Sunny Concrete Pot

Inspired by nature and committed to create a succulent pot, I designed the "Sunny Concrete Pot". A sunny day in Sunnyvale in Sunny California I started looking to my desk when the main inspiration seeing nature made it create a minimalist look, capable of adapting to any environment.

A simple and organic form combined with the nature of the concrete material result in Sunny concept pot. Once the concept was sketched I began to plan how to build my mold by making some sketches of the idea. I decided to create the mold in 3 parts to make the demoulding of the piece easier.

In this stage I decided that the center piece of the mold will be in a flexible material to remove the center without damaging the piece. Investigating I found the Alginate as an easy and quick to use material for my center mold.

In this stage I used Autodesk Inventor to create the 3d models and to visualize that everything will assemble well.

I used 3d printing to create some parts of the mold. This helped create some improvements in the final mold.

Once that I printed the two parts of the exterior mold and the inner part of the mold I assemble the 3 pieces of the mold, press them with tweezers on the edges of the mold and began to prepare the alginate powder with water.

I used 3 full cups of alginate powder mixed with 2 cups of water and then I mixed. It is necessary to mix the material quickly and empty the mold as it hardens very quickly.

With the 3 parts of the mold ready to start preparing the concrete mix. I reassembled the final mold pieces and started pouring the concrete from the top.

I left the mold with concrete for 24 hours drying. After that time I removed half of the outer mold. Leaving for 12 hours more to dry the concrete, to ensure that the piece was solid.

I removed the last 2 pieces of the mold. I applied concrete sealant to make the pot waterproof.

Finally I chose a combination of succulents of different textures and colors to generate an harmony with neutral color of the concrete.