This project aims to reconnect apartment dwellers with nature through the design of a mobile food garden system for balconies. The self-assembled garden is designed around the natural cycles of growth, water, and nutrients. It allows for the germination of seeds, growth of plants in adjustable trays, collection of rainwater, and use of food scraps in an integrated worm farm to nourish the soil. The system is intended to improve the apartment gardening experience by providing customizable growing conditions for a variety of crops in a compact, versatile system tailored for confined apartment spaces.

1. Apartment Garden Ecosystem
Use design to enhance the apartment gardening experience and help reconnect urban
dwellers with nature
Product + Design ‐ Auckland University of Technology
Nancy Wang
Auckland. New Zealand
Insert also the logos/names of the main institutions involved in the project...
Key Words: Cities, Urban Green, Households

2. Context
Nowadays many people chose to
live in compact high-rise
dwell-ings, and as populations
increase, and residential spaces
becomes more limited, these are
likely to rise dramatically.
Apartment homes do not have the
luxury of a backyard and there is
limited opportunity to experience
gardening and its associated
benefits. Analysis of initial research
concluded that gardening activity in
apartment is very limited, and is
usually re-stricted to growing low
maintenance plants in confined
areas. In addition, soil and water
were viewed as difficult to maintain
and keep tidy. Furthermore, people
who live in apartments are often
transient. This was regarded as a
significant barrier towards
establishing an apartment garden.

3. Project
This project aims to reconnect apartment
dwellers with nature, through the design of a
product/system that improves the apartment
gardening experience, while communicating
urban dwellers the potential benefits of a more
self-sufficient way of living.

4. Design Role
A self-assembled mobile food garden was
designed, which allows apartment dwellers to
create their own balcony vegetable patch. The
garden is designed as an ecological system based
around three dominant cycles found in nature:
growth, water and nutrient. Most plant growth
occurs in the top two levels. These are adjustable
in height to maximize sunlight. Seeds may be
germinated in the lower levels and rotated to the
top trays to allow further growth. Rainwater feeds
garden from the top, it then flows through the
lower planting trays and collects in the bottom
water tray. A worm farm is incorporated to utilize
food scraps so that soil may be continually
nourished.
The system aims to improve apartment gardening
experience by providing an optimal growing
sys‐tem with enhanced versatility specifically for
apart‐ment living. It can be arranged in a variety of
ways to provide the best growing conditions for a
diversity of crops, while allowing the
personalization of the gardening process. Each
planter has a removable base and can be stacked
to provide deeper soil as required by some crops
(i.e. root vegetables). The containers also function
as tool storage spaces, and may also be arranged
to form a double level worm farm, so nutrient rich
worm juice may be collected along with any
excess water. The system is designed with
maximum space utilization as well as mobility for
better use in confined areas.