"Gardening will Save the World" explored the importance of sustainable urban farming at Chelsea Flower Show

While food is a crucial part of everyday life, one of the ways to help us maintain a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle while not wasting food is to grow plants and vegetables in our own home.

“Gardening is unique in its universal appeal and its transformational power. Without plants and more planting, we are all in trouble,” said Tom Dixon.

Showing at this year's RHS Chelsea Flower Show which took place 21 May 2019 – 25 May 2019 in London, British design guru Tom Dixon's design and innovations agency - Design Research Studio, in collaboration with Ikea showcased what could be the future of urban farming.

In order to find solutions that can be used to grow plants and vegetables at home and beyond, they  designed and realised an experimental model for growing plants in the urban environment.

The garden - split into two levels and featuring over 4,000 plants - demonstrated how people can contribute to the movement of growing food at home and make a difference to reducing food waste, as well as communicating the beauty and functional importance of horticulture, through both traditional knowledge and the latest in growing innovation.

The base layer was a horticultural laboratory where hydroponic technology was implemented, and the raised garden was a botanic oasis with a natural aesthetic for visitors to immerse themselves in.

Tom Dixon says, "Aiming to give back to cities and create productive landscapes within urban zones, the garden includes a raised modular landscape with edible and medicinal plants and an enclosed based garden fuelled by hydroponic systems and controllable lighting.’

The exhibition also offered an exclusive look at some of the first prototypes that Tom Dixon has designed on urban growing, which will be available globally at IKEA stores in 2021.

Grown vertically around a central stem, vegetables, herbs and salad leaves are grown with aeroponic technology where nutrient-rich water is sprayed on the roots.

After the Chelsea Flower Show, the garden is to be donated to the charity Participatory City and moved to Barking and Dagenham in East London.

Sofa - bed: Tom Dixon X Ikea

All those fashion shows to review, we need a lie down.  Or at least somewhere to sit.

The answer could come in the form of the DELAKTIG - the result of a collaboration between British enfant terrible designer Tom Dixon and the world’s biggest furniture company Ikea.

Described as a durable, transformable platform for living – DELAKTIG was launched in Milan a couple of weeks’ ago.  It is a sofa that also functions as a bed.  

According to Tom Dixon, the bed is the most important furniture we need in our life.  As many of us now work from home, we can certainly relate to that.  More often than ever, we bring our work into our bed with us, sitting up at odd hours to pour through our emails and social media platforms using our electronic devices to communicate with colleagues, clients, loved ones, friends, contacts in different parts of the world.

Tom Dixon has come up with the concept of making the bed work harder for us as to him it is the only indispensable piece of furniture, the primary unit of home furnishing.

Together with IKEA, Tom decided to create a super-durable aluminium frame that could be constantly updated or upgraded as your life and needs evolve.   At its most basic, DELAKTIG is a single bed - rapidly transformable into a chaise lounge or a three seat sofa by adding additional components.

Contributing to a global community of IKEA hackers that already edit and modify IKEA designs for every-day life, Tom and IKEA began work with the world’s most innovative art schools to see if DELAKTIG, rather than being a complete finished piece of furniture, could be the start of something much bigger - a kind of ecosystem with unlimited possibilities. The results were diverse and inspiring.

In response, Tom Dixon has created heavy-weight task lamps, coffee tables and magazine racks that can be clamped, slotted or bolted on at will, to mutate the sofa into a work or entertainment space. Made of substantial and durable aluminium plate the hacks are robust enough to last a lifetime.

Tom Dixon also collaborated with Bemz who specialize in soft hacks to produce three luxe covers that elevate the IKEA frame into a luxury unit – from Shower-proof stripes to an Icelandic sheepskin mono-cover known as ‘The Beast’.

So, this is the plan - you can go to IKEA and you can buy yourself a bed. If you want, you can add components to make it into a sofa. Once you’ve got this bed sofa you can add on Tom's hacks, other people’s hacks, or you can hack it yourself.    Presently, the hacks are available from tomdixon.net in the UK and Europe only.