{"id":1506,"date":"2013-03-19T06:30:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-19T13:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/compositesandarchitecture.com\/?p=1506"},"modified":"2013-03-04T23:14:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-05T07:14:06","slug":"vertical-gardens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kreysler.zaab.org\/?p=1506","title":{"rendered":"Vertical Gardens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Metabolicity is a forward-looking project that attempts to deal with the growing dominance of urban occupancy worldwide.\u00a0 If the majority of the human population is going to live in cities, then the locus of food-growing may need to shift partially to the cities, as well.<\/p>\n

The project is not confined to a single solution.\u00a0 It is a multi-pronged investigation of urban people and environments, and their relation to agriculture.<\/p>\n

One of its expressions is a vertical garden concept facilitated by structures made of woven, 1-millimeter thick FRP rods.\u00a0 The lightweight architectural structures support plants, and irrigation.\u00a0 They include organic dye-sensitized solar cells made from the dye of berries, so both the plants and the canopy are harvesting solar energy, in different ways.\u00a0 The structures can be made free-standing, or attached to the sides of buildings.\u00a0 They take good advantage of the strength-to-weight ratio of FRP.<\/p>\n

The project, designed by\u00a0 Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl of Studio Loop.pH, is based at Central Saint Martins, London and funded by the Audi Design Foundation.<\/p>\n

This project makes one ponder the relationship of innovative ideas and innovative materials.\u00a0 After all, the concept of a growing structure is not new.\u00a0 Anyone who’s ever seen (or grown) string beans on a series of vertical stakes interconnected by horizontal wires knows the concept.\u00a0 The innovation here is is making the structure \u2013 and the ecosystem it establishes \u2013 self supporting (in several senses).<\/p>\n

Do innovative materials inspire innovative thinking, or merely “answer the call” providing a solution once the challenge is defined?\u00a0 Does a new idea require<\/em> a solution, or at least the glimmer of a solution, in order to be allowed to flower and grow?\u00a0 Is the idea ever complete until the solution is applied?\u00a0 Undoubtedly, there are many shades and gradations in the answers to these questions, different for different designers. \u00a0 In fact, it is the lack of definitive answers that makes the questions worth asking.<\/p>\n

From the Loop:pH Flickr site<\/a>:<\/p>\n

MetaboliCity is the name for a vision of a city that metabolises its resources and waste to supply its inhabitants with all the nourishment they need and more.<\/em><\/p>\n

As a participatory design research project it explores how designers can intervene sensitively within local urban food growing cultures by providing a design thinking and crafting that may help to sustain these initiatives and catalyse larger positive changes in the surrounding environment.<\/em><\/p>\n

Images copyright Studio Loop:pH<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t