We decided to focus on the energy aspect of sustainable cities and communities, and more specifically household consumption. The research showed that the average household consumes about 10,909 kWh per year. In 2014, in Sweden, the average household consumed about 12,583 kWh per year, which put Sweden at rank 28th on the list of countries by energy consumption.
After deciding on our final approach, we started ideating on potential items that could trigger strong emotions regarding to the topic we want to raise awareness about. Therefore, thinking of how nature is the one that gets affected primarily by the carbon footprint, we thought of mimicking it through nature itself – a plant. Ideally, the plant itself should be perceived as the Earth, and in this sense, inspired by The Urban Canaries – we thought of having a plant whose wellbeing depends on the carbon emissions of a house; this way portraying the unsustainable energy consumption consequences over the planet at a smaller scale.
The plant emulates nature by changing its health/state based on the carbon emissions produced by the unsustainable energy consumption in the house where it is placed. The mobile app is used to check the plant’s behavior, as well as, where things went wrong (which appliance used most energy). Used together, the prototype should raise awareness about the consequences of too much energy consumption and promote changes in the users’ unhealthy habits.
Through the application, the user can take a photo of the plant and receive information about why the plant is reacting in the way that it is. This will enable the user to change bad habits of consuming unsustainable amounts of energy and raise awareness about the consequences of the energy usage.
The final part of our project consisted of a website advertising the product. Our choices of wording and how we want to sell the product on the website was inspired by how Apple advertises their products. We wanted Plantify (the plant) to be perceived as a carefully designed product and therefore used phrases such as ” Timeless Scandinavian Design”, “magical piece of engineering” etc.
In order to raise awareness and discussion on our topic we have added a strong motive: “(…) instead of waiting years for nature to respond.“. Through this paragraph, we wanted to raise awareness about our topic; implying that people would have to wait for years means that in reality the consequences of unsustainable energy consumption are not immediate, but rather shown over the years.
On the website, we have also decided to show made-up testimonials, a page about our mission and the mobile app specs in order to immerse the user more into the future we speculate; where the people’s impact on nature is an universally accepted fact/truth, rather than a topic of discussion for politicians.