The Phytophiler

The Phytophiler project, by Milan-based studio Dossofiorito, is dedicated to plant lovers and their efforts to communicate and interact, by way of functional appendices, with those sentient beings so different from them.

We can experience everyday that to be phytophilers, plant lovers, is a trait and a practice, that many people have in common.

They belong to different cultures but share a similar sensibility and the necessity for domestic greenery. Plants, faithful house companions, are an integral part of our domestic landscape, in a spontaneous cohabitation, specific to the city, within the other elements that shape our living of the home.

Scientific evidence shows that the presence of plants in our domestic and working spaces is important for our wellbeing. And it’s with those houseplants, close to us in our daily routines, that we develop a true sympathetic relationship. They can morph from the status of ‘things’, of merely decorative elements of the house, to be appointed as special, living and sentient housemates. Through this exchange we, humans, come to notice the micromovements of the plants and sense their needs, eventually attributing to each of them a specific personality.

Throughout the growth of this relationship, we will enjoy taking care of our plants more and more: we will observe them carefully, we will water and fertilize them, we will rejoice at the appearance of new buds and leaves and, at times, we will even get to the point of speaking to them. This ways of “feeling” the plants, undoubtedly considered odd till not long ago, has been legitimized by recent plant neurobiology research that has shown how plants, even if lacking an actual brain, are intelligent organisms.

The Phytophiler” project consists of a collection of hand-thrown terracotta pots on which a series of functional appendices are installed through a series of holes.

Those accessory elements suggest the daily gestures and cares that a “phytophiler” has for the plants sharing his living spaces: magnifying glasses to accurately observe leaves; mirrors to allow a total vision of the plant and multiply its beauty; a resonant vase to please the plant and enhance its development through vibrations; a small add-on garden to make a small shrubs feel like a tree overlooking a field; a functional straw shelter to give restoring shade; a net structure appendix to allow a climbing houseplant to grow and create a domestic pergola; furthermore small vases that, as satellites, host little plants of other species thus creating a micro-climate in which the moisture produced by each plant can join the one of its neighbors to increase reciprocal well-being.

The project is about tools that are not in common use for plant’ care and that represent the attempts to interact with the domestic world of plants. These efforts might appear bizarre, as they are performed through typically human methods and sensitivities, but they are relevant evidence of a new widespread attitude toward nature and of the established awareness of finding ourselves in front of sensitive beings that belong to an “other” world that completes us.