SPACE10 envision a future in which we grow our own food much more locally. To spark conversations about how we can bring nature back into our cities and tackle the increasing demand for significantly more food in the future, we teamed up with architects Sine Lindholm and Mads-Ulrik Husum to create The Growroom. Standing tall as a spherical garden, it empowers people to grow their own food much more locally in a beautiful and sustainable way.

From Taipei to Helsinki and from Rio de Janeiro to San Francisco, the original version of The Growroom sparked interest and people requested to either buy or exhibit it. But it doesn’t make sense to promote local food production and then start shipping it across oceans and continents. That’s why we’ve released The Growroom as an open source design and encourage people to build their own wherever they are.

Manufacturing for all

Digital fabrication has made state-of-the-art factory tools accessible to ordinary people. A new generation of technologies, from 3D additive and subtractive manufacturing to laser cutting and surface-mount manufacture, is available to the public in fablabs and maker spaces in any major city.

This means most people — in theory — could produce almost anything themselves. Just as printers are now ubiquitous, local and on-demand, customised production could become the norm of the future. We’re tapping into this emerging potential by releasing the cutting files for The Growroom. All you need to build it are two rubber hammers, 16 sheets of plywood and a visit to your local fablab or maker space equipped with a CNC milling machine. The design focuses on making the assembly easy and intuitive for anyone to handle, and The Growroom is produced from only one material — making it accessible and affordable for most communities.