Ecologies, Techniques, Technologies I

This course is an introduction to understanding plants, from unmanaged plant communities to managed living structures. Through field visits, observation, lectures, short design exercises, and readings, students will define new notational systems and translate the associations, structure, and attributes of plant communities into design languages that they will be able to apply in their futures design proposals. The methodology of the course is based on the translation of empiric observations, measurements in situ, and research on cultural and vernacular living structures into design languages, supported and extended into the context of their biophysical ecology. The goal of the course is to introduce the potential of plants as a means of design. The outcome of the course will be a wallpaper proposal and a booklet describing typologies of plant communities to be designed and “undesigned” under a new notational system describing the main attributes of each typology. Black and white field notes, lecture sketches, diagrams, and series of curated drawings in axon, plan, and section will be the language of the course.