London
Rotterdam

AusBlau Studio

17.12.21

Makers Manual #33: Wildflower Bricks

Makers Manual is a collaborative project between exciting makers and STORE STORE. These downloadable manuals are a practical guide to making at home for beginners and experts.

This DIY manual documents the production of wildflower bricks designed for planting wildflowers among materials that mimic their native surroundings. This manual is designed for people who want to turn urban greenery into a vibrant habitat for butterflies, beetles and bees. It is a little known fact that a great variety of native wildflowers thrive in low-nutrient soils. They prefer poor soil with a high chalk or limestone content. These unique wildflower bricks work as seed bombs that combine local wildflower seeds with a chalk mixture, solidified to make a sprouting brick. When the seeds inside the brick germinate, they find a portion of limestone around themselves to support their growth. The manual will guide users in the creation of brick-like shapes using materials found in the home. After the mixture dries, lay the bricks in the soil or into cracks in your garden wall and watch the wildflowers grow strong and tall. This is an ideal activity for the first weeks of spring.

Christoph Dichmann and Elissa Brunato are two London-based designers with a background in Material Futures. Together they founded AusBlau, a creative design studio that leads playful investigations into materiality, ecosystems, and the human experience. Combining Christoph’s Contextual Design approach and the Material and Research expertise of Elissa, their joint practice explores material system challenges. They draw up interdisciplinary road maps towards sustainable normalities and imagine resilient futures to inspire an active engagement with our rapidly changing world.

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