Biodegradable designs are certainly cool; however biodegradable designs that physically transform to meet practical demands are even cooler! In regard to the second notion, we have stumbled across the ‘sustainable expanding bowl’, a bowl made from biodegradable materials that remarkably ‘hardens’ on application of hot water.
Designed by Anna Glansén and Hanna Billqvist of Tomorrow Machine (in collaboration with Innventia), the project was envisioned to create an alternative yet green packaging for our ‘instant’ foods like soups and noodles. So, basically, the working scope entails a compact, empty package with a small hole at its top. But when you pour hot water into this hole, the enveloped container sort of gets ‘activated’. This results in a gradual metamorphosis of the closed bowl into a conventionally expanded form. Furthermore, as the water gets cooled down, the side facades of the package get structurally hardened, thus resulting in the ultimate take-out box we are so used to seeing in the Big Bang Theory.
The shrunk bearing of the original package does have a slight disadvantage in the practical sense. Like, how are those special condiments and spices supposed to be integrated within the reduced size of the container? But, then again, with a few adjustments, the innovative ambit of a biodegradable material dynamically ‘flowering’ into a full-fledged take-out box does have its fair share of commercial potential.
Via: TommorrowMachine / Fastcodesign
