This robotic “smart” planter wanders around on six articulated legs to make sure your precious greens get enough natural light, prompting the observation: “This is called a cat. You’ve invented a cat.”

And there’s something to the comparison — cats self-regulate, so why not plants? Heliotropism draws plantlife naturally to the sun for nutrients, causing owners to shift around their habitats, but there’s no need with this bot. It can even stomp to demand water, like an impatient pet.

Developed by Vincross in China, the self-optimizing micro-robot can walk around and make sure any houseplant gets sufficient sun or shade. The HEXA was originally a simple walker, until its inventor put a pot into it.

So the whole thing may seem (and be) a bit silly, but it does add some interactivity to a home, particularly for people who aren’t around enough to take care of animals (or perhaps even an idle houseplant). Also, it’s a pretty good way for a robotics manufacturer to get people interested in their products.

“Robots are THE next big platform. We’ve all dreamed of a world where robots interact with and help humans in their daily lives. But the reality is, robots have a long way to go. Limited access — robots are either too expensive and complex isolated to a lab or too simplistic, a child’s toy — has kept innovators, explorers and the masses at bay.”

“Meet HEXA, the first of a new generation of accessible, programmable robots from Vincross. HEXA is a six-legged, highly maneuverable, compact robot that comes complete with all the necessary sensors. Along with HEXA, we deliver MIND, a robotics OS and SDK, where for the first time individuals don’t need to know underlying hardware and complex mechanics to learn and create interesting robotics functionality.”

Microorganisms in this Living Light project convert chemical energy from photosynthetic processes into electric current, making these lamps perfect for off-grid and other green, cost-reducing applications.

Dutch designer Ermi van Oers envisions this approach working at scale and used to power smart cities, starting with things like street lamps but eventually providing energy for other applications as well. Plans are already in place with Rotterndam to illuminate a city park unique this process and technology.

“The potential is huge,” the designer says. “Street lights could be connected to trees. Forests could become power plants. Rice fields in Indonesia could produce food and electricity for the local population.”

As photosynthesis takes place, organic compounds are released, which are in turn broken down by bacteria through a microbial fuel cell, which mimics natural processes but generates electrons that can be used to power LEDs. The project was deubted at Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, with small and interactive versions that illuminated to the touch.

“I hope we come to a point where every plant pot is provided with this technology, and we don’t know any better than that plants are part of our energy system,”says van Oers. “Nature will get a higher economical value and we will start making more green places so that biodiversity can flourish, while lowering greenhouse gas emissions at the same time.”

Packing the environmental impact of as many as 275 actual urban trees, these multi-functional CityTree units are dense and efficient fighters of urban air pollution (the single largest environmental health risk). Each CityTree can remove 240 metric tons of CO2 per year, as much as a small forest.

Developed by Green City Solutions in Berlin, the CityTree is covered in moss cultures — their high surface area ratios help remove dust and other airborne gasses and chemicals at a rate much higher than normal trees. Each unit has solar panels providing electricity and automated rainwater collection systems to store and distribute moisture as needed. Sensors help monitor soil humidity, temperature, water and air quality in and around each unit.

CityTrees have started sprouting in places like Paris, Brussels and Hong Kong, occupying a few square meters on city sidewalks while also (optionally) serving as public seating. Of course, air pollution is rarely evenly distributed in cities, so placement in high-traffic/emissions areas is also critical.

Developed by an architect and an engineer, the CityTree has been in the works for over a decade. “Our ultimate goal is to incorporate technology from the CityTree into existing buildings,” one of the designers told CNN. “We dream of creating a climate infrastructure so we can regulate what kind of air and also what kind of temperature we have in a city.” Beyond this compact and mobile application, lessons learned from monitoring and growing dense mosses on individual CityTree installations could also be applied on larger structural surfaces down the line.

The world’s largest solar power-producing nation is showing off its record-setting green energy production through an adorable new array shaped like a giant panda bear, the national animal of China.

This Panda Power Plant in Datong, China, was developed by Panda Green Energy in partnership with the United Nations Development Program. And this first sections of this huge creature-shaped station mosaic have just been hooked up to the grid.

The plant also going to grow — currently at 50 megawatts, the installation will have a capacity of 100 MW upon completion. Over the next 25 years, the array is estimated to provide as much power as 1 million tons of coal and to reduce CO2 emissions by over 2.5 million tons.

The whole panda figure is part of the power production process: darker parts of the animal shape (like legs and arms) are made up of monocrystalline silicone solar cells — gray areas (face and torso) are thin-film solar cells.

An educational center alongside the Panda Power Plant aims to teach children about the advantages of solar power and other forms of sustainable energy. Meanwhile, more panda plants are in planning phases as well across China, and some may also end up outside the country.

Imagine a world in which an abandoned city goes to seed, but rather than plants reclaiming buildings, the buildings grow and morph like unkempt weeds, twisting the skyline into impossible new patterns.

In their project Spatial Bodies, AUJIK envisions architecture as something organic, skyscrapers like trees and vines that curve, wrap and interlock to create fresh and unpredictable formations.

The team compiled aerial drone footage, manipulating it in Autodesk 3D studio and combining it with Google Maps images. The resulting urban landscapes are both real and surreal, vaguely recognizable and semi-coherent but contorted and distorted. Buildings grow from familiar foundations, but wiggle and wind in unnatural and unexpected ways.

From the artists: “Spatial Bodies depicts the urban landscape and architectural bodies as an autonomous living and self replicating organism. Domesticated and cultivated only by its own nature. A vast concrete vegetation, oscillating between order and chaos.”

Many of the shots in the film are largely static, but in a way that helps make them comprehensible to viewers: it is almost impossible to take in the scenes as they pass by even in still format. Limiting the realtime motion of structures in the video also reflects their plant-like nature, implying that these transformations will take time, just like growing organic material in the wild.