Farm Haus

The original prompt for this project was simple- design for ultra-high density urban living. I was inspired by the now defunct Kowloon Walled City, a makeshift town that at one point had the highest population density on the planet and had to sustain itself with little outside support.

I also became fascinated with vertical gardens, which are far more viable in an urban environment than traditional flat garden plots. The final decision was to make one suitable for the smallest of spaces.

My color palette was lifted from a photo of converted shipping containers in Los Angeles, which served as an inspiration for practical and attractive small space design.

I went through a few versions of the design, working through how it would be stacked and accessed. Early versions did not have a built-in grow light and relied on holes for ventilation, both of which were changed upon further iteration.

I was very focused on how this thing would actually be used, where it would fit in the user’s life, and what benefits it would offer them. I wanted it to be the ideal product for growing edible plants indoors, while also being an interesting decorative object to brighten up a space.

The last thing to do before prototyping was to render out a few options to finalize the look and stacking method. I decided on polycarbonate for its durability, light resistance, and high transparency. The transparency of the supporting structure serves to highlight the bright colors of the interior planters and the plants themselves.

Finally, I made physical prototypes out of laser cut polycarbonate. The completely transparent unit on the left shows the intended placement of LED grow light strips, and the unit on the right was assembled for ease of experimentation with assorted grow lights to find the correct intensity and distance. In the end, I was able to keep a succulent, a plant with extremely high need for light, alive and healthy underneath my desk in this pair of stacked Farm Haus units.