A new Kickstarter project is raising money to turn city billboards into suspended bamboo gardens.

Bamboo Billboards Bamboo instead of annoying billboards: Vote yes. Urban Air via Kickstarter

In areas that allow unlimited billboard construction, the side of the road can look like a peeling, rusty forest. Signs that aren’t hawking cellphone companies, fast food places or adult stores are adorned with horribly sketched toothy whales shouting YOUR AD HERE. But there is a better billboard future! Let’s put plants on them instead, creating mini hanging gardens that can purify air and give us a break from a constant barrage of words and pictures.

Last year L.A.-based artist Stephen Glassman, who has apparently been making bamboo art installations for two decades, made a small-scale art project called Urban Air that involved a miniature billboard-bamboo setup. After it got some attention, leading billboard-maker Summit Media agreed to donate billboards in busy areas of Los Angeles for the first prototype.

It works by removing the advertisement-ready facade and retrofitting a billboard’s metal husk to contain planters, live bamboo and a watering system. The installation includes environmental sensors and is connected to wifi. A new Kickstarter project is trying to raise $100,000 to hire all the electrical and structural engineers needed to build it. The goal is a bamboo billboard kit that could be installed anywhere.

Imagine if, instead of advertisements screaming about taxes and abortion and Obamacare, we were bathed in soothing placards of calm. Americans are exposed to 5,000 advertisements a day, as Treehugger points out--so this sounds like a welcome reprieve. You can learn more about the project here.

19 Comments

This is definitely a worthy cause. I hate billboard advertisements. I remember there was one advertising a casino that showed several massive 1/4 billboard-sized underwear that read, "Bring your luck". When I passed the side of the billboard, I realized that the underwear were actually 3-dimensional. Ughhh...

Probably better to just rip em out. Billboards have pretty much gone the way of the Dodo in a lot of areas.

The billboard company is probably willing to donate some to save themselves the expense of the teardown.

Sure, the bamboo garden looks nice now -- but who's going to maintain it? Bottom line is that it either becomes one more drain on the public or, more likely, gradually rots away until it gets torn down as a public nuisance.

yep i had the same 1st though... who will sweep all those dead leafs on the pavement?... robots?....
"hey robot! go do your mindless leaf sweeping job!" racism... just pure synthetic racism.... -_-

---
(Type 0.72) = We are still just cleaver monkeys!

vt007,
What? What?! I just got out of the oil shower to read this post! Nope, you humans can clean up your own mess, lol.

"... the side of the road can look like a peeling, rusty forest..." By the way, this vegetation is going to encourage animal droppings, and faster rusting of the billboard metal! It doesn't really seem like a practical solution.

Recently in the TV news, “Man and woman in family car, killed today as a tree fell from the sky into their window! ", bizarre!

Under Barack Obama’s previous ream, NSA was established and founded. Under his next term, the USA people will all be given a number, followed and yes very much controlled.

Currently it is said, all the people owe the government $51,000 dollars each. Seems, slowly and tactfully we are all becoming slaves via our debt and our debt in the future will just escalate! Add to the fact the rich will grow richer and the ratio and quantity of poor in the USA will grow as well.

American people, you voted and now you got'em! ;)

You know Robot i used to like you :( Plzzzzt

AndyjAndyj,
I appreciate your free speech to zerbertfy me, lol.
I wish more others would not be so shy and comment more on PoPSCi. ;)

@robot
hahaha i was waiting for you to notice my double meaning...

and see your a tottal metal ass... we dont not like you cuz of your different thinking and "freespeachingng", we just dont apressiate selfish ppl who cant be a little bit respectfull to others...
"its your right to not holding the door, but dont expect a thank you from the dude behind you" -simpleasfuck...

---
(Type 0.72) = We are still just cleaver monkeys!

tv007,
What?

my buddy's step-sister earned $19847 past month. she is getting paid on the internet and got a $526200 home. All she did was get blessed and work up the steps uncovered on this web site...Trunc.it/me2ej

@robot

small_version(){
int robot = 1;
int pplThoughts = "calm";
if robot == 1 then
pplThoughts = "hate_robot";
elseif robot == 0 then
pplThoughts = "calm";
end
return "a_big_F###_YOU";
}

PS: and by inversing "vt" to "tv" you proof one of the 2 things:
-eather youre are a retard
-eather what im saing is hurting your little feelings(blabla you robot i know...) and youre trying to troll me back
choose the less socially awkward for you... idgaf...

---
(Type 0.72) = We are still just cleaver monkeys!

Thanks for the elaboration, take care. ;)

American people, you voted Barack Obama and now you got'em, LOL..... snort! This will end badly... ;)

Put it all together and we end up at a Type 0.72 civilization . Remember boys and girls that this is a logarithmic scale and 0.72 means that we only use 0.16% of the available energy. In effect, we are still just cleaver monkeys!

And....

"...A Neanderthal brain volume equals or exceeds modern human dimensions (Deacon, 1994), ranging from about 1200_1750 ml, and thus on the average about 100 ml larger than modern humans (Stringer and Gamble, 1993). Holloway (1985: 320) has stated "I believe the Neanderthal brain was fully Homo, with no essential differences in its organization compared to our own..."

www.icr.org/article/neanderthals-are-still-human/

if you were interested where i took my signature from, you just had to ask

http://skypoweraz.com/2011/03/type-0-72-civilization/

PS:
Maurice Jarre - Unchained melody
(dont care mode: ON) d(^^)b ♪♫♪♫
how sad, man, im starting to pitty you... no bs... you must be so alone...
you won dude you can be whatever you want, robot human... i dont care... i wont deprive you from the only happy thing you got left... where you can talk and make your voice heard... hats off, IM OUT! \(-_-)/

---
GAME OVER

@vt007,
As you vent your ramblings with "we", who is the we? Does it relate to the billboards bamboo?

I like this quote from the article,
"...Imagine if, instead of advertisements screaming about taxes and abortion and Obamacare, we were bathed in soothing placards of calm...."
That's kind of nice, ah....

..........................................
See life in all its beautiful colors, and
from different perspectives too!

I've got to admit, I'm interested. Robot, where did you get the idea that the NSA was founded during Obama's last term? If you mean, like, the National Security Agency, that's kiiiiinda older than Obama himself, so to have established it he'd be a time traveller... And if you mean some other establishment that has the same acronym, I'd be grateful to receive it, as it'll annoy me otherwise :P

Also, the whole logarithmic scale thing for civilisation types always annoyed me, seeing as it's based upon power usage, which is not necessarily the best method for examining a civilisation's sophistication... But here is neither the time nor the comment thread appropriate to discuss that :P

joeyjam,
The NEW NSA being built in Utah, sir.

www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

joeyjam,
"....Under construction by contractors with top-secret clearances, the blandly named Utah Data Center is being built for the National Security Agency. A project of immense secrecy, it is the final piece in a complex puzzle assembled over the past decade. Its purpose: to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the world’s communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks. The heavily fortified $2 billion center should be up and running in September 2013..."

www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

It is the same old thing you remember, but NEW in Utah and with new laws to stalk you, me, everyone, innocent or guilty in the whole world.



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