Project Pee-Osk 2

- General information
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Year2019
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LocationAalto University, Finland
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TeamAnabel Fischer, Jacqui German, Will van Twuijver
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StatusCompleted
“Stop eating meat, don’t go on holiday, don’t use your car, don’t buy new clothes and don’t have kids.” We all have heard these ‘solutions’ to halt climate change and we are convinced that this negative framing centred around hardship and ‘giving things up’ does not capture people’s imagination. Instead, the Pee-Osk encourages people to get familiar with sustainable solutions by highlighting what can be gained, by bringing processes back to a human scale and by making it humorous.
The concept
This project goes back to a necessary human function, going to the toilet, and find an comical way to cycle human waste streams. When talking about the benefits of human fertilizer for food production, we face confusion, disgust and negativity. It is time to change the perception of human waste! We developed the Pee-Osk concept to utilize the human byproducts for cultivating ingredients for Bloody Mary’s, which in turn aid in feeding the toilet. With the Pee-Osk, we want to demonstrate the fun of sustainability, simplify technological processes and challenge people’s concept of human waste products.
Design
The design of the Pee-Osk is based on an Asian vending cart. The inner part contains a worm compost bin and five wicking beds in which the tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs are grown and can be closed in order to funciton as a green house. The outside is used as a bar and buffet, making the Pee-Osk accessible from all sides. The whole installation can be moved by one or two people
How urine is converted to plants

The pee-osk is based on a combination of different ecological design elements, such as bioponics, wicking buckets and compost tea, to form an integrated system. Each element in the system was chosen for their simplicity, resiliency and low-tech application. The reasoning behind these criteria was to make the process of converting urine to fertiliser more accessible.
The sub irrigation system
To reduce the risk of contaminating plants with urine, we made use of wicking buckets to sub irrigate the plants.
Wicking buckets are water efficient design for plant pots. These buckets contain a water reservoir below the planting soil. The soil is placed on top of the reservoir and due to its capillary action can ‘wick’ the water upwards. Because the water is fed to the plants from the bottom, hardly any water evaporates. In addition, the top layer of the soil will not get too wet: reducing the chance of mold.