Highlighting innovation and creativity in recent graduates’ work

NOMAD Miriam Josi and Stella Lee Prowse developed an interest in gardening, sustainable design, and reclaimed materials while sharing a Brooklyn garden apartment. Today their portable planter, Nomad, is bringing them global acclaim.

Miriam Josi ’14 & Stella Lee Prowse ’14 BFA PRODUCT DESIGN Josi and Lee Prowse began collaborating while students at Parsons before founding The Garden Apartment, their aptly named design studio. Collaboration is “a conversation that never ends,” says Lee Prowse. “We get excited about an idea and take it to the moon before coming back to earth in the end.”

Nomad, their studio’s first product, is

a collapsible fabric planter. Designed for herbs, the versatile product can be hung, sit upright, or attach to a wall to create a vertical garden. When sourcing materials, Josi and Lee Prowse chose reclaimed sailcloth from a Bronx boatyard. “We were looking for lightweight, durable, low-cost, easy-to-clean fabrics,” explains Josi. Manufactured locally,

7

the product ships flat. Its minimal construction is an essential part of the conscious approach to design that they developed at Parsons, where “sustainability is considered indispensable,” says Josi.

Raised in Switzerland, Josi lives in Paris,

where she continues developing products. Australian-born Lee Prowse is now based in Newburgh, New York, overseeing studio production. The pair recently participated in Project 50, an intensive design workshop at Domaine de Boisbouchet led by Parsons faculty member Allan Wexler and sponsored by USM Modular Furniture. thegardenapartment.com

Josi and Lee Prowse designed their planter with New Yorkers’ small apartments in mind. They hope to encourage people to grow their own herbs and become aware of food sources.