bigger citys, bigger forests

New Jungles Prompt a Debate on Rain Forests
New York Times Article by Elisabeth Rosenthal

With over half of the world's population now living in cities, will the jungles be saved?
This interesting article discusses the issue of how farmers are leaving their deforested agricultural plots and heading to the cities, allowing the jungles to return.

Rosenthal states: "By one estimate, for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster."

Seal Infrastructure

Sea Lions/Seals? taking a break along the pier in Santa Cruz.
What is the infrastructure of nature? How can the infrastructure of humans enforce natures infrastructure? Who are the stakeholders of a site? What materials, shapes, colors, sizes, shapes influence multiple programming for multiple users?

Building Landscapes

Academy of Sciences Museum in San Francisco, CA
The rooftop mimics surrounding hills, while planted with native plants
Mounds reflect the planetarium and rain forest exhibits within.

Seed Project

David Cohen's The Seed Project

This "art" project asks people to plant organic basil seeds anywhere and everywhere. Its invites one to take the element of nature and imposes it upon the more "unnatural" environments within our everyday lives.

In regards to our urban environment, existing visual cues of "natural" have become so urbane that many fail to even recognize it as plant life. This project shakes up your daily commutes, questioning place, location and purpose of plant life in our built environments.










In a time of extreme greenwashing, what are the new visual cues of true environmental action?
What locations, programs, buildings, forms of employment within a concrete jungle of a city can programmed for understanding basic living processes?
What new forms of urban gardening can harvest not only moments of contemplation, but todays lunch?

Similar movements:
Guerrilla Gardners

The Frontiers of Mobility

How does nature move? What is the purpose of movement? What is the infrastructure of this capacity and how are the parts designed? What are the impacts and incentives? What are the feedback loops, schedules, participants, sizes, shapes, seasons?

Communication, Reproduction = Expansion.

What can be learned, understood by looking at human mobility through the lenses of pollen, seeds or migratory routes? Particle movement, electricity...air.




photo credits