The Future Home: Innovative Design for Human and Plant Cohabitation: Worm bin for compost

Statement

We are a design lab based in Joshua Tree, California. Our purpose is to:
1) Look at plants as technology but from a human and creative perspective
2) Pursue the potential many plant species have for removing toxins and adding moisture to the breathing zones in our homes, offices, clinical spaces, and commercial spaces.
3) Encourage the co-habitation of plants and humans.
4) Increase the appeal of incorporating plants into our living spaces by applying good, sustainable design principles to existing methods of keeping houseplants.
5) Personalize the breathing zones of individuals based on their environmental health concerns such as benzene or formaldehyde exposure.
6) Re-imagine the kitchen’s tea cupboard and spice rack as a living resource.
7) Re-imagine the bathroom’s medicine cabinet as a living resource offering safer, lasting, fresher, and more holistic alternatives to many of the commercial items that are conventionally stocked in medicine cabinets at home.
8) Critically engage the ways in which plants can be used for aesthetic purposes in interior design.

In this pursuit we are currently developing the following design lines:
“Sustainable Air Filtration”
“Sustainable Humidity Maintenance”
“Living Medical Resource”
“Living Kitchen Resource”
“Built-In and Mobile Terrarium Installations”
“Interior Desert-scaping”

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Worm bin for compost

Yesterday we finally got the worms for our much anticipated worm compost system. In constructing the bin we used a rubbermaid bin we had lying around. To makes this we:

1) burnt holes in the very bottom of opposite sides of the bin and attached rubber tubing to drain the tea that the worms will eventually produce

2) Duct taped a fine mesh (fine enough to keep the worms out) about 4 inches above the bottom of the bin which allows for more oxygen to reach the composting material as well as creates an area for the tea to be collected (it is good for plants)

3) tore up thin strps of newspaper (enough to cover the mesh)

4) added enough coconut substrate to cover the newspaper

5) added compostable materials (mainly coffee grounds and tea bags so far) and the worms