This project is one of the coolest and most creative I’ve seen in a while, and it’s “green” to boot.

What you’re looking at is an energy generation device (I’m not sure what else to call it) that combines photovoltaics and a flexible piezo generator in a modular system. This means that each module can produce energy from both sunlight and wind. When you combine these modules, you get an ivy-like system that can adorn an exterior wall of a building or any surface that gets wind and/or sunlight.

The system, called GROW.1, was conceived by Samuel Cabot Cochran as part of his Industrial Design thesis project, and was later developed and produced by SMIT (Sustainably Minded Interactive Technology), the Brooklyn-based company he co-founded with his sister. What’s nice to see with this invention is that they have applied Lifecycle Cost Analysis and have thought about disassembly. The SMIT site describes this aspect in more detail:

Each brick has 5 solar leaves which have a very flexible piezo generator at their stem. The manufacturing of these bricks could happen in a roll to roll printing process where PV, conductive ink, and piezo generators can be layered quickly and efficiently. The rolls can then be stamped and formed to create leaves and connection points. Each brick is designed so that at the end of their life cycle the valuable components, i.e. photovoltaic and piezo, can be stamped out and up cycled while the reusable material, i.e plastic, can be up recycled back into the production stream.

This reminds me a lot of the flexible photovoltaics produced by Konarka, which can be printed or coated onto existing materials in a variety of colors and patterns. What’s nice about the GROW project, of course, is that it adds the element of motion to produce an additional energy source. While I’ve seen wind turbines and micro-turbines harness wind energy, this is the first time I’ve seen piezo generators used for this kind of purpose

SMIT has also produced a revision to the GROW.1 project, aptly named GROW.2. This revision ditches the piezo generators in favor of a solar-only approach. Each “leaf” looks like a bit like a polaroid hung on a wire mesh. This design offers even more flexibility to either upgrade technology over time or to replace broken or damaged leaves. The leaves are attached to a wire mesh designed to guide ivy up walls without damaging the building.

The biomimicry part of GROW is that it seems to take its cues from how trees work in nature. After all, thousands of years of evolution can’t be wrong: if a more efficient design for gathering solar energy lay in developing huge slabs (see most existing solar panels installed on houses these days), trees ought to produce a single huge leaf! However, as trees very elegantly demonstrate, there are multiple forces at work in nature beyond the mandate to collect solar energy.

Taking those forces into account might lead to some interesting evolutions. GROW.1 already responds to wind and reflects the necessary flexibility of trees to withstand strong gusts. While the modules are currently laid out in neat grids, I could imagine a random overlapping distribution of modules, similar to how leaves are “arranged” on trees. Perhaps there is some nice method of integrating a type of phototropism within individual leaves (using sensors and actuation) so that they optimally orient themselves throughout the day? Could a smart network of leaves use heliotropism to optimally arrange itself autonomously on a surface?

I’m sure GROW.1 and GROW.2 are only the beginning of SMIT’s explorations, and I’m curious to see in what direction GROW.3 develops. (I’ll exercise some self-restraint here and avoid the obvious pun.)