Cumulus Green 2024

Farina Go

Honorable Mention

Farina Go

Magdalena Ojeda, Antonia Pellegrini, María Jesus Echenique

Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile

A consequence of Celiac disease is the damage of the intestine for people who do not tolerate the protein called gluten present in some cereals such as wheat, oats, barley and rye. About 1% of the world’s population may suffer from this disorder, which has increased quintupled in recent years. People who follow special diets such as the gluten-free diet, it is fundamental to prevent their food of coming in contact with other products that contain gluten. This situation is called cross-contamination.

This is why insulating and sealing gluten-free food and flour containers becomes relevant, since the user usually does not consume all the content that comes in a container in one use. Keeping a remnant in the package that usually does not have a proper closure design, leads to cross contamination.

On the other hand, in many Chilean homes grains and flours become infested by Plodia Interpuctella, commonly called “Indian flour moth” or “Larder moth”. This moth nests in grains, flour and seeds, where the larva feeds. This produces a silk thread that mixes with edible products. Its presence generates displeasure in consumers and–although it is not harmful to humans–it is an incentive to eliminate infected food, either due to disgust or ignorance.
In this context, we faced the academic challenge of designing potential packaging applications using cellulosic substrates with copper-based properties. Its main feature should be the antimicrobial property, having a second use to extend its duration over time.

Faced with these two problems, we propose a package for gluten-free grains and flours that avoids cross-contamination and protects the product from moths and fungi.

The Farina Go packaging has a cylindrical geometry that enables the product to be stored upright in the pantry, avoiding spilling the food. At the same time, it contains a removable lid and a sifting mechanism that isolates the content during storage without the need of using external utensils that could favor cross-contamination. Its closing mechanism protects the remnant left in the container once opened, making it easier to close and prevent contamination that could occur when stored with products that do contain gluten.

Thanks to the properties of its substrate with copper particles, Farina Go avoids infestation by the Plodia Interpuctella plague present in Chilean homes and contributes to the reduction of food waste and its consequent production of greenhouse gases.

The packaging is made of one hundred percent recycled and modified cellulose with a minimum concentration of copper microparticles, a new reusable and biodegradable material. It provides antibacterial, antifungal, mechanical and conservation properties. Likewise, it is printed with ecological inks, based on vegetable oils, to reduce the emission of volatile organic compounds.

Fó – the analog oat milker

Honorable Mention

Fó – the analog oat milker

Daniel Larsson

Lund University, Sweden

Some of today’s mass-produced foods requires advanced packaging, refrigerated storage and long transports resulting in harmful emissions. When they are actually really easy to make at home in your kitchen, with ingredients you often already find in your pantry. Oat milk is one of those foods included in that category, with simple means you can make homemade oat milk competing with the store-bought quality. The purpose of Fó is to draw attention to the food industry’s climate footprint and the power of the individual’s action.

How to make oat milk:

  • Mix oat, honey, vegetable oil and water in a blender.
  • Strain.
  • Your homemade oat milk is ready.

Fó is an analog kitchen appliance in three pieces designed to simplify the process and make oat milk an even more sustainable choice. By removing unnecessary packaging, large refrigerated storage and long transports you lower the CO2 footprint to a minimum. The three pieces contains one glass container, one blending lid and one strainer lid. The lids are made from anodized aluminum and stainless steel which makes them highly durable, long-lasting and entirely free from plastic. All parts are separable, if any part would wear out or break, this allows you to change it out for a new part and recycle the old one.

How Fó works:

  • Add all ingredients to the glass container.
  • Put the blender lid on and crank it as fast as you can.
  • When your arm is tired you change lids.
  • Push the strainer down slowly, all the way to the bottom.
  • Now pour the oat milk into another container for storage.

The glass container holds 1000ml which gives you about 800ml oat milk and some excess oats. You can use the excess oats for baking, natural plant fertilizer or for making homemade müsli. Nothing should go to waste!

FUTR za JUTR

Honorable Mention

FUTR za JUTR

Maruša Dolinar, Žan Girandon, Pia Groleger, Tjaša Mužina, Luka Pleskovič, Simon Rozman

Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Every day humanity faces numerous challenges that impact economic, socio-ethical and environmental aspects of our lives. One of them is the increasing amount of food waste. With our project, we wanted to challenge currently established practices of food waste generation and disposal in Slovenia, where 140.804 tonnes of food are wasted each year, with 39% still being edible.

As this is a complex systemic issue, we started our project by gathering insights from various stakeholders, such as retailers, restaurant owners, humanitarian organizations, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, and more. Collaboration with humanitarian organizations enabled us to conduct multiple service safaris, become volunteers, and experience food donation practice first hand.

