’m leaning toward a two part mold.  Zach Smith suggested I thermoform the plastic, although that means I need a positive to form the plastic.  This may not be the approach I want to take.