#indn252

Advanced Produce (brief/idea)

“Don’t eat the seeds, apples will start growing from your ears”

As a small child fear of growing vegetables out of my ears seems like a scary notion. But now it is a thing of the future, the human body simultaneously consuming and producing eatable biennial products.

The conceptual idea is that the creation of a product called ABA (Anthropomorphic Biennial Apparatus) is to be inserted under the skin containing the seed of the ‘hosts’ choice and so forth beginning the process of rapid growth of organic materials on the human body.

 Cultivate (research/restriction)

Research was carried out in relevance to human tissue and what was already available to sustain plant growth on the human body.

A concerning restriction was the sustainability of seed’s growth within the ‘hosts’ body; research was conducted into what a plant needs to grow - nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and water. Although the human body already contains these ‘chemicals’ most of them are produced in the body through food intake – meaning the ‘host’ would have to consume additional food products to help sustain a rapid growth, which would not be ideal.

Site of the APA was chosen to reside along the collarbone and shoulders. This is to allow maximum sunlight and is also an area that is less likely to be knocked or intruded upon during rapid growth stage.

Insertion of the ABA will take place between the epidermal layer and bone to provide maximum points of attachment for the APA.

 Sprout (process - concepts)

Creative processes began by growing sprout seeds and watching/photographing some of the growth process.  This was to not only to see observe growth times but also to help initiate/entice any design ideas that may have originally popped up. These sprout seeds are also used in the final model to suggest real time growth.

Conceptual ideas for ABA are based on human growth, biennial growth, microscopic appendages, cells and organic structures.

Consideration was put into how the growth of the plant would affect integrity of the ABA and hashed out some ideas exploring the ABA growing/moving with the first seed sprouts form the ABA.

Supplement (developing idea)

Channels inside each ABA ‘leaf’ are designed to not only help with the overall structural integrity of the ABA but are also to be filled with a gel containing nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus and water.

As with the research gathered production of more nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus, as discussed under ‘cultivate’, eating more could lead to health issues making it an implausible outcome to help sustain ABA growth.  Henceforth the ABA gel has been established and used.

The ABA ‘leaves’ are the overall functioning body of the ABA, idealised in concept stage and continued on to current development.

Thrive

A thin internal wall inside ABA is sufficient to hold the ABA gel or any other enhancement that is necessary to overall growth and function of the ABA. This is manufactured to help with degradation until the seed had sustained enough growth to attach itself to the body’s tissues.  As growth of the seed progresses the thinness of this internal wall will allow the seed to break through and still have a supply of necessary commodities to develop itself.

 Compound

The final development of the overall form needed to be modified to allow comfortable contact between skin tissue and bone – hence the form has been developed into a half hollow to prevent any uncomfortable skin stretching that a rounded shape may/could have caused.

I wanted to look into designs in nature that show strength in their structure.