Throughout our research, one finding stood out: The amount of food waste could be reduced by optimising food donation practices, as large amounts of edible food are discarded due to the lack of available options for organised food donation. Some donors actually wish to donate greater amounts of food but are limited with the capabilities of the humanitarian organizations.

In the search for the answer to this issue, we had to take into account the diverse needs of the stakeholders involved with food donations – retailers, volunteers and people in need. Through the intertwined actions of ideation, feedback and iteration, we were able to propose a solution that benefits all parties involved.

“FUTR za JUTR” combines an app and a smart food locker in order to decrease the amount of food waste by improving food donations. The app works as a communication tool between stakeholders, while food lockers improve the accessibility of pickup points for users and lessen the work burden for volunteers.

The process starts with donors. At the end of the day, an employee collects the surplus food, places it in suitable packaging and writes it off. The food is then delivered to an allocated self-service food locker, which is located nearby.

After the food items are safely stored in the lockers, the recipients are alerted about available food through the app notifications. They can see available food items and locations of filled lockers.
Users who can access the pickup point themselves, go to the chosen food locker and unlock it with a single-use access code generated by a mobile app. Then they choose whichever food items they desire.

If the recipients can’t access the pickup point by themselves, the app offers them the option to order the food and get it delivered by a volunteer.

Some of the advantages that our concept offers, compared to the current donation practice, are:

  • The concept’s flexibility allows scaling up, according to the stakeholders’ needs in their own context.
  • The digitalisation of bureaucracy simplifies and speeds up food donation practices.
  • Less need for humanitarian organizations to have their own infrastructure, as smart lockers can replace storage spaces and fridges.
  • Food donation practice could be expanded to rural areas, where the poverty rate is the highest.
  • The concept could also diminish the social stigma that is currently associated with food donations.

Geonergy

Honorable Mention

Geonergy

Maria Camila Calvo Salazar, Sofia Moncayo Salazar, Laura Ximena Arias Urrea, Laura Daniela García, Alejandra Esparza Osorio, Paula Andrea Cintura Rojas

Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

While not hugely talked about, frosts cause huge loses along Colombian (and many other) fields. In previous years, they have affected nearly 17.900 people and more than 25.000 hectares of potato, corn, peas, vegetables and fruits, which represent 2% of Cundinamarca’s crops.

Taking this and the fact that potato crops generate over 300.000 jobs in Colombia, Geonergy seeks to reduce the huge negative impact frosting damage causes along the whole food chain system.

This project was born in the midst of the altiplano cundiboyacense in Colombia, where 89% of farmers own small sized land and have little to no technification in their crops. Preventing frost damage in these crops would be game-changing in a huge ecosystem that involves not only the farmers, but also truck drivers and the final consumer. We worked closely with the farmer community located in Villapinzón, Cundinamarca to build a fix for the massive losses in the area caused by frost damage.

Geonergy is a device designed to control frost in crops. It operates based on the presence of modular systems that allow it to be in different parts of the crop independently and autonomously.It consists of a energy generator, a temperature and humidity sensor and an electric heater.

The aforementioned process occurs inside something we’ve called a biobattery: these batteries are designed so that they can be stacked on top of each other and wired in series to supply enough power to an electrical stove and a humidity and temperature sensor. These Bio-batteries use a special bacteria called geobacter to create energy. Geobacter is capable of transforming internally chemical energy from the respiration of metals into electrical energy, transferring the electrons derived from the oxidation of compounds. Geonergy’s fuel cell is powered by organic matter that generates energy due to electrons passing through an anode and a cathode. Each of these fuel cells can last up to 9 months.

The geobacter bio-batteries supply continuous power to the temperature and the humidity sensor monitors the temperature surrounding the crops all throughout day and night. If the temperature drops below 0 degrees celsius, a voltage regulator will activate and start heating up the plate located underneath the water tank. Once this plate is hot enough, it will begin producing warm steam which will travel upwards towards a fan, which will then disperse all of that warm steam over the land to increase moisture in plants and elevate ambient temperature.

Unlike many other products in the market, Geonergy is built to last. We’ve created an entire modular system with interchangeable parts: each and every component of this product is easily fixed or changed, so our clients never have to unnecessarily buy it again.

H2Oven

Honorable Mention

H2Oven

Clàudia Andreu Muñoz

Elisava, Spain

H2Oven is an appropriate technology approach that results in a solar oven / desalination. By using economic materials such as clay, PET and aluminum, H2Oven cooks and obtains safe water freely, employing only clean energy.

