Making Darkness 2 – Plants and the Ecology of the City

Earth Hour, happening around the Spring equinox since 2008, is the time committed to the planet when humans are encouraged to switch off non-essential artificial lights. The plant needs the insect for pollination, the night pollinator, like many other living beings, needs darkness to operate and reproduce… If we study plants we study parameters, spatial qualities and conditions that define the environment and ultimately a system of nature.

The seminar focuses not only on different aspects of the complex relationship of plants with architecture. It also suggests the essential transgressive perspective of natural history as applied to the all-encompassing anthropogenic environment in which the traditional dualism of nature and city is dissolved, exchanged for the notion of an environment where the social sphere is extended to all living organisms, equal and mutually dependent. The notion of Making Darkness in the seminar’s title addresses alternate examples of modernity that aim to include larger ecological systems, counter to the classic human-centered perspective. This course will evaluate several aspects of urban space that question and expand the understanding of sustainability; for instance: the unmaintained vs standard maintenance practices, the unbridled plant growth and the spatial qualities of such a condition, decay and the full inclusion of natural biological processes in an urban environment as well as an introduction to permaculture and concepts of agroforestry, to mention some.

This seminar includes weekly readings with discussions, and a research.

First meeting and introduction:
Wednesday, 09.10.24, 10:00 am, room 413