The man who grows trees into chairs

[Dubious]

19 June 2015 Last updated at 21:36 BST

A designer in Derbyshire says he has come up with a new and dramatically more efficient way of making furniture.

Gavin Munro grows young trees directly into the shape of chairs, lamps and mirror frames.

Mr Munro's project has been going for the past nine years and this year the first lot of trees will be harvested to be sold as the finished products.

He told BBC News about his hope for the future of Full Grown, his unique business.

Video Journalist: Ed Ram


The man who grows trees into chairs - BBC News


This is really interesting wished some people in Pakistan would do something similar and they can carve it too with designs and stuff

 

[Gufi]

This is really interesting wished some people in Pakistan would do something similar and they can carve it too with designs and stuff

All lies you post, I still do not have a glow in the dark treee

 

[Dubious]

All lies you post, I still do not have a glow in the dark treee

In The Not So Distant Future, Glow-In-The-Dark Trees Could Replace Street Lights

According to Daan Roosegaarde, the future of art and design is awash with spectacular innovation.

From giant vacuum cleaning systems aimed at eradicating smog to "smart" apparel that becomes translucent when the wearer is turned on, the Dutch artist/designer/architect has helped imagine some hair-raising projects that could propel us into a new era of aesthetics.

His newest endeavor -- a plan to replace light fixtures with bioluminescent plants -- is no letdown in comparison.

Taking a cue from biomimicry, Roosegaarde is hoping to transform your average street-side trees into beacons of light for passersby. Like the luminescent abilities of jellyfish, mushrooms or fireflies, Roosegaarde, scientist Alexander Krichevsky and the State University of New York are all on the case, splicing DNA from luminescent marine bacteria with the chloroplast of a houseplant.


The smaller-scale, glow-in-the-dark specimens would act as the basis for a project of greater proportions -- light-emitting installations that look like trees. "What happens when technology jumps out of the computer screen and becomes part of the things that we wear and the roads that we drive on?" Roosegaarde muses in the video above.

Watch the short clip to hear the artist speak more about his ambitious plans and the reason he's ventured to the United States to pursue his quest. Let us know your thoughts on the merging of nature and technology in the comments.

h/t Dezeen

Correction: An earlier edition of this article stated Roosegaarde employed biomimicry in his work. The piece has been amended to clarify he was inspired by it


In The Not So Distant Future, Glow-In-The-Dark Trees Could Replace Street Lights

 

[thesolar65]

19 June 2015 Last updated at 21:36 BST

A designer in Derbyshire says he has come up with a new and dramatically more efficient way of making furniture.

Gavin Munro grows young trees directly into the shape of chairs, lamps and mirror frames.

Mr Munro's project has been going for the past nine years and this year the first lot of trees will be harvested to be sold as the finished products.

He told BBC News about his hope for the future of Full Grown, his unique business.

Video Journalist: Ed Ram


The man who grows trees into chairs - BBC News


This is really interesting wished some people in Pakistan would do something similar and they can carve it too with designs and stuff

I think it is something like this though converting it as chairs is a bit difficult!!

 

[Dubious]

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Our Objectives
We live in an unsustainable world, using resources faster than we can replenish them and pushing the earth beyond it's fragile limits. Nature shows us a better way, as biology is sustainable, so we can harness genetic engineering to create better solutions. The glowing plant inspires hope in a more sustainable future and educates people about this wonderful and mis-understood technology.

History of Glowing Plants
Luminosity has a long and storied history in biology, in fact it's even been the subject of a Nobel Prize. Bioluminescence is used as a core tool of molecular biology as it allows scientists to understand the inner workings of the cell. The first bioluminescent plant was made in 1986, with the addition of firefly luciferine. The plant was very dim, requiring 8 hours of exposure on photographic film. It also required the addition of luciferin to glow as researchers added just a single gene for the luciferase. More recently researchers at SUNY added the full glowing construct to a gene resulting in the first auto-luminescent plant. This plant had the bacterial lux operon inserted into the chloroplasts (which are like mini-bacteria) and dimly glowed without the addition of any external reagents. The importance of luminosity has resulted in lots of research into and improvement of bioluminescent systems. One notable project is the University of Cambridge 2010 iGem team who created eGlowli bacteria which were bright enough to read with. The Cambridge team wondered what future uses their genes could have - maybe one day we could use trees to light out streets at night? We were inspired by all this research, and wondered what would happen if we took these developments and combined them. How bright would synthetic genes make a plant glow?

How We Make The Glowing Plant
We make our plant using the tools of synthetic biology, using a design print transform cycle. We design our DNA sequences on a computer using special Biocad software, then we make the DNA using DNA laser printing before using a Gene Gun to insert the DNA into our plant. The more we iterate through the cycle, the brighter the plant will be. Every pre-order helps us increase the number of iterations we can do.

Progress to date
We are in the final phase of getting the plant ready for shipping. We've completed the prototype phase making a plant which glows (as you can see in the images). We've built the set of tools we need to improve the luminosity of the plant and now we are in the final phase applying those tools to make the plant we will ship to backers.

Glowing Plant | Seeds

I think it is something like this though converting it as chairs is a bit difficult!!
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View attachment 231381

Yes...for the chair it is a little more tough....You need to graft more than 1 plants...and at exact positions...It is creativity at its best!

 

[thesolar65]

@Akheilos and @Armstrong

In my +2 Sc. college, Govt. has added some vocational studies from this session which is compulsory for all students to take up at least one subject. I will ask students who take up horticulture to seriously do one of these projects.

 

[Dubious]

@Akheilos and @Armstrong

In my +2 Sc. college, Govt. has added some vocational studies from this session which is compulsory for all students to take up at least one subject. I will ask students who take up horticulture to seriously do one of these projects.

That would be interesting but if you see the video it is costly....they are selling the chairs for thousands....but if you do it over large scale or something it might be cheap and the whole thing needs to be fine tuned...

I would suggest try with something simple like a side table or stool....then expand it!