Sunday is No questions Day

WEEK 6 - DAY 7

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

What sound are you listen to? ( In Zurich)

2. PLACES TO KNOW

Zurich

Le Corbusier’s pavillion on the lake - Heidi Weber Museum 

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Antonio Scarponi/Conceptual devices

His book “Eliooo” - “This book is an instruction manual for a product that only exists if you build it.”

Eliooo video - Grow your food

Yona Friedman -

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY


No questions?!


5. INSPIRATION

"TODAY DESIGN CAN TURN THE WORLD’S POPULATION INTO THE BIGGEST CREATIVE INDUSTRY EVER KNOWN: A CROWD FACTORY. RATHER THAN MINDLESSLY PRODUCING NEW STUFF, DISTRIBUTING IT, AND REINVENTING NEW PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION CHAINS, I THINK WE SHOULD FIND NEW WAYS OF ASSEMBLING WHAT WE ALREADY HAVE."

Antonio Scarponi

From The Little Prince:

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”

“If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers...”

“It is a question of discipline.”

“Before they grow so big, the baobabs start out by being little.”

Junya Ishigami - on DesignBoom, here. Some photos about his work and an article on The Guardian.

Farmville gardening digital project.

GagaVille, a Lady Gaga-inspired farm where players could visit and listen to songs from her album Born This Way.

Enzo Mari - He is a very influential contemporary designer, and he was already mentioned for his“Autoprogettazione¨ book. It was sometimes in the early 1970’s and he had this curious idea about furniture design. He wouldn’t do another chair or table. He would rather give the instructions to people in order to have them able to make those things on their own. (From Course Letter)

“…if people were encouraged to build a table with their own hands…they would be able to understand the thinking behind it”.

Mu Um (fellow student) - she gave herself a goal: to send out a daily flower to all of us.

She got inspired by David Hockney words, and turned them into a whole project of her own. 

1. daily shipments 

2. her flowers are always different (in the way she sees them), 

3. her“greetings” make us smile 

Mu Um’s Facebook Gallery

The quiz is...

...different! 

It seems that the infamous Quiz has a new format! 

Now the Quiz teaches us to find the correct answer. 

Checking the journey's route

The various things to do (so-called “hands-on” activities) will be divided into 14 units, one per week.

The road already travelled:

- Intro: Acquaint yourself with the course’s dynamics.
- Myself: Represent one's self.
- My diary: Learn about the design process by creating a very simple object.
- Kitchen Stories: Become an expert at something and develop basic social skills.
- Visiting You: Look back at what we have done so far.
- It’s alive: Design as a garden.

The road ahead:

- Voyage into my room: Understand interior spaces, plans and measures.
- Making things: Get familiar with shapes, colors, materials. Plan a series.
- Christmas break: Lots of greetings + some more.
- Zoom out (the city): Observe the public space in a new way (and map it).
- Telling stories: Form doesn’t follow function. Form follows fiction.
- Dressing people: Understand what “custom-made” really means.
- Road to nowhere: Learn to become self-sufficient.
- Ready to show? Ready to exhibit?

Spreading the word about GMO

WEEK 6 - DAY6

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

Khala ya Khala

Ya Amma - Iraqi Old Songs - Shatha Hassoun

Another song

2. PLACES TO KNOW

Samarra, Iraq - Part of the Fertile Crescent, this place is where agriculture began about 12 000 years ago. A place that has seen a great amount of biodiversity and a unique survival of flora and fauna. It is the cradle of civilization.

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Jared Diamond - the man who wrote the famous book Guns, Germs and Steel - the fates of human societies. A fascinating book in which he explores how some societies succeed and others fail. 

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

Biodiversity Pavillion project for Expo 2015 that will take place in Milan.

Bio diversity Pinterest

Full credit list for the pavillion (design always need precise credit lists).

Pierluigi is also participating in some other things we are doing for Expo. Here is a lovely video he made to give an idea of how the Expo’s “social media” could be imagined…

George Milstein’s Music to grow plants: “sound waves that cause the plants to keep their pores open longer and wider, allowing a greater exchange with the air around them.”

