Landscape designer, Thibaut Delefortrie, and product designer, Eugénie Pfeil, combined creative forces to bring the garden into the kitchen, a collaboration that resulted in Klorofyll, a suspended light fixture that doubles as a hanging kitchen garden for growing aromatic herbs.

Both functional and decorative, Klorofyll is part of the trend for growing one’s own, even if it’s just a few herbs, and also reflects consumer interest in personalization–users can decide how to use the product in a way that fits their personal lifestyle.

Klorofyll’s 360° rotating cylinder contains six openings for removable planters, and two LED light rings which provide illumination, its electric wiring contained within the suspension cable and other technical parts inside one end of the module.

As a pendant light, it provides functional lighting for the kitchen work space and at the same time enables cooks to snip culinary herbs from directly overhead. A gentle spin rotates the cylinder on its axis to reveal a different herb pot. If ambient light is inadequate for healthy plant growth, Klorofyll replicates photosynthesis with the LED lights within its built-in light elements.

The multi-functional Klorofyll strikes a different pose as it steps out of the kitchen and into the living room. An assemblage of multiple  modules on a wall becomes a vertical garden. But design possibilities don’t end there. Suspended a group of modules vertically from the ceiling and you have a living screen and room partition.

Although the containers can be planted using soil, the designers suggest a soilless growing medium. Each planter is equipped with a fine mesh screen that is supposed to prevent soil from falling out when the container is inverted. (I can’t quite visualize how this fine mesh prevents the soil from falling out, but allows the plants to grow.) For its high water retention, the designers used sphagnum moss to maintain continuous hydration and hold the plants in place when they are suspended upside down.

Designers Pfeil and Delefortrie at Jardins, Jardin.

This is one I’d have to test out, but I like the concept, and so did the jury at Paris’s urban garden expo, Jardins Jardin, where Klorofyll was selected as part of the Concours d’Innovation, the part of the fair that showcases creative and innovative ideas.