We've seen expandable flower pots before, but nothing this elegant. "Growth" is a pot by London-based design house Studio Ayaskan that unfolds like origami to give the roots within plenty of space to grow.
As the Typhoid Mary of horticulture, I've heard that if you successfully nurse a plant from seed to adult, you need to repot it several times along the way. The roots need room to grow, in addition to the soil being changed. Bike and Begum Ayaskan, the duo behind Studio Ayaskan, feel that this is at odd with the spirit of nature, where everything grows together. Even if it needs new soil, a pot shouldn't need three or more pots over the course of its life.
With Growth, the identical twin designers set out to design a pot that would grow alongside the plant thriving within. Unlike other unfolding pots, there's no human intervention required: as a bush, tree, or flower spreads its roots, it pushes the geometric walls of the Growth pot outwards, causing its origami-like structure to unfold up to four times the volume.
According to the designers, the idea behind Growth was to somehow channel the process of germination into a man-made object like a pot. "The life cycle of a plant is a transformation, from an early seed to its full grown size; the blooming of a flower, the unfolding of a leaf, the branching of the roots," say Studio Ayaskan. "This process is what Growth aims to capture within a plant pot."
It's a sleek design, and certainly a better approach to this sort of thing than the silicone turtleneck flower pots we've previously covered. Unfortunately, though, if you want to buy a Growth pot, you'll have to wait: Studio Ayaskan says they are only just starting to work with partners to manufacture the pot.
If you want to hear from them when the Growth pot is available for sale, you can join Studio Ayaskan's email list here.