BLOOM is what its designers call an “urban toy.” It is a “distributed social game and collective ‘gardening’ experience that seeks the engagement of people in order to construct fuzzy BLOOM formations.” These formations are aggregate volumes composed of repeated, identical parts, which the designers refer to as “cells.” These “cells” are designed and fabricated by the designers themselves, Alisa Andrasek of Biothing, and Jose Sanchez of Plethora Project, in London. Meant to contribute an air of jovial democratized design in relation to the 2012 London Olympic Games, BLOOM is representative of the artistic, collective act. Each individual component, as the designers explain, can do nothing on its own, but instead, reach their full and limitless potential when arrayed en masse.

Each of the BLOOM pieces has three potential sites for connection along its outline, enabling it to be compiled both two and three dimensionally. This embedded form of connection, however, is all that is provided to the user, who is free to use as few or as many pieces as they choose to construct an installation. It is the simple combinations inherent between these cells that can potentially produce many different mutations. This project is emblematic of democratic design as seen through the lens of digital fabrication, aggregation, and repetition.