Red bird of paradise of New Guinea

6. Homework:

Test the overall system or “design” elements of your garden. Are you happy with the way you assembled its various parts? Is there place for refinement or adjustments? Share a picture of your almost “ready to grow” garden, update your notebook with some thoughts you have about the week.

Look back on what you did and find ways to refine it. You have to be sharp with yourself. Does it work? Does it have problems? Can you fix the problems? Is there any major mistake?

Everything's seem to be under control!

7. Spreading the word

Hello dear students!
This day I really want to catch your attention. It's not fun, it's not about celebration. It's about getting information and taking action.

We can't end this week without talking about GMO - Genetic Modified Organisms. If we talk seeds we must talk MONSANTO.

Confession: I knew nothing about MONSANTO until September 2012. I decided to have one month free from meat and fish. I am not a veggy person but I make 50% free meat/fish meals. When I was looking for meat and fish alternatives I found out about genetic modified soy and soon I was reading all about MONSANTO company.

If you know nothing about this, I ask you to spare some time and find information about it. I was so apprehensive after watching the documentary linked bellow that I haven't stopped promoting information about GMO since then. You may think that I am just being silly. It's ok. But you have at least to know what's going on. Then you make your choice. This MONSANTO matter divides people. It's a USA company but it went global, the problem will touch you even if you're living miles away. You can even say that the documentary is too much one-sided. But at least it will make you wonder. Watch it, go deeper, question. I am not and never will be against science. But I will always be against reckless science.

Here's something to get you started: the documentary The World according to Monsanto. Two links. In Portuguese language and English. The original is in French.

"O Mundo segundo a Monsanto"

"The World according to Monsanto"

Next time I'll go for a carnivorous plant

WEEK 6 - DAY 5

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

“Little Shop of Horrors” - the alternative ending!

2. PLACES TO KNOW

Madagascar Ark Island  documentary

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER


Christopher Alexander - A pattern language, book

John Conway - Conway's Game of Life


4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

When a process remains clear and simple, things have time and space to get more complex and (literally) grow. From the Course Letter

Six Tenets of Unfolding:

FORM IS PROCESS

"The process itself is the actuality"

Alfred North Whitehead

In design, “form is process.”

“There are no shortcuts to beautiful form” 

- Christopher Alexander. 

Life game - John Conway. This is the kind of stuff we want to make. Incredibly simple to set up, generating incredibly complex outputs.


Aldo van Eyck once said about his design for the Amsterdam Orphanage, “a house must be like a small city if it’s to be a real house, a city like a large house if it’s to be a real city.”

Design is about setting up the rules to generate your patterns. (From the Course Letter)

We can have generative systems dealing with all kind of subjects and themes. Generative art, generative design, generative music, generative games. The nice thing of a garden, is that it is generative by definition. (From the Course Letter)

Desmond Morris -  the city is a human zoo. Desmond is a zoologist and ethologist, a surrealist painter and much more. The Arena, one of his works. Read this to know if elephants can paint flowers.

Ya-te-veo Tree

6. HOMEWORK

From a pet bottle you can create a container and a tool like a small shovel or spoon to help you pour the soil inside. It's really easy and fun to do. This project was done in one hour. I was pleased with the result!If this works I'll do another for coriander and oregano!

Prototype, prototype!

WEEK6 - DAY4

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

Growing Hope for America, Farm Aid Board Members Neil Young, Willie Nelson, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews perform "Homegrown" at Miller Park in Milwaukee on October 2, 2010. 

2. PLACES TO KNOW

Kew Gardens in London

Kew Gardens Youtube Official Channel

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Decimus Burton

The Palm House

The London ZooJoseph Paxton - It was 1854 and Mr. Paxton was ahead of Sir Norman Foster and Renzo Piano. Watch The Crystal Palace he made.

