Sunday, December 6, 2009

Mobile Veggie Garden....?

Saw this on Treehugger, and though a little silly, might be good for the snacker on the go...

UrbanBuds: Mobile Suitcase Garden For The City Dweller
In tightly packed urban settings, finding places to produce fresh food in close quarters can be quite frustrating for the conscientious urban dweller. Even more frustrating is wondering how to move one's carefully-planted balcony or window garden once moving day comes. Eindhoven, Netherlands-based Italian designer Gionatta Gionno proposes a clever package, however: UrbanBuds is a mobile garden in the form of a suitcase filled with soil, designed to grow thirty-six different types of edible plants in all types of spaces. It's a simple idea, yet invokes more meaning than a bag of soil on wheels.

'UrbanBuds' uses the concept of food as a sign of cultural identity... The design of the project involves the metaphor of a suitcase as a symbol of cultural background. We all are used to saying that wherever we move we bring with us our backpack of culture, background, our bag of experiences. The design takes influence from this picture and it transforms the products in movable suitcases, filled up with soil. Families can grow vegetables and fruit on each side of the bags: each one of them allows growing about thirty-six different plants, which can grow vertically along the fabric.

It's a neat idea, and with modern lifestyles becoming more and more mobile, why shouldn't our food too?