Nature Spheres: Inversion

This post follows my Nature Spheres post.

Like the Eden Project, the Lost Gardens of Heligan is a bit of a theme park. However, it is the grown up and matured version of the Eden Project. Its collection is marked by cultural uniqueness rather than structural uniqueness; It is the permanent home and birthplace of produce, rather than a stadium where produce is brought to be marketed. It has geometrical forms, but rather than contain nature they support and are intertwined by nature. It is not an overly expensive cause of tourist congestion at the expense of small towns, its restoration revitalised the gardens "but also the local economy around Heligan by providing employment." (Wikipedia)


Heligan Gardens [Wikipedia]
Heligan Gardens [Official Website]

Nature Spheres

There's something about geometrical greenhouses containing sample ecologies that just seems grand. I guess it says, "Science owns nature" or something similar. It's the modernist ideal, isn't it?

So to continue the formal study, what or who owns science, and how does that get represented? The Biosphere 2, originally built by a cult-like organisation as a sealed experiment, has been given to the University of Arizona, and its surrounding land will soon be filled with suburban houses. It is the odd piece of history around the corner.

The Eden Project is more recent, and not in desperate search of support. Its calendar is dotted with festivals and celebrations, and operates almost as a theme park. Like most theme parks, it has land distinct from any urban centre. Its bubbles exist in a world apart from ours.


Biosphere 2 [Wikipedia]
Biosphere 2 [Official Website]
Eden Project [Official Website]
Eden Event Diary [Official Website]

Earthships: The individual within the whole

I visited the Earthships a few years ago, and have used them as precedent studies within a number of projects. Their paradoxical embrace of both self-reliance and interdependecy are poetry through function.

Although I couldn't see a whole world dotted by these off-grid houses, I could see a whole world teeming with their sensibility (a utopia, no doubt): Keep your environment personal, take time to think creatively, and always remember that you are part of a larger whole.


Earthships of Taos, New Mexico [Sangres]

Green Between the Cracks

The influences of guerilla gardenning and trash mirrors converge, in this post about moss-based graffiti:

The graffiti is grown in lines of text, the wall framing a single line of a larger poem - the entirety of which will show up over time on various walls around town. Not quite as responsive as the trash mirrors, but also reflective - in a different way.

Perhaps there's also something of the telectroscope here too, in the emergent connection of different places.

20 Masterpieces of Green Graffiti [Environmental Graffiti]