Through a water lens, contained in a concave PET receptacle, food is slowly cooked (it can produce heat for maybe three hours on a clear day). The clay works as a thermal insulator, keeping the heat inside. The aluminium, conversely, works as a conductor on the inside. The sun rays (heat energy) pass through the water lens and raise the temperature using the principle of refraction (like when something is burnt using a lens). This lens can produce temperatures of 175°C (350°F) to 345°C (650°F).

Since water scarcity is also an issue, the container (the concave PET receptacle) can be filled with seawater, creating the lens that will allow us to cook. By taking advantage of the heat in the oven, if the oven is filled with seawater instead of food it is also possible to desalinate. Seawater evaporates while ascending, then, when condensed, is deposited in the inner cavity (similar to a rain gutter), leaving the salt and other impurities at the bottom.

Only with an object which can be carried easily, that does not need maintenance and only requires sun and water in the lens, it is possible to cook plus obtain distilled water. Other cooking or water obtaining methods are expensive or demand electricity, which add more problems than solutions.

This product has a simple production: the ceramic oven can be build using a pre-designed mold, then, it only requires an aluminum coating inside. For the lens, it is needed a wooden mold with the correct curvature (predesigned with computer and cut with a milling machine). This process only has to be done once, since when you have the mold you can start to produce in series. Then, with this mold, the PET plate is thermoformed and results in the receptacle.

People who have bad access to energy or clean water that live in sunny areas would be benefitted from H2Oven. The scarcity of safe water and electric energy is the issue intended to solve.

Where did this idea come from? The first question was how we can cook using the sun. Through the idea of a water lens, the prototype of the oven was designed. Research about refraction and desalination was made, then the materials were selected considering recyclability and economy. Finally, the oven was redesigned, adapting the form to consider ergonomics, stability, transportability and recapturing water.  

Cooking and obtaining safe water only using solar energy along with recycled materials is now possible and affordable for everyone. Plus, its simple production and economic adds value to this proposal.

Lokall

Honorable Mention

Lokall

Angelica Cianflone, Marla Nichele

Free University of Bozen, Italy

Lokall is a solidary-based vegetable delivery service, that answers to the pandemic related needs of three different communities: It creates accessibility to healthy food for those in need, a feeling of belonging for those who were isolated, and new revenue for farmers that could not sell their products anymore. It is run by students and volunteers and strives to make local organic food accessible to all while spreading the importance of ethical, sustainable and local food production.

This community-organised vegetable box delivery service is reducing social, environmental and economic injustices that have been exacerbated by the pandemic. The service is based on synergies between producers, community and territory, creating a system that takes responsibility for each other’s needs:

Fairness: The community service was launched in the first COVID lockdown to help farmers navigate the transitional regulations and avoid food waste despite the closure of markets.

Through Lokall, a new infrastructure was quickly built where consumers take responsibility for reducing the work and precarity of farmers by organising marketing, sales and urban distribution voluntarily as well as by helping on the fields when needed.

Accessibility: It’s economically inclusive to different incomes and abilities by offering a range of value exchanges based on labour and money. For those in immediate need, vegetables are provided completely free of charge through community-based solidarity.

Community: In order to counteract the isolation that has been pertinent in the last two years, a community is the foundation of Lokall, creating positive interactions among all its participants. Providing the framework for transdisciplinary and participatory development, Lokall invites everyone to participate according to their possibilities and interests.

Communication: To spread appreciation and knowledge about ethical, sustainable and local food production, collective learning events and knowledge exchanges are organised and findings are communicated over social networks.

The project combines theoretical and practical approaches in order to analyse the state of the art of niche food economies and networks. Through the implementation of the service in the context of Bozen-Bolzano, high levels of reflections and first-hand experience have been acquired. This has been possible also through the merge of transdisciplinary approaches, which in detail has led to:

  • Understand sustainability in all its dimensions
  • Integrate approaches and skills from multiple disciplines
  • Facilitate social dynamics, participatory processes, and teamwork in productive ways
  • Apply social science methods in research and design processes
  • Work with diverse experts, organisations, communities, and individuals
  • Make complex issues tangible through design, visualisation, and storytelling

These learnings have contributed to the creation of a manual, which has been used to encourage Lokall-like initiatives in other universities. The prospect is to foster the necessary discussion in order to collectively make food consumption ecological and social. Together, we strive for holistic sustainability based on ecological and social values. Holistic sustainability can, however, only be reached by including everyone, also those who cannot afford it.

