ReCreate Gardens for Crescer em Casa

ReCreate Gardens was a community project developed for Crescer em Casa, an initiative created to bring cultivation into everyday life in Lisbon.

The idea was simple and generous: to make it easier for people to grow their own plants at home, on balconies, in windows or in small urban corners. Each garden became part of a kit with soil and seeds, inviting residents to cultivate, care for and share plants with friends, family and neighbours.

For ReCreate, the challenge was clear: to design practical, colourful and easy-to-use garden pieces, made from reclaimed materials and suitable for quick production.

Challenge accepted.

Designing for Community Use

This project asked for an object that could be functional, accessible and visually engaging.

The gardens needed to be simple to use, resistant enough for daily handling and adaptable to different home environments. They also had to carry the spirit of the project: local, generous, practical and connected to the act of growing.

ReCreate responded through its experience in upcycling design, transforming reclaimed advertising banners from past events into new objects with purpose.

The material, once used for temporary communication, became part of a slower and more intimate gesture: planting, watering, waiting and watching something grow.

More Than 200 Gardens

Through this project, more than 25 square metres of reclaimed material were transformed.

From that material, 200 ReCreate Gardens were produced — small objects designed to bring colour, function and possibility into homes and balconies across Lisbon.

Each piece carried the visual memory of the original banners, but was given a new role within a community context. Instead of communicating an event that had already passed, the material became part of a living cycle: soil, seeds, plants and sharing.

Material with a New Purpose

ReCreate Gardens shows how design can respond to concrete needs while keeping material transformation at the centre.

This was not only about reusing banners. It was about creating objects that support a different relationship with the city, with the home and with the people around us.

A discarded material became a small garden.
A temporary surface became part of daily care.
A project became a way of growing together.

For ReCreate, this is where design gains meaning: when existing materials are transformed into objects that serve people, places and communities.