Silver Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design · 2021
Vitality Family Garden Kitchen Waste Disposal Box
by Chaozhi Lin, Junjie Zhou and Yong Liu
- A' Design Award 2021 Silver Winner in Sustainable Products, Projects and Green Design
- Awarded April 15, 2021
- CLIENT: Dopamine
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 52,075
- Verification code B1567438D9 · Verify this award
About Vitality Family Garden Kitchen Waste Disposal Box
Vitality Family Garden is a small indoor compost bin designed to process household kitchen waste. Earthworms placed inside the box eat food residues and turn them into natural fertiliser. The fertiliser is then used to grow vegetables in small planting pots. An LED planting lamp supports plant growth indoors, and its lighting modes are selected with buttons. The product is not automated, so composting and planting are completed by the user. Vitality Family Garden reduces kitchen odour and returns food waste to useful life.
Emerging from the intersection of environmental consciousness and domestic design innovation, the Vitality Family Garden Kitchen Waste Disposal Box by Chaozhi Lin, Junjie Zhou, YongLiu, and Can Wang represents a thoughtful meditation on circular resource systems within contemporary living spaces. This award-winning design embodies the growing cultural movement toward sustainable domestic practices, transforming what traditionally constitutes waste into generative material supporting new growth. The formal resolution demonstrates remarkable sophistication in its integration of multiple functional systems within a unified aesthetic language, with the vertical fluting along the front facade echoing classical architectural traditions while establishing a distinctly contemporary visual identity. The tripartite arrangement of cultivation apertures introduces an element of organic vitality that softens the technological precision of the overall form, creating a compelling dialogue between manufactured geometry and natural growth patterns. The cantilevered grow light extending from the right side represents an elegant engineering solution that provides necessary illumination without overwhelming the primary form, its linear profile creating visual tension against the horizontal mass below. The chromatic restraint—predominantly cool whites and soft grays—positions this object within the vocabulary of premium contemporary home goods while allowing the verdant seedlings to serve as living chromatic accents. The design seems to suggest a reimagining of the relationship between consumption and cultivation, inviting users to participate actively in cycles of renewal rather than disposal. One might consider how this object transforms the quotidian act of food preparation waste into an opportunity for contemplation regarding resource stewardship and the interconnected systems sustaining domestic life.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Vitality is a small indoor compost bin, which solves the daily kitchen waste generated by the family, and use the natural fertilizer converted from the kitchen waste to grow vegetables.The design concept is to use earthworms, a common harmless creature, to eat food waste and produce compost for planting. Earthworms like to eat food waste, which not only eliminates the unpleasant smell of food waste at home, but the unique digestive system can also convert food waste into the nutritional value of fertilizer, which is used to provide better plants.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- box size: length 39 cm, width 15 cm, height 11 cm, planting lamp size: length 25 inside, height 13 cm, width 2.2 cm, planting pot size: length 7 cm, width 7 cm, height 5 cm
- Tags
- Compost Bin, Grow Box, Contemporary, Young
- Production Technology
- The indoor planting technology used in the product is quite mature, and the LED lighting supplement technology used is also suitable for mass production.
- Design Challenge
- The earthworm are a difficult group to control. They will escape the soil when the external environment is unstable. In the end, we got a lot of guidance information from insect biologists and agricultural planting experts.
- Project Duration
- Through the form of composting, the kitchen waste becomes an essential nutrient for plant growth, so that the discarded kitchen waste can be turned into delicious food again.The project was launched in Japan and China in December 2019. This is a 6-month experimental project that will end in June 2020.
- Operation Flow
- Control the lighting mode through the buttons. The product is not automated, and is designed to allow consumers to complete composting and planting activities independently. Earthworms and planting lights can help people better nurture and take care of their plants.
- Research
- Literature review, observational studies and focus groups made to support the design process. Literature review data is documented in research documents submitted.
- Inspiration
- Food waste accounts for 46.2% of combustible waste, but each ton produces 0.3 tons of carcinogenic gas and a large amount of carbon dioxide. Traditional burial and incineration will not only pollute the land and air, but also waste food resources that should have been rationally used.
As one of the major categories of domestic waste, reasonable disposal of kitchen waste is an important issue in today's waste disposal.