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

Aimée Furnival  and her  PostCarden and the the Matchcarden, Garden Kit

Kew’s souvenir shop - the grow-it-yourself jungle and DIY birds postcards and seeds and 

How about a chia pet?
The word prototype comes from the Greek “prototypon” which means “original”, “primitive”, “a first impression.” It is a product’s early model or sample that we use for testing a concept or a process. Start from the overall “function” and not with its form. As Mies would say here, “form follows function.” (From the Course Letter)

Dunne and Raby: project “Weeds, aliens and other stories,” the designers explored the English obsession with the garden and irrational relationships between people and their plants. The result was to produce a collection of psychological furniture for the home and garden.

Isamu Noguchi - His ceramic vases... 

Allotinabox - 

Plants for Kids - It contains lots of interesting experiments to make things like miniature mazes, lentil forests, hairy potato heads...

Gardening with kids - another site

How-to grow citrus trees in containers

Electricity out of lemmons

"Homegrown’s

all right with me.

Homegrown

is the way it should be."

6. Homework: I will make a “physical” prototype of my garden.

I did not have a pet bottle so I used a similar recipient. I learned some things while doing this prototype. The hanging wire must be strong or it will bend. The hole on the bottle cap must be tiny. You can do it on the side and not on the bottom of the bottle cap. If you do a tiny hole the thred will block the water. A big hole will let the water flow out. A tiny hole and nylon thread, like the one we use in ladies necklasses is the ideal.

7. A video I found. The Work of Zina Nicole Lahr. She says that to bring life to something and animate it has always been a passion for her. This amazing girl was killed in an accident past November.

Music to grow plants and upside-down plants!

WEEK6_DAY3

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

I found this site about Sonic Bloom. It's not a band. It's about music to grow plants!! "Inventor and agro-sonic researcher Dan Carlson, is the inventor of Sonic Bloom. This is a technology that combines the use of sound (in the range of birdsong frequencies) to open the stomata of plants with the application of an organic foliar nutrient to realize the plants' genetic potential. "

So, besides tools...I guess one must consider a soundtrack in the house for our plants to be more happy and grow more. What to you think?

I found another! It's a record from 1970 called Music to grow plants! George Milstein, a New York horticulturist, says, the record has ' a high frequency sound that blends right in with the music. I believe that the sound waves cause the plants to keep their pores open longer and wider, allowing a greater exchange with the air around them.' The record is orchestral sorta-funk lounge, the type used in movies and TV shows back in the 1970s. When the music stops you can listen to a certain "buzzzzz".

Hilarious episode Talking plants from MythBusters!! Their conclusion: music and talking are plausible helpers on plant's growth. Too funny! What do you think?

2. PLACES TO KNOW

Padua’s botanical garden, the first university botanical garden in the world!The whole garden was founded to cultivate and study (trial, error and observation) medicinal plants.

An herbal

Drawings from De Materia Medica and Pedanius Dioscorides

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Rob Kesseler’s website and photos from seeds

Roger Bacon -  he believed and proceeded his studies with experiments
writing down his observations along the way. An early form of the modern scientific method: the cataloguing and interpretation of data.

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

The ants carrying seeds - Eko Adiyanto's photo and more

Urine as a fertilizer, and a good one!

"To go for unexpected solutions, it calls for interesting solutions. Be simple. Be lean. Be effective." From the Course Letter

“My imagination is a monastery and I am its monk.”

John Keats - English Romantic poet 

Jorge Luis Borges - In “The Garden of forking paths” (a story within a story), Ts’ui Pên imagines and constructs a mysterious intricate labyrinth. He also imagines a novel in which multiple futures are played out simultaneously. Soon the novel and the labyrinth are discovered to be one and the same.

Wayward Plants - plant adoption and the algaegarden that was shown at the The International Garden Festival in Quebec

Learning how to do it:- Instructubles - The basics on keeping a house-plant alive.
- Martha Stewart and her “seed 101”. 

- Instructables proposes 20 indoor gardening “do-it-yourself” projects.
- What about hydroponics? Has anyone of you ever tried it?
- The windowfarms project.
- Hydroponic DIY gardening 

-  8 essential tips for getting into indoor hydroponics.- The vertical garden with recycled bottles.

