Rethinking ...
It was a very interesting experience to reimagine how I could have more plants in my own flat and to plant my very first vertical garden. Being inspired by the different ideas of how plants can be part of homes even when space is a problem, I decided to immerse myself in experimentation again.
Instead of thinking differently about my own space, I decided to think differently about plants themselves.
I found a couple of blogs with information on growing tomatoes upside down and the ideas sounded very interesting. The main reason is to save space, but according to some of these blogs, there are several positive aspects of it. Apparently, upside down tomatoes are easy to maintain. In bad weather, they can just be moved to a different location and because they are not in the soil, pests and diseases are limited. Of course there are some downsides, such as the need for extra water and the weight. I became fascinated with the idea and decided to start my own upside down garden.
Experiment 2 - Upside-down garden
Figure 1. Materials: knife, tape, empty recyclable yogurt pots, multi purpose compost and string to make a plant pot holder.
Figure 2. A hole was made on the bottom of the yogurt pot so the leaves could come out and grow.
Figure 3. The idea of this experiment was to transfer existing plants that had grown in the traditional way and plant it upside down and monitor their behaviour. Soil and multi purpose compost was added to the bottom of the yogurt pots. After the plants were transferred to the pots more compost was added. Pots were sealed with clear tape.
Figure 4. For this experiment I wanted to do everything from scratch, including the plant holders. All I needed was a pair of scissors, some string and a round metal ring to tie the string. I cut about 8 long pieces of string and tied together on the round metal ring. Once the pieces of string were tied, all I had to do was to tie the string together by doing knots along them.
Figure 5. The plant pots were inserted in the plant pot holders and were hung upside down. It has been 3 weeks and the plants are looking beautiful and healthy. Plants are being watered every other day.
This was a very important experiment to me as it made me reflect on the importance of thinking differently and challenging existing approaches and methods.
A few days after I conducted my ‘upside down garden’ experiment, I came across an article about ‘Lateral Thinking’. The article is actually a reflection on a book called ‘Lateral Thinking’ by Dr. Edward Bono.
According to this book, there are two ways in which people think, vertically and laterally. Vertical thinking is responsible for the everyday decision making, logical thinking and problem solving skills. Vertical thinking is important to us. However, this logical and pattern based way of thinking can limit our creativity. Lateral thinking refers to the process of deconstruct these patterns.
Lateral thinking doesn't offer only one answer to a problem, but allows reflection on different strategies and many possibilities.
I have shared on this blog a few issues when considering smart cities, such as the importance of considering existing cities to achieve more realistic solutions, and the role of technology as an enabler and not as the main goal. I believe that these issues do relate to the way we think about design today. When it comes to smart cities lateral thinking is essential, not only for solutions but also for the strategies to implement them. Innovative solutions and approaches also require innovative ways of thinking.
At this moment, myself and colleagues were pretty much set on values that were important to us and also on the idea to reconnect ourselves with nature. I decided to focus some of my time exploring different ways of thinking...
Notes:
Link to the article mentioned on this blog.
https://0-search-proquest-com.wam.city.ac.uk/docview/205518215?pq-origsite=summon