There are certain items that are associated with certain times. Ancient Greece wouldn’t be the same without its marble sculptures; cowboys are mandatory in the wild Wild West; and future imaginings always feature objects that fly. After all, Back to the Future’s, Marty McFly, had a hover board. Well, it appears that the future has finally caught up with us thanks to LYFE, a plant growing system that ingeniously creates and harnesses the effects of zero-gravity—through a powerful magnet pushing against an electromagnetic base—to actually suspend plants in mid-air!
LYFE is the brainchild of the makers of FLYTE, the luminescent hovering light bulb they created last year which still has us transfixed with a “how did they do that?” question as we contemplate the large, floating light bulb. Well, whatever “that” is, it’s worked and on June 1st they are launching FLYTE’s follow-up, LYFE, with a Kickstarter campaign that is sure to elicit more than a few curious clicks from future investors and supporters.
We could get all technical and tell you interesting stuff about the wayLYFE “isolates and concentrates the earth’s magnetic poles allowing you to suspend plants on a cushion of air.” Or the way that magnetic fields have been proven to speed up the ripening process in certain fruits by changing “mitochondria in cells that enhance plants metabolism.” But, as we’re a design site so, instead, we’ll highlightLYFE’s minimal, clean lined design which keeps it far from looking like a science experiment and out of the “conversation piece” realm but, rather, elevates it—no pun intended—into an object of natural beauty. In short, the solid-looking oak base and hovering, rotating, 12-sided geodesic, molded silicon planter above it (yes, that is a mouthful) represent the absolute best of simplistic Swedish design.