- Katarzyna Kobierska- “skyplanting”
- DIY upside-down planter guide 
- Lots od herb gardens ideas

6. HOMEWORK: 

Now, it’s up to you: find and collect all the materials needed to make your garden. Share a photo. 

7. AN EXTRA QUESTION: Is there any botanical garden near your house? Have you ever visited it? How was it?

Jardim Botânico da Universidade de Coimbra


The Botanical Garden of Coimbra's University was created in 1772 and integrated in the Museum of Natural History instituted by the academic reform undertaken by the Marquis of Pombal. The area of the Garden, successively enlarged, now covers about 13.5 hectares. From the mid-1990s visible structural improvements have been introduced, notably: renovation of the garden beds, enlargement of the collections, partial reconstruction of the pathways, recovery, automation and restoration of the greenhouses, lakes, statues, masonry and architectural groups, railings and gates, nurseries and auxiliary facilities, among others. As a whole, the Garden is divided into two parts: the woods and the gardens arranged in three terraces forming an amphitheatre. There are in excess of 1,200 species, some of which rare and exotic, and which afford the visitors a true journey through the world flora.

8. MORE HANGING PLANTS - Look at me, I'm a bat kind of plant!

Hanging plants

What is a weed?

WEEK6_DAY2

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY



2. PLACES TO KNOW

Saint-Nazaire, ex World War II submarine military base. The impenetrable German submarine base, was built during the Occupation and became the French HQ for the German navy, the Kriegsmarine. As a result, St-Nazaire became a major target for the Allies who destroyed the shipyards during Operation Chariot in 1942 followed by the rest of the city via a bombing raid in 1943. 

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Burle Marx - Roberto Burle Marx (1909-1994) was a ground-breaking artist and designer working in Brazil. He became interested in plants and gardens in his youth but his first public commission was in 1935 in Recife.

Burle Marx Garden - video

Gilles Clément - an article

Video - Gilles Clément is a gardener, landscape designer, botanist, educator and writer who trained in horticultural engineering and landscape design at the Versailles National School of Landscape Architecture. Clement discusses the "Third Landscape," a terrain classification describing abandoned spaces such as former industrial areas or nature reserves which are prime areas for accumulating bio-diversity.

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

Gilles Clément:The Third Landscape garden we are in is composed of species (stonecrop) compatible with the base’s climate and “non-soil” concrete. A series of spaces abandoned by human activity. The garden was conceived by Clément but it was “made” by Coloco and Eskis, two very good contemporary landscape design studios.

How to

- How-to make a one-pot indoor herb garden.
- How to make an indoor salad window box garden. 

- Apartment therapy blog has an enormous amount of do-it-yourself guides for indoor gardening...
- Inspiration for “vertical” gardens.

Hydroponics? It's a subset of hydroculture and is a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions, in water, without soil. Terrestrial plants may be grown with their roots in the mineral nutrient solution only or in an inert medium, such as perlite, gravel, mineral wool, expanded clay pebbles or coconut husk.

"Design is to know what you can achieve and what you can not. 

To know how much you can push yourself. 

Not too much. But not too little." 

From Course Letter

Will mushrooms save the world?

The world’s 80 most celebrated gardens, BBC's television series 

Roberto Burle Marx: a Brazilian polymath. He was a renowned for his gardens and modernist landscapes, but he was also a pretty good painter, printmaker, artist, musician etcetc. 

Another article about Burle

Jorge Dominguez (student) mentioned Edward Weston and his curious photographs of vegetables.
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” - Napoleon

Breaking news from the NY Times: Terrariums make a comeback. Mentioned by  Rosanna Li (Student) . How to make a terrarium? Examples of cute terrariums.

The world’s largest maze!

The yellow submarine toy

6. HOMEWORK You need to evaluate in a short amount of time which kind of little garden would be best for your needs, space and resources.

Project checklist

Evaluation of conditions:

Type of gardening: I like the idea of growing herbs I use in food. Mainly I use 3 kinds of herbs - parsley, coriander or cilantro, oregano. 

Weather/geographic conditions: it's winter in Portugal, temperatures 1-14ºC, rarely negative on the coast, that is where I live.

