Thinking Process...

I wanted to focus my idea around the relationship between people and plants. Humans can provide plants with the sustenance they need for growth - such as sunlight access for photosynthesis, sufficient amounts of water, rich soil, and adequate air and temperature. Once the plants have matured, they sustain people physically (by becoming food and providing people with the nutrients their body needs) and mentally (by creating an environment where people can relax their mind) In a sense, plants sustain the 'soul'.

As a starting point, I then started to look at garden houses and thinking about what means of sustenance do they provide plants - just as Ian suggested.

After some research, I found that plants needed four things in order to grow:

1) Plenty of sunlight.

2) Sufficient amounts of water.

3) Rich soil.

4) Adequate air and temperatures.

A garden could provide these things. The difference however, between the garden and the greenhouse was that the green house had more control over how much sunlight was accessing the plants, and it acted as a solid protection from bugs or birds that could harm plants.

Life cycle of a plant:

After watching this animation, I realised that human growth and plant growth are very similar. People develop from an egg inside a mother's womb. Plants develop from a seed, planted in soil. The egg develops until eventually it becomes a baby. The seed of a plant germinates until eventually a plant grows out of the soil. After birth, the baby grows into a toddler, then into a teenager, an adult, until eventually they grow old and die. Plants are very similar. Flowers bloom from the plant, and it continues to grow until it dies.
Before dying however, wind, water and bees to name a few carry out a process called "pollunation." This process ensures that the name species of that plant will continue to breed else where, yet under the same conditions. Likewise with humans. Before dying, or as a child grows older, they have babies. These children ensure that the family name is carried out. Humans populate so that humans don't extinct, just like plants pollunate to ensure that their species doesn't go extinct.
While growing up, children physically grow by eating, drinking water, sleeping, exercising, and so forth. Plants need sufficient amounts of water, sunlight for photosynthesis, rich soil, and an adequate air temeprature in order for them to grow.
The only difference with humans is that they don't only need physical sustenance. They also need emotional and mental sustenance. Plants don't have feelings, so they only require physical sustenance for growth.
In my opinion, humans can be providers of the sustenance plants need in order to grow, because they have the ability to control them. For example, humans can build greenhouses to not only shelter plants from pests, but can also control the amount of sunlight which access the plants.
Once plants have matured, they provide physical sustenance (by providing nutrients and oxygen) as well as mental and spiritual sustenance (by creating a space where one can relax the mind after a stressful day at work.)

Question: Which one can live without the other? Can humans survive without plants? Can plants survive without humans?

Plants need four things in order to grow:

1) Plenty of sunlight.

If plants don't get sunlight, they can't produce cholorophyll and they will lose their green colour and will eventually die.

Palm fronds exposed to plenty of sunlight has alot of "green"

Some of the palm fronds are beginning to turn yellow because sunlight access is restricted from the fronds above it.

2) Sufficient amounts of water.

Without water, the growth of a plant stops.

3) Rich soil.

Soil provides the plants with the nutrients and minerals that it needs for growth. It also supports the plant while it's growing, protects the plants roots from exposure to the sun's heatm and filters pollution that comes from rain and water runoff.

4) Adequate air and temperature.

Vegetables and plants grown at the wrong temperature produce poor-tasting and malformed crops.

A capsicum grown within the adequate temperature.

Capsicum grown in the wrong temperature.

So without sunlight, plants will lose it's green COLOUR. Without sufficient amounts of water, the GROWTH of plants will stop. Without rich soil, plants will have no SUPPORT. And if plants are grown in the wrong temperature they will deform - so their FORM is slightly changed. I'm thinking that maybe I could create a piece of architecture that responds to:
1) Abundant and lack of sunlight - by changing it's COLOUR.

2) Sufficient and lack of water - by stopping GROWTH (???)

3) Rich and poor soil - by acting as a SUPPORT for another building (???)

4) Adequate and inadequate temperature conditions - by changing its original FORM.

I started to play around a little with a simple squre box and morphing the shape so that it looks deformed.

I started with a square box because I first started looking at greenhouses - and most greenhouses generally have square shape.

I'm trying to show how the original form (in this case a square box) will change to a shape that is deformed, lacking support, and colour. I'm still not sure how I will incorporate the idea of stopped growth into the architecture.

I'm thinking also that the structure will react in a "cyclic" way - to emphasize on the fact that the life of a plant is a cycle - