The ‘parasite farm’ by Charlotte Dieckmann and Nils Ferber is an indoor compost system that can be easily integrated into your current living environment. The device consists of illuminated plant boxes which fit into shelving units and a larger compost container which can simply be hung from your kitchen table that has an integrated chopping board."

The designers say: 

'Today 88% of Germany’s population lives in cities and only 5.8% of the country’s cultivated land is farmed ecologically. While most fruits and vegetables have become available all year round we are losing touch with how it was grown, harvested and transported. the expensive, highly compacted urban area doesn’t leave much room for agricultural practices and not everybody has access to a balcony or garden. Our answer to that question is the ‘parasite farm’, a system that enables you to compost your biological waste, produce humus soil and to grow your own vegetables and herbs – all within your apartment! To integrate with your interior and your habits both the vermicompost system and the plant boxes use existing furniture as infrastructure. The parasitic objects are fed by your food scraps and provide you – in turn – with fresh vegetables. We hope that this small-scale nutrient cycle makes people discover the fascination of growing you own food and evokes questions about the current industrial food production and possible alternatives.'

Learn more about this project here.  

About Bee Home

"Our lives — and planet Earth as a whole — would be very different if solitary bees didn’t exist. They're vital for flowers, trees, animals and people. In fact, a third of what we eat depends on these busy, buzzing insects and other pollinators.

But, because of human impact, bees are in danger of going extinct.

We’ve unwittingly destroyed their homes and natural habitats when building our own homes, cities and landscaped our gardens. We’ve turned to pesticides, chemicals and monoculture in farming, causing wildflower meadows to rapidly vanish across the planet.

That’s why we at SPACE10 want to make it easy for anyone anywhere to design a beautiful home for these vital species.

Bee Home is an open invitation for everyone to give bees the home they deserve — and to make sure that planet Earth thrives."

Learn more about Bee Home (and you can even design your own) here.

“We’ve been keen vermiculture enthusiasts for a number of years and have Can-o-Worms set up at our homes and in the car park behind our office — we feed the worms with our kitchen organic waste and they create highly fertile soil and liquid fertiliser. The problem is that the bins are not made locally, and are plastic and ugly so you always want to hide them and they’re not always desirable for small outdoor spaces. We wanted to design a wormery as something beautiful, a piece of furniture that could contribute to a small urban garden or apartment balcony. So we focused on the joinery details and ours is constructed of stacked dovetail jointed hardwood trays, with thin sheet stainless steel bases. The system is modular so if your trays are filling up too fast you can add more. The lower section is lined to collect the rich leachate from the upper trays and has simple brass tap to one side to drain off this worm ‘tea’ which is great organic liquid fertiliser when diluted 1:10 with water.”

Learn more about this project here.  

"To begin, one continuously puts food scraps in the bin at the top. As the composting process is accelerated by the worms, the bin holding the plant slowly sinks down, and markings on its side shows the user the gradual progression of composting. Any icky goo is plugged up with a cork stopper at the bottom, which can be regulated and emptied if needed.

Clay was used here as an effective "mediator of odour, moisture and temperature" for both humans and worms -- a plus for people who want to compost, but don't like odours, nor the aesthetic of plastic bins. The low-tech yet naturally stylish aesthetic (it does look like a mini-tree) of Uroboro is a welcome departure from the plastic DIY vermicomposting bins and overly high-tech options we've seen out there."

Learn more about this project here.   

"Aquaponics is a combination of aquaculture, which is growing fish and other aquatic animals, and hydroponics which is growing plants without soil. Aquaponics uses these two in a symbiotic combination in which plants are fed the aquatic animals’ discharge or waste. In return, the vegetables clean the water that goes back to the fish. 

Along with the fish and their waste, microbes play an important role in the nutrition of the plants. These beneficial bacteria gather in the spaces between the roots of the plant and converts the fish waste and the solids into substances the plants can use to grow. The result is a perfect collaboration between aquaculture and gardening."

Learn about aquaponics and how it works here.