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Futurefarmers - Botanical Gameboys grow in San Francisco

Futurefarmers has pushed the boundaries of design - with its Solar Panel Music Boxes, a backyard Bioreactor that creates hydrogen from algae, and the Botanical Gameboy that runs off the voltage harvested from lemon trees. Futurefarmers is exploring the design of the future.  Amy Franceschini set up the San Francisco collective 13 years ago: "We like to think of Futurefarmers as the Mother Ship. What we are trying to do is create a space of enquiry - to keep tinkering, inventing and responding to the world around us through projects and artistic interpretation." Futurefarmers has also worked as a design studio for Adobe, Swatch, Levi's, Nike and Lucasfilm as well as exhibiting in New York's MoMA and at the Whitney Biennal. Franceschini is currently involved in the so-called Victory Gardens - tiny urban gardens that were created during the First and Second World War in backyards and public parks to supply the population with food. In 2007 Franceschini showcased her vision at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Visitors were introduced to inventions such as the "Bike Barrow", a green wheelbarrow welded to a bike, or the "Pogostick Shovel", which is self-explanatory. These symbolic objects fulfilled their aim of getting people interested in new ideas in art, design, science, agriculture and urban development. Get the full story by Patrick Knowles in the San Francisco edition of MINIInternational