Designer Plant Seads

Kingston, New York, based designer, Bryan Meador released his latest product, the Sead Pod, an invention that uses recycled plastic to convert chain link fencing into lush vertical gardens in one easy step. Sead Pods give people a quick and easy way to transform any urban space into a green haven while embracing a cyclical plastic economy that cleans our environment of single-use plastic waste.

Design Team

Bryan Meador

"The Sead Pod represents a new way of thinking about green design in an urban context," said Bryan Meador, Plant Seads' Founder and Chief Design Officer. "By reimagining existing architectural elements like chain link fencing as a tool in the fight against climate change, we're able to leap into the green movement immediately, fighting climate change at the grassroots level and making our cities cleaner, healthier, and more livable—right now."

Taking its name from the acronym 'Sustainable Ecology, Adaptive Design,' Plant Seads was founded as a reaction to the sluggish response of government and multinational companies to address the emergency of climate change. As a young, creative, and somewhat impatient person, Sead's founder Bryan Meador was frustrated by the lack of urgency surrounding this issue. " Our generation is the first to be born into Climate Change. This crisis is not hypothetical to us, and we're tired of waiting around for others to address this issue in a meaningful way."

Using 3d printing and rapid prototype development, the Sead Pod was designed, manufactured and released in less than 9 months. "We're inspired to take up this fight by young people like Greta Thunberg, who said, 'I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is,' That quote is printed large in our studio to serve as a daily reminder of what is at stake. Plant Seads is a brand with a mission; to create long term sustainable solutions for life in an environment that's changing more quickly than it ever has.

From those first drawings, we went through months of iterations to hone the design into its final form. We needed something that would be rigid enough to support the weight of a plant, along with the soil it needed, while hanging onto a fence. Something that could be manufactured at an industrial scale and look refined enough to fit in someone’s home. And most importantly, it had to be suitable for as many plants as possible.

"By harnessing the CO2 conversion that plants accomplish naturally, Sead Pods enable people to begin the larger process of CO2 sequestration at the grassroots level while governments and multinational companies figure out how to scale this process up to an industrial scale. Sead Pods also cool and clean the air we breathe by introducing more plants into our polluted urban spaces.

Sead Pods were conceived, designed, and manufactured in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley, eliminating the need for international shipping in its manufacturing supply chain.
True to its mission as a provider of grassroots solutions to a global problem, Plant Seads is funding its initial wide release of the Sead Pod through a Kickstarter campaign.

Process

Initial prototypes were 3D printed and sent out across the country for field testing, but the results were pretty poor. The basins in these initial prototypes were far too small to support something growing. Also, because there was so little space for soil, they dried out almost immediately, killing anything that managed to gain a foothold. Lastly, they looked great, but the hyper organic form was impossible to manufacture as one part, creating a prohibitively high cost for production. Our final planter accommodates more than 3 times as much soil as these first planters, allowing the soil to hold onto more water and roots to grow. They're also designed to be manufactured using injection molding, enabling a significantly lower price point and the capacity to fulfill large orders.

Materials were also a major concern. We worked with a local plastics manufacturer with decades of experience to determine what recycled material would be well suited for this project. It needed to be many things at once; durable enough to endure years of exposure to the elements, chemically stable enough to be safe even for someone wanting to grow food, and ideally it could be recycled again, re-entering and reinforcing the cyclical plastics economy. We decided that HDPE (high-density polyethylene) would be best. The material's excellent heat history (meaning that it can be heated up, molded, melted down and reformed again and again without losing structural integrity), non-toxic nature and easy recyclability were perfect for our needs.

To purchase your own Sead Pods, go to https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plantseads/sead-pods-shapeshift-plastic-waste-into-vertical-gardens or just Google 'Plant Seads Kickstarter'

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