Week 5: The collections of plants in SOHO Square

Joseph Banks' Florilegium

The young artist Sydney Parkinson traveled to the Pacific with Joseph Banks on board Cook's ship, the Endeavour. He made nearly 1000 drawings of the people, landscapes, animals and plants they found there but sadly he died on the voyage. Banks employed 18 engravers to produce 753 copper plates from Parkinson's drawings for a florilegium ( an anthology of flowers). He sent proof prints including the one shown here, to Linnaeus, who gave Banks name to a new genus of plants: Banksia serrata.

The project of this week was very interesting. As I found a picture and a copper plate in British Museum which recorded the historical exploration of the plants, I thought if I could make another collection about plants in a certain area in London, just to imitate the process of exploration, that must be interesting and meaningful. So I spent 3 days to visit 5 parks and squares: Green Park, Hyde Park, Regent's Park, SOHO Square and Golden Square. Then there was a big problem for me in the 3 parks. I was confused about the various types of plants in the parks, they looked similar but different actually, so that I can't distinguish them very well. Therefore, I decided to choose SOHO Square as the main area of my collection as there were just 17-18 sorts of plants with clear features. 

After that,  I spent one day to get familiar with the plants in SOHO Square including observing, drawing and taking photos. Also I picked up several fallen leaves of each plant for collection. And I wanted to use a different method to present my collection, so I put all the leaves in series, from small to big , and each section contained 4 parts: one photo, one shadow and light space which printed on the transparent material, one hand drawing and one real fallen leaves. Then the last work for me was to find out which specific types they were. Fortunately, a website called PlantAdvice helped me a lot. It gave accurate illustration and description about the plants.
http://www.plantadvice.co.uk/index.php
Actually, it was a great fun to deal with the plants. I was extremely attracted by their different natural features, living environment, shape of leaves, color of flowers and so on.
I will continue my plants research in the following project.

The disturbance between leaves and space

Plants and some natural elements, which contain wind, sands, soil nutrients, light and vapor, exert the mutual effect in visual space disturbance. In the process of plant growth, visual space of plants themselves and between plants will be changeable and interesting. With the improvement of my project, I wish to explore the disturbance as a new starting point.

In SOHO Square, there were a variety of leaves in different shapes. Then I took many photos to record the visual space change between them. More specifically, the sunshine made changeable shadow space between leaves, the wind created blurry space, the vapor made compressed arc space inside the dewdrop and so on.

Certainly, there are some other natural elements that could change the visual space between plants such as fire, sands and the interaction (competition and accretion ) between plants. All of these may be in the next research step.

A specific kind of dust: Pollution

Through much experiences about dust in the past three weeks, it is difficult for me to move forward in the project as dust is invisible and small. So finding another starting point from dust become critical for me. After the tutorial in Thursday, perhaps I should focus on the constructive pollution in the site.

The pollution contains several types of dust: all airborne particles, deposited dust and fine particles that are less than 10μm in diameter. How to deal with this kind of dust and maintain healthy environment for workers and residents can be one possible direction of my project.

There are some feasible methods that could combat to the pollution, such as water spray, boundary fencing, screens, plastic sheeting and so on.

Dust and Architecture

Last week, I put 200 small mirrors in the different places of our sites to collect information about the dust, indeed, they have revealed some interesting results. For instance, on the surface of one, I found some dust like wool or silk. on another's surface, there were some orange and transparent dust. One was very symmetrical distributing on the surface, one has collected some leaves or part of plants, and one has some wirelike dust.

Then the work I did this week was to find out how does the dust act on the surface or material of buildings. So, according to the results of those mirrors, I chose three typical routes from site 1 to site 2. And I found the third one was more interesting than other two, therefore, I chose several typical points from this route and put some small pieces of paper to test. the results were also representative. One had been split by the wind or the force of dust, the edge of another one had been crumpled, one has been stuck by some glutinous powder, as a result, the surface became uneven. After that, some dust in different colour landed on the paper, and the green ones may be the part of plants. Lastly, one was a little damp when I collected it, which obtained the possibility of touching some liquid or the vapor brought by dust.
After the experience, I was wondering how did dust change the architecture in a long period. With some illusion and appropriate exaggeration, I drew this picture, which was about the effect that dust could exert on architecture. More specifically, the spiting and cracks, decaying and melt, coloring, damping, plants growing and light and shadow. Then I thought if all of the possibility was combined together, what would happen? Maybe different elements could make the mutual or contradictive function on architecture. I will work on it.

Some points about dust

What is dust? Basically, ordinary house dust is a mixture of dead insect parts, flakes of human skin, shreds of fabric, and other unpleasing  materials. Road dust consists of deposition of vehicle exhausts and industrial exhausts, tire and brake wears, dust from paved roads and construction sites.
What is the relationship between dust and architecture? In my opinion, dust witnessed the evolution of architecture, and also was the participant in the process. It formed and undid the buildings directly or via interaction with the environment around buildings. After that, in different historical periods, dust played different roles on architectural atmosphere. For instance,  the dust of London under bombardment during World WarⅡ differed from the great London smogs of the postwar period.
Dust, which contemporary sensibility is disposed to consider only as pollutant, also reveal a history of beneficial service to humans, an example of this, dust has furnished rich minerals and supplemented  soils. it has been used to make bricks, ceramics and glass.
Dust could bring smells to architectural environment. the fresh air from green land, the air mingling with water and vapor and forming snowflakes, fire filled the air with the smell of burning wood, and the smell of sea salt could reach far inland when the winds were right.
Some other dust served cosmetics with colors and powders to beautify the buildings.

Density of dust

Last week, I studied the different types of power that could act on the dusts, and this week I focused on the dust distribution in the real world, more precisely, in our two sites.

Then I thought out a method to measure the dust density in our sites. I made 200 small mirrors, and put them in different place in our sites, both vertical and horizontal. The process was that last weekend I took all of the mirrors in the morning and tied them in the buildings components in different points in the sites. Some in ground floor and other in the second, third floor. And the place which I extremely focused on was the area between the two sites. Then in the afternoon and evening, I collected back all the mirrors, when I got one, I would record the dust condition in that place. And after I got all the mirrors back, I had a rough recognition of dust density in the area.

However, this method could help me have a general and perceptual idea about the dust, it was not precise enough and give a little support to the development of the project. What I should do is explore a more precise way to improve the idea of dust and find the inner relationship between dust and architecture.