Soft Planting System
modular urban gardening concept
May 2008
This concept recently won 3rd place in the Digging Deeper: Building Blocks for Sustainable Design Competition 2009!
The Soft Planting System is a modular container gardening concept designed for the urban environment, but applicable nearly anywhere. With simple, lightweight components, it enables anyone to transform urban hardscapes into edible landscapes. Utilizing flexible fabrics instead of rigid pots and structures, the system components are collapsible, economical, and highly versatile. Gardens can be established quickly and easily in spaces as diverse as backyards, schoolyards, vacant lots, front stoops, or rooftops.
The principle unit of the system is a soft-structured planter made from a durable, breathable fabric. Pocket-like openings on the sides enable greater use of the soil volume and its rounded-triangular footprint allows multiple planters to nestle together in pleasing tessellations. The system also includes a canopy and trellis, which may be installed on tent poles that anchor neatly to hardware at the base of the planters.
The entire system is modular allowing it to be customized to your site and reorganized or expanded over time as needed. If you move, the system components can be packed up and reinstalled elsewhere. And when the system is no longer functional, the materials can be recycled into new product.
This concept originated as my graduate thesis at the Rhode Island School of Design. Download a PDF copy of my thesis book here.
