Octalia

Octalia greenhouse redesigned for easier production and assembly.

Octalia is a compact, diamond-shaped greenhouse that captures and concentrates light like a prism. The original design had struggled commercially despite being well liked, largely due to costly manual production and difficult shipping. D2M was brought in to redesign the product, resolving its mechanical and manufacturing challenges while preserving what made the original design distinctive. D2M worked through concept redesign and high-fidelity prototyping to take the product to a genuinely manufacturable standard.

The Story

The original design suffered from large, labour-intensive fibreglass mouldings, oversized components that were difficult and costly to ship, and single-pane glass that was prone to breaking. D2M worked through each part of the structure, resolving how it could be produced more efficiently without losing the qualities that made the greenhouse effective: strong light capture, good ventilation and heating performance even in colder months.

Key changes moved the design towards injection moulding and standard aluminium extrusion in place of large custom fibreglass parts, with components sectioned and sized to fit within standard shipping constraints. The glazing was reworked from breakable glass panels to durable polycarbonate. D2M also reviewed the greenhouse's mechanical structure, simplifying elements of the design to improve robustness and reduce the number of parts needed for assembly.

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