Hasta La Ideas

Product designer Samuel Wilkinson has created a miniature garden that works like a living Tamagotchi.

An application on a smartphone or iPad remotely controls the water, climate and nutrients reaching the flowers inside the flora terrarium.

Full spectrum LED lights replicate daylight inside the dome, which can be planted with different arrangements.

Biome is a response to the speed of life in the digital age and encourages smartphone users to take time out to care for their plants.

Samuel Wilkinson previously collaborated with Hulger on the design of the award-winning Plumen 001 light bulb (see our stories and videos here), which will be on sale at the Dezeen Temporium this Christmas.

Here’s some more information from the designer:

London based designer Samuel Wilkinson has designed a flora terrarium that links to your Ipad.

Biome is a flora terrarium that’s works a little like a live tamagotchi – with a smartphone or Ipad as its key to controlling its climate, water level and nutrients. The idea promotes ‘digital downtime’ by finding an alternative use for smartphones and encouraging their owners to consider a slower life. The control and nurturing of a real mini eco-system takes patience and care, contrasting with the immediacy of messaging or tweeting that is so characteristic of the smartphone generation. This smart garden has low energy lighting that can replicate sunlight and contains sensors that link back to the device when connected. It is designed to incorporate different types of environment – tropical, desert, even herb garden – and can be easily controlled by even the least green-fingered of users.

The design was developed for an exhibition titled ‘Slow Tech – Designs for Digital Downtime’ at trend agency Protein’s exhibition space last month. The exhibition was curated by Henrietta Thompson (editor-at-large at Wallpaper*)

Samuel Wilkinson Design Studio:

Samuel Wilkinson set up his industrial studio at the end of 2007 and a year later, in 2008 Wilkinson completed his largest work, L’arbre de Flonville in Lausanne, Switzerland. The work consists of a contemporary town square featuring a 16m sculptural metal tree surrounded by sculpted racine benches. Samuel’s recent design of the Plumen 001 light bulb (collaboration with Hulger) and the Handblown glass lamps ‘Vessel Series’ for DecodeLondon have won international acclaim. Plumen collected the grand prize from the Design Museum of ‘2011 Design of the Year’ in the prestigious Brit Insurance International Design Awards and  Vessel was nominated for Best British Design. Samuel Wilkinson’s commitment and enthusiasm to designing interesting objects is apparent in his work, always looking to add a fresh dynamic approach in either form or function.

See also:

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Brit Insurance Design of the Year winners 2011	Vessel Series 01-03 by Samuel Wilkinson	L’arbre de Flonville by Oloom & Samuel Wilkinson