Space/use of the space: I have a balcony on a 3rd floor appartment that I can keep open or closed. I want suspended containers to keep the floor free. I already have a structure to suspend the containers.

Light: I have at least 6 hours of sun in my balcony.

Water: I have access to water

Containers: I want to take it with me when I move in an easy way. I'll use pet bottles.

Evaluation of resources: 

a. Money: I will start with one container and one herb and see how it goes. I do not want to spend money at this time. Also I made some experiences before and plants died on the balcony. I don't know if it's caused by the sea proximity.

b. Herb seeds: I will buy some parsley seeds. I use parsley all the time.

c. Soil: my neighbour agreed to assist me

d. Fertilizer: my neighbour agreed to assist me

e. Gardenning tools:a spatule and my hands it will do. I can make a tool out of the pet bottle also.

f. DIY container project: xacto knife, pliers, ruler, marker, scissor, strong wire, pet bottle, pebbles, metal perforator, nylon thread
g. Time: one hour per task (Design 101 rule)
h. Extra: digital camera, computor, graphic software

c. Information on the herbs: 

Where to get good seeds - always get biological seeds and GMO free, I found it here. But I have parsley seeds on local store, faster.

Como semear salsa, coentro e orégão

How to grow Parsley

More about Parsley cultivation 

More on Parsley

More on Parsley

How to make compost for the plants

How to test pH soil level

Let's start growing Parsley from seeds?

Seeds germinate in 11 to 28 days. Parsley seed is slow to germinate (it can take up to a month).

To speed the process, soak seeds overnight, and then freeze for a week before planting.

Parsley does best in a fertile, moist, sandy loam with good drainage.

The pH range should be 6.0 to 8.0.

The plant will tolerate some shade but needs sun light.

Sows seeds directly in the garden about 2 to 4 weeks prior to the last spring frost.

Plant seeds ¼ inch deepWhen growing parsley, it is best to keep the soil moist, but not soggy.  Don’t let the soil dry out. 

The plants have deep root systems, so avoid using shallow pots

It's a garden biennial herb(it returns for a second gardening season)

Soil in containers tends to dry out very quickly.  You will need to offer your plants a light watering daily. 

Alive and floating

WEEK6_DAY1_ IT'S ALIVE

1. SOUNDTRACK OF THE DAY

All along the watchtower - (Hendrix singing Dylan’s)

2. PLACES TO KNOW

San Francisco, Sausalito

A guy making a living on selling houses made a nice video about Sausalito

3. PEOPLE TO DISCOVER

Stewart Brand  

Mirene tugboat:why a boat? The Mirene is a working, 64-foot-long tugboat built in 1912. Sometimes he takes the boat out cruising. He turned the wheelhouse and skipper’s cabin into a bedroom, with two rooms and a bath below.

Interview 1 

Conference Whole Earth Discipline at RSA 

4. QUESTION OF THE DAY

5. INSPIRATION

 Stewart Brand says: “We are as gods and might as well get good at it.”

“Look! It’s moving. It’s alive. It’s alive... It’s alive, it’s moving, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive, IT’S ALIVE!... ...Oh, in the name of God! Now I know what it feels like to be God!”

Hydroponics 

Windowfarms - building your own little vertical garden in your window. It’s an open source project + big community attached to it.

How to window farm

The amazing String Gardens!

Stewart Brand - Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish

-  In 1968, he created the Whole Earth Catalog’s - reading about it here.

Here’s what Steve Jobs had to say about it: “...one of the bibles of my generation… It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.”

An article on The Guardian - The book that changed the world.

A compass.

All along the watchtower

There must be some kind of way out of here,

Said the joker to the thief,

“There’s too much confusion,

I can’t get no relief.

Businessman they drink my wine,

Plowman dig my earth

None will level on the line,

nobody offered his word...

(Hendrix singing Dylan’s)

6. Some more links to check

Miniature plant in keychain (Monica G student contribution)

The one-straw Revolution - book ( Mariela Cordero contribution)

Fedor Van der Vaulk Piet Oudolf -
Thingiverse