Social Network Prompted Physical Community

Cloud Seeds is a social network that enhances the sense of community by centering the active participations of care and responsibility, interpersonal connections, and the liveness of houseplant companions.

Digital social media had facilitated the online infrastructure for limitless connectivity between individuals where contents of fractured moments of lives were posted and expected to be recorded, seen, and responded to. The act of sweeping through posts, tapping likes, writing comments with emojis had neatly paved over the nuances of information transmitted through interpersonal interactions.

Studies had shown that spending too much time on social media lead to feeling worse, causing different degrees of loneliness, anxiety, depression, and “fear of missing out”.

For all of their claims for connecting people, most social networks ultimately contribute to greater alienation, division, and isolation. How might we design a social network that centers the sense of community and connections?

Introducing

The System

01. Plant Biometrics

For this network, the user maintains a living plant to serve as their plus one on the platform. To sign up, the users have to take the image of their plant as the password to the platform and the plant will appear on the main page as a profile picture.

Since the optical biometric of the chosen plant serves as the only way to log in, each member has to work hard to keep their plants alive and thriving to maintain the access to the community.

02. Virtual Garden Heatmap

On the Cloud Seeds main page, the virtual garden heatmap, users who participate most actively appear their plant profile most visible. The visibility of the plant profile decays over time if no update about this plant is posted. It encourages active contribution among the members in the community to keep the virtual community garden alive.

03. Meet Up Prompt &
Temporary Structure

When enough active participants appear on Cloud Seeds heatmap, the server will prompt a triangular formed pattern on the heatmap for users to sign up for the in-person meet-up. The triangular pattern is constructed with one cell per sign up.

As the sign up for in-person meet up closes prior to the meet up time, the final pattern forms the skin of a physical, inflatable structure laser cut in the Cloud Seeds factory.

04. Offline Gatherings

The inflatable structure is then delivered to the designated location and inflated to form a dome

The cloud seed emphasizes on community development on both online and offline scenarios. As the members work hard to keep their plants alive and posting plant updates on the platform, their participation also keeps the community alive in both virtual and physical sense.