Just add grass, dirt, and sunlight, and Terra will take care of the rest.
There are few things more pleasant than relaxing on a grassy hill in the park on a summer day. Such seats, though, are rarely ergonomic. Terra can fix all that: it's a system that allows you to "grow" grass furniture in your backyard.
The Terra kit contains a lasercut cardboard frame which you assemble in your backyard, then bury in dirt and sprinkle with grass seeds. After a year of watering and sunlight, they'll become natural chair-and-sofa shaped hillocks in your backyard.
Designed by Italian design duo Studio Nucleo, Terra has something of a long design history. It actually dates back to 2000, when Studio Nucleo co-founders Andrea Sanna and Piergiorgio Robino put it on display at the Milane Salone Satellite. Until 2005, Sanna and Piergiorgio sold the Terra kits to anyone who wanted one, cutting them out laboriously by hand. Now that laser cutters are so cheap, though, they're bringing the Terra back.
But they aren't cheap. The studio is just successfully finishing its Kickstarter campaign, which offered a simple Terra grass armchair for preorder for around $279, while a three-seat Terra sofa cost $659. That's a pretty astonishing price for something which could probably be recreated with an old cardboard box and an x-acto knife as a Saturday afternoon project. Is an armchair out of grass really worth $279?
Maybe on a sunny spring day. But keep in mind, most of the time, that butt bucket is going to be wet, cold, and squishy with worms and centipedes. And as some commenters on Core77 have pointed out, this idea, poetic as it might be, has some other practical concerns, including the fact that it would have to be hand-trimmed by scissors, and would form a perpetual puddle in the seat since it has no way of draining properly.
So yeah. Maybe don't throw out your patio furniture just yet. But if you insist, you can find out more information about Terra here.
[Photos: via Studio Nucleo]