URB - Sustainable Home Herb Garden
URB is a sustainable herb garden that utilities the waste produce of coffee shops. It aims to help people in urban environments reconnect with home gardening but also provides a contemporary design that fits into any urban flat/home. The coffee waste, produced by coffee shops, is combined with food waste to create a nutritional soil that is used as a medium to grow crops in. The plastic cups, produced by coffee shops, are combined with PEI and ABS, to create plastic pellets than can be injection molded to form the housing of the product.
I discovered the nutritional value present in coffee grounds and the positive benefits it can have on crop farming. Statistics suggest that on average a coffee shop in a city (London), produces 10kg of waste coffee and sells more than 300 cups of coffee everyday. Shockingly only a 1/4 of waste cups thrown away a year are actually recycled. I wanted to introduce a circular economy approach that aims to create partnerships between coffee shops and the company "URB", and try to tackle coffee cup and coffee waste.
The stylistic direction was chosen to fit into an everyday home, by the application of a minimalist exterior and the bold, A-symmetrical cork bottom.
After initial ideation on paper and on Sketchbook Pro, a few concepts were taken in Solidworks to produce 3D CAD for each concept. After a selection process, the chosen design was refined and visualized in Keyshot. Post production on renders was performed within Adobe Photoshop. The graphical content, i.e. the flow chart and the boards, were created using Adobe Illustrator and Adobe InDesign.
I was overwhelmed by the acknowledgement it received online with a phew comments, on some design forums, asking if they could buy it! The service behind the design is more of the hero of the project, people appreciated my attempt to create a circular economy, where one company is helping another company and vice versa. I believe that in order for us, as the human race, to tackle our waste issues, we need to come together and utilize circular economy design approaches where possible.
This is really cool, very innovative and chic.