Shape-Shifting ‘Origami’ Pots That Grow Together With Your Plants

Growth, an innovative pot design inspired by the Japanese art of origami, grows together with your plant, expanding to accommodate more soil and a wider root network. This design, by the London-based duo at Studio Ayaskan, aims to make plant pots more sustainable than ever.

“Gavin is already a very experienced product designer, so I wouldn’t say he changed during the project. However, the project itself has had massive changes in direction throughout it’s development. Seeing these changes, and how Gavin was able to adapt and overcome them, was a pleasure to watch. Designers often live with their projects emotionally, and this is especially true in the case of this barbecue. It is revolutionary, exciting and has taken a lot of blood, sweat, tears and grey matter to get to where it is today. I take my hat off to Gavin for having the passion, energy and perseverance for getting this far.” Dan Black, Black and Blum.

Begum and Bike Ayaskan

London designers, Begum and Bike Ayaskan, 26, were sitting in a garden in Turkey when they started talking about the idea for a plant pot that could grow with the plant. Before long Growth, the origami-like flower pot, was born. “We knew we wanted to make it look like it was complete in its initial stage so when the transformation started happening it would be a surprise. We wanted it to transform by unfolding over time.”

“In nature, everything evolves, adapts, grows, blooms, degrades, dies, gets absorbed, reused,” the designers, Bike and Begum Ayaskan, told Contemporist. “The modern approach to building is the opposite. Here, things exist in stages: objects are produced, used, discarded… Growth, through it’s carefully calculated origami pattern, mimics nature’s ability to grow and transform by unfolding over time, bringing these qualities to the manufactured object.”

“We are both very passionate about nature,” Begum and Bike Ayaskan told Bored Panda. “We were drawn by the idea of having the opportunity to tell a story between an object an its inhabitant, (a plant pot and a plant)”

“We were very much interested in the interaction, the two had with each other. We wanted to show that even a very simple object, like a plant pot, could be improved and changed by understanding its life cycle and implementing behaviour patterns through geometry and structure”

“The pots are made up of polypropylene. A mesh, made up the same material is then attached to the base, allowing the water to drain out. The facades of the pot are then folded into its initial stage, ready for a plant to be potted. The material is very resilient”

“To come up with correct origami pattern we initially started out with experimenting with a lot of origami patterns. Once we chose the pattern we were working with, we had to figure out the trigonometry behind the shape so we calculated the ratios that would give us the exact shape we wanted”

“We are currently in discussion with manufacturers to get Growth into production. We are aiming to have them ready in the next few months and also add a few new colours”

Searched and Illustrated by Tejinder Kamboj