We had a chat with the winning team Zuko from the ZeroCO2 Hackathon about their idea, motivation and what’s next for the ground-breaking idea.

Tell us about your product?

Mosssol is a carbon offsetting, freestanding partition wall which we hope to introduce into flexible work environments. Designed with a louvre panel system, it acts similarly to a green wall – just with moss instead! Because the moss is so low maintenance, it becomes a more desirable and cheaper alternative to standard green walls with the added bonuses of thermal regulation and electricity generation!

What motivated you to participate in the recent ZeroCO2 Hackathon?

Honestly, we competed in a previous Hackathon organised by the Canberra Innovation Network and Cam Ritchie ended up guilting us into competing in this one too! (Thanks Cam)

Ultimately, we knew the experience would not only help us develop invaluable professional skills, but also allow us to take a step towards a cleaner and greener future.

How did your team come together?

Ollie, Laura and I actually work together! Ollie mentioned the idea of competing in this hackathon and so we brought Rui onboard to help with the design aspects of our product and round out our team.

Tell us about the dynamic of the team and what you do outside of Zuko?

Our team is comprised of two science students and two design students. Although an unlikely grouping, we love the dynamic! We’ve all known each other for almost 5 years now but this is the first time we’ve ever worked together on a project. Thanks to our transdisciplinary collaboration, we’ve been able to play to each other’s strengths and get to where we are now.

We have all either just finished or are about to finish our undergraduate degrees at the University of Technology Sydney and are continuing on with postgraduate work. Who knows though, if Mosssol takes off we might have bigger things to focus on!

What are your goals for Mosssol?

We’d love to see Mosssol adopted by as many workplaces as we can. Once we get our feet off the ground, we want to start integrating and adapting the technology in order to widen our market and maximise carbon-offsetting. Further, once we become a fully-fledged business, we really want to navigate manufacturing processes and try to become fully carbon neutral with a recyclable end product.

Where did you draw inspiration from for the product?

Our prototype was inspired by an incredible building across the road from our uni – One Central Park Sydney. Designed by Jean Nouvel the innovative design amalgamates Sydney’s harsh infrastructure with calming greenery, and we wanted to give our customers access to this sort of technology without the price tag and maintenance issues.

Who do you look up too and why?

We really aspire to be like an Austrian-based company called Studio Pretch. We came across them while researching for our product and they have such a beautiful sensitivity to balancing the harmony of nature and infrastructure.

They’re creating architecture that brings communities together whilst being resilient to the future by moving away from standardized buildings and instead design spaces that give back to nature. We wanted to adopt this idea of giving back to the grid on a more intimate and personal level.

What quote/ philosophy do you stand by?

At Mosssol, we like to stand by the philosophy of ‘less is more’. We’re trying to help people use less carbon and make more of a positive impact.

By making such a minimal and simplistic design, our product has more flexibility within workspaces and therefore more opportunity of offset carbon emissions and consumption.

We stand by this philosophy because we know that if everyone is able to make a just little contribution, we can make a whole lot more of a difference!

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