By following the instructions in this book, you will become the manufacturer of an idea. This book is an instruction manual for a hydroponic product that only exists if you build it. Here are the instructions.

Hydroponics is a farming technique that can grow plants in water instead of soil, allowing you to save up to 90% of the water used in traditional agriculture systems, using much less space, and providing you with complete control of the nutrients needed by the plants at each stage of their growth. Another great thing about hydroponics is that you don’t have to worry about watering the plants.

The system I have designed combines different hydroponics techniques. These are adapted to make them easy to use at home, which means that you become a farmer, perhaps an urban farmer. However, this book is not a book on urban farming, nor is it a general book about hydroponics. This book is a manual that will show you how to build and run a simple hydroponic system with some inexpensive IKEA boxes.

I believe that the ultimate object of design is knowledge. As a designer, I visualize quantities and dimensions, organize briefs, I explain procedures. Sometimes this has more to do with storytelling than with technical drawings. These stories and their illustrations are traditionally given to artisans who turn them into tangible things. But as a designer, I like to design things that anyone can make. Rather than mindlessly producing new stuff, distributing it, and reinventing new production and distribution chains, we should find new ways of assembling what we already have.

For this reason, ELIOOO is using items from IKEA. But the goal of my design is also to inspire and this book encourages you to play around with the different setups, with or without the use of IKEA components.