Planetary Optimist

Product DesignUX/UIResearchPrototyping

A hardware-software monitoring system that turns urban planters into biodiversity sensors, educational installations, and a city-wide game.

Role: Lead Designer and Researcher
Client: Independent contractor for Google X
Scope: Hardware + Software + Coordination
Stack: Figma, Notebook, PKM tools, natural materials
When: 2022

Scroll to discover the project

01Overview

Planetary Optimist was an experimental urban biodiversity monitoring system developed at Google X.

Smart planters equipped with cameras and sensors were deployed across public spaces in Poznań, Warsaw and New York to collect pollinator data while engaging the public with the global biodiversity crisis happening around them.

02Problem

Cities lack evidence to justify investment in green infrastructure and the data that would provide it sits invisible to the people who walk past it every day.

Urban residents want to connect with local ecosystems but have no accessible way in.

The challenge: design a system that collects meaningful biodiversity data while giving the public a reason to engage with it.

03Approach

I joined as an independent design contractor and led the project end-to-end: from insect habitat research to physical structure to public-facing digital experience, coordinating the full production and partnership chain needed to get everything built, placed, and running.

The result was a layered system: planters designed simultaneously as insect habitat and data collectors, a physical data visualization built into their exterior frames, a mobile PWA for deeper exploration, and a city-wide unlock mechanic connecting all locations — each layer dependent on the others working.

04Scope of work

Biodiversity & materials research

Physical structure & prototyping

Hardware concealment design

PWA design & data architecture

Color & material system

Partner & location coordination

Hired & managed additional designer

City game to unlock mechanic plan

Prototyping structure: color, plants, materials and habitat sampling

Iterating (one of 6 different iterations).

05Challenges

Designing for insects

Plants, colors, materials, habitats - everything had to be chosen around specific pollinators. Lavender and phacelia for bees and bumblebees, echinacea and catmint for butterflies.

Purple, blue, yellow, colors that work for insect vision. Water-based non-toxic paints. Brushwood, pine cones, bark built into the structure as insect housing.

And underneath it all: a false bottom concealing the Raspberry Pi, cameras, and sensors: the planter serving two completely different purposes in the same physical form.

Hardware that had to disappear

The sensors were the point of the whole project. Raspberry Pi units, cameras, and sensors need ventilation, maintenance access, and rain protection, but the technology couldn't be visible for safety reasons.

A shallow planter inside a deeper container left a sealed cavity below soil level: metal enclosure, ventilated with protected openings, cables routed through conduits. Maintenance access without disassembly because one side was structured as a locked drawer.

From the outside - nothing. The technology became invisible so the nature and structure could be the thing people engaged with.

Turning data into a reason to stop

Raw biodiversity data means nothing to someone walking past. Each planter's exterior frame displayed a bar chart sourced from Our World in Data — different dataset on each planter, different colors and heights.

Scanning the QR code revealed what the chart actually showed. Scrolling further unlocked that specific planter's live data: which pollinators visited today, which plants are inside and how to grow them yourself.

The map at the bottom showed every planter in the city, but each planter's view was locked until someone scanned the QR on the next one. You had to move through the city to unlock the full picture.

06Outcome

The PWA was the answer to the physical structures hiding biodiversity data. Planetary Optimist online presented a description of the project. It presented:

A rendered version of the physical bar chart on that planter's frame, revealing the Our World in Data dataset behind it. Each planter showed different data: biodiversity loss by continent, species decline by category, habitat destruction over time etc.

Local data due to live sensor readings from that specific planter: which pollinators were detected today, activity patterns over time.

Navigation - a city map connecting all planters, with each location's view locked until discovered by scanning on-site.

The gamification wasn't points or badges, but knowledge itself, withheld until earned by showing up.

10+

Locations across Poznań, Warsaw and New York

External partners coordinated (Allegro, Stary Browar, Local wineries, Universities)

Google X patent filed

07Reflection

Data contributed to habitat optimisation research with Poznań University of Life Sciences and PCSS. The project concluded as a completed Google X pilot.

Designing for a non-human user first (insects) made the human experience better. Hardware constraints forced visual decisions I wouldn't have reached through screen-first thinking.

Running the full production chain as an independent contractor, with a limited budget and a tight timeline, taught me more about early-stage product development than any other project I've worked on.