By addressing the need for diverse consumer-producer relationships on several layers, niche innovations are encouraged that ideally contribute to system transformation through their prospective adaption to the mainstream.

Incubation Garden

Honorable Mention

Incubation Garden

Moosa Khan, Claire O Brien, Yaqi Zhang, Jiaoyan Yang and Sampada Muralidhar

University of the Arts London, UK

Background

In 2020, Southwark became one of the first UK boroughs to recognize the urgent need to act to mitigate the effects of climate change. One of the key drivers of this climate emergency was identified as consumption.

Wanton consumption leads to 6.6 billion tonnes of food getting binned each year in the UK alone. This is shocking when contrasted with the fact that recently, 1 in 10 UK households experienced food insecurity with 4.7 million adults and 2 million children having scant access to safe and nutritious food for growth.

The emerging cost of living crisis has aggravated things further, with vulnerable families having to choose between eating and heating. Reports emerged of adults in the household having to forego meals in order to feed their children. According to think tank The Resolution Foundation, around 1.3 million Britons will be pushed into absolute poverty.

Problem Context

In research, the presence of silos was identified as one major barrier to addressing food insecurity and hunger.

All the actors and stakeholders involved in addressing Hunger had the same goal, but with different approaches. Each stakeholder had different metrics of success as well; For example, a Corporation would have a Corporate Social Responsibility budget to exhaust, while an Academic would have a research thesis as their end goal. This made collective action towards a solution challenging.

Opportunity

We engaged with several community initiatives around Food that were proposed or being carried out by citizens in Southwark.

Citizens like Vanessa Colosse who runs John Evelyn Community Garden expressed a desire to bring conversations happening within council boardrooms out in the open for discussion.

Local Government action proxies like Community Southwark agreed that what the borough was missing was a common space to facilitate both dialogue and action between the various actors.

Approach

We studied the relationship communities and individuals have with their local green spaces and saw potential in community gardens to evolve into these spaces.

Adopting a Design-through-Research methodology, we roleplayed and reimagined the gardens as a sandbox for testing new ideas via Diegetic Prototypes.

This enabled stakeholders in the gardens to shape and engage with their preferred future and develop it for implementation.

Outcome

The Incubation Garden was thus created – a shared space for Council, Community, Academia and Businesses to grow and prototype collective action.

We identified different ‘growth zones’ working to address consumption challenges – including behaviours, skills, innovations and policies. These Zones allow stakeholders to work in context with each other and thus create new approaches and innovations around Hunger and

Consumption

Through this space, the garden seeks to improve vulnerable citizens’ access to healthy food, knowledge of nutrition, support and urban agricultural practices to grow food, with the aim of influencing citizens’ consumption behaviour for the better.

The Incubation Garden aims to become a model which brings about a change in the way society and its stakeholders, perceive and approach issues of consumption and hunger in society.

La Cosecha

Honorable Mention

La Cosecha

Estefania Guerrero Delgadillo, Ana Palacios, Raisa Enríquez, Estefanía Guerrero, Maite Mendizábal

Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey, Mexico

According to the National Council for the Evaluation of Social Policy Development (CONEVAL) in Mexico, food poverty is defined as: “the inability to obtain a market basket, even if all the available income in the household were used to buy only the goods in said bundle”.

In 2018 Caritas Monterrey Food Bank showed that the percentage of people living under this type of poverty is 25.2%. This situation was only aggravated due to the Covid-19 pandemic, however, the magnitude of the damage caused has not been accurately measured. The projects that the government of Nuevo León is carrying out are of a welfare nature, which has stalled the growth of their scope.(“Pobreza alimentaria en crecimiento en Nuevo León Cáritas de Monterrey”, 2018)

The United Nations Organization establishes that for Food and Agriculture the creation of urban gardens and physical contact with them is proposed as a solution to measure global problems and in the community about obtaining our food in a tangible form. Additionally, the use of urban gardens increases the consumption of fruits and vegetables, physical activity and also becomes a source of food without pesticides and contaminants for citizens.(“Organización de las Naciones Unidas para la Alimentación y la Agricultura: Huertos urbanos son ahora un derecho en la Ciudad de México FAO en México 联合国粮食及 农业组织”, 2017)

This is why “La Cosecha” is proposed as a prototype of orchards to be reproduced in more communities. The materials used were selected considering their economic accessibility, the necessary treatments to resist exposure to the elements, the durability of the objects created and their ability to be recycled.

This system is composed of four stages, simulating a real ecosystem. Starting with the rainwater collecting phase, through the recreational tables and the roofs of the pergolas; a fountain keeps the water free of impurities and keeps it moving to prevent stagnation. The next stage consists of sowing the seeds and monitoring their correct germination before being transplanted to the third stage, where they are cared for to ensure optimal growth. The corresponding planters for each stage were designed to assist in the process, they have adaptable heights to meet all ages and abilities, as well as spaces to store gardening tools. The final part of the process is the harvest of the food, where people can see the result of their efforts: a sustainable food source.

The urban garden was conceived as an adaptable system where the communities are taught through workshops about the native plants of the region, the correct seasons to plant them and the care they require. As a long-term goal, we seek that those who are the future of our communities understand the importance of the environment and the benefits of urban gardens. In the case of Mexico, being able to implement “La Cosecha” would imply a radical change in its food distribution system to move from a welfare system to a self-sustaining one.

Munchera

Honorable Mention

Munchera

Fabiola Franyutti , Jorge Monroy , Enrique Gutierrez

Centro de Diseño y Television, Mexico

As human beings we are always in constant search to improve our quality of life by using products and services that offer us solutions to our busy lifestyles; however, it is in this “evolution” that we are entangled in ways that can harm our health and the environment.

According to the Mexican Ministry of Health and the WHO, Mexico is the number 1 country in childhood obesity and number 2 in adult obesity, of which 90% suffer from type 2 diabetes, being the first cause of death in our country. In other words, 1 in 8 children under 5 years of age suffer from moderate to severe obesity and malnutrition due to lack of a balanced and nutritious diet. This problem leads them to be more likely to die from various diseases or to present severe growth delays, according to a study carried out by the National Institute of Public Health and UNICEF.

The consumption of snacks and foods of low or 0 quality has been increasing exponentially over the years to simplify our busy daily routines leading to a high number of child obesity and diabetes, and in parallel, a secondary problem: a high volume of single-use packaging that contaminates our ecosystems.

Munchera is a project that seeks to raise awareness among parents with children from 4 through 12, a formative stage. These families live social, environmental and healthy lifestyles and are always open to better solutions. Here is where our value proposition fits in: healthy and environmentally friendly snacking. Children in formation must be guided to make correct decisions with a favorable push for their growth and thus we can generate awareness in the new generations for a cleaner and healthier planet.

Munchera is a personalized subscription service that analyzes children’s habits with a 7 question assessment formulated by specialists in child nutrition, in order to recommend suitable snacks for each child’s eating habits and allergies. The snacks come in packages of 12 and 24, and are made of all-natural fruits, vegetables or nuts with no added preservatives, sugar or salt. The packages are sent in returnable wooden containers, avoiding single use plastics and teaching children about circular economy from an early age and also teaching them about home composting and reusing existing materials.

We must teach children that the best flavors are found in nature and it is not necessary to eat processed unhealthy foods. We want to bring in the digital aspect by creating fun augmented reality filters and games to encourage children’s interest in how food and packaging is grown and processed to generate social, alimentary and environmental awareness in future generations.

We are aware that combating childhood obesity is a titanic challenge, however, we want to do our bit to improve health from early formation stages through good nutrition education while also bringing awareness and better habits to generate a positive change in our Mexican society with the consumption of smart snacks for healthy children and a real impact in creating a sustainable planet.

Nisje and Symbio

Honorable Mention

Nisje and Symbio

Tora Nielsen Sollesnes, Trine Truchs Erga, Petter Gouiran, Mira Beichmann Krogh and Sunniva Wildhagen Lislevand

The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, Norway

Nisje and Symbio – The creation of a sustainable future food industry

In this project we have through methods from systems-oriented design investigated the “wicked” food system through the distribution domain, to define possible interventions that will lead to a thriving Norwegian food industry in 2042. We have worked to create a supply chain that create better habits, more rewarding food experiences, more responsible consumption, strengthening the farmer and workers integrity, and create a durable food industry, with a focus on economical, agricultural, and social sustainability.

We will show you the process and solutions in a storyboard. You read the storyboard horizontally. We have focused on a timespan from now to 2042. It will take place in Norway. At the beginning we will give you an introduction to the problems, root causes of the supply chain and which direction we are heading for if we continue the way we do today. We will also show you what we think is a desirable future.

After we have presented the root causes, we will show you two different concepts for a solution to a more sustainable supply chain. We will present to you the concepts Nisje and Symbio. Both are pilot projects. Nisje takes place in Tromsø and Symbio takes place in Brønnøy and Sømna. Both concept consists of several ideas. We believe that these two pilot projects can be the start of a more sustainable supply chain and will lead to important societal value changes, through getting a closer relationship to the food we consume.