GROWW, A 3D Printed Minimalist Greenhouse

The UAU Project, a product and graphic design studio team based in Warsaw, Poland, is all about creating interesting and functional objects, and they’re particularly fond of using 3D printing to realize their visions,

At their studio, Miłosz Dąbrowski and Justyna Fałdzińska, the founders and principals of the UAU Project, have also created SMF.01, or the Self Made Furniture (SMF) project which is a simple floor lamp which uses a 3D printable set of joints, wood strips and a light cord with light bulb socket.

Now they’ve come up with another interesting take on a common activity – gardening.  They call it GROWW, and it’s a re-purposing of the most common jars in the US and the EU, the wide mouth Mason Jar.

In case you’re not familiar with them, the Mason Jar or Ball Jars are glass vessels which have come to be associated with home canning. The mouth of the jar features screw threads on its outer perimeter, accepts a metal ring – or “band” – and when that band is screwed down tight, it forces a stamped steel lid against the rim of the jar to compress a rubber ring on the underside of the flat lid.

The Mason Jar, invented and patented by American tinsmith John Landis Mason comes in 60 mm inner and 70 mm outer diameters, 76 mm inner and 86 mm outer diameter “wide mouth” versions and they’re available in volumes up to a half-gallon.

Once you have the necessary jar, you only need a pair of 3D printable pieces to create and finish the GROWW system.

Once you printed out the parts from the UAU Project, you essentially have a terrarium, a seal-able glass container which provides a closed, unique environment for plant growth. Heat and light enter the terrarium, and the fact that the system is sealed means a controlled water cycle is created as moisture from the soil and plants evaporate within the jar. As temperatures climb inside the terrarium the resulting water vapor condenses on the inner surfaces of the container. This condensed water eventually re-enters the plants and soil, and the system creates an ongoing cycle of water.

And in keeping with the stated goals of the UAU project, the whole system is made for ongoing re-use.

“If you like growing plants, but don’t have a garden or enough space at home, this will be a product for you,” they say. “It’s a one plant greenhouse, but you can print as many as you like or reuse the one you already printed. When the plant has grown, take it out with the inner flowerpot, print a new one, and reuse the rest of your already printed parts.”

The UAU team says that they provide an additional .stl file in the package to allow for testing and tweaking of the print settings as “every 3D printer is a bit different.” They do note that, from their experience building the GROWW system, the best settings seem to include at least three shells, no less than three bottom and top layers and a first layer print speed of about 18 mm/s.

You can find the files to print your W system at Cults3d.com, or at the UAU Project web site for around $7.

Will you print out this ingenious terrarium plant growth system from the UAU Project you use around your home or office? Let us know in the 3D Printed GROWW System forum thread on 3DPB.com.

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Miłosz Dąbrowski and Justyna Fałdzińska are the founders and principal designers at their UAU Project studio. Following up their SMF.01, or the Self Made Furniture (SMF) project, they’ve now released the files for their GROWW system. It’s a set of 3D printed pieces which re-purpose of the most common jars in the US and the EU, wide mouth Mason Jars, and turn them into attractive and functional desktop terrariums. You can read the whole story here: https://3dprint.com/89229/groww-a-3d-printed-minimalist-greenhouse

Below is a picture of the assembled 3D printed piece:

https://3dprint.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/gr.png