Expandable “Origami” Pot Grows Along With Plants to Cut Waste

image via studio ayaskan

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t possess a particularly green thumb. Sure, I’ve got a few potted mint and basil plants lined up on my kitchen countertop, but those were inherited from a since-departed neighbor. I’m fairly certain that if I’d been the one tasked with raising them from seedlings, well, my countertop would probably be a lot emptier than it is now. In particular, I’ve never gotten the hang of transferring a plant from a small pot to another larger, more accommodating one. Invariably I’ll slice the roots or over/under water the newly-transferred foliage, at which point the plant dies, and for my effort I’m left with not one, but two empty, useless pots. What a waste all around.

GROWTH, a new design concept by London-based Studio Ayaskan, offers a dynamic take on the standard flower pot—one which not only saves gardening time and effort, but also promotes sustainability and cuts down on unnecessary waste. Using “origami-based geometry,” the pot transforms to fit plants through multiple stages of growth: From seedling, all the way to full size.

image via studio ayaskan

Explains Studio Ayaskan on their website:

The life cycle of a plant is a transformation, from an early seed to its full grown size; the blooming of a flower, the unfolding of a leaf, the branching of the roots. This process is what GROWTH aims to capture within a plant pot.

image via studio syaskan

Speaking with Contemporist, the creators expand on that, describing the standard approach to product design as a static, three-part progression: Produce, use, and ultimately discard. Nothing particularly sustainable, or natural, about it. GROWTH, on the other hand, seeks to combine the natural with that which is manufactured in order to create something less wasteful, and more representative of the natural process for which the pot ultimately serves to contain.

While I’m not sure even something as innovative as GROWTH would be enough to fully reverse my track record of poor gardening choices, it does provide a model for ways in which even the most simple objects in our lives can be transformed into something that’s not only more adaptive to a user’s needs, but more environmentally sound for the rest of us, as well.

[via bored panda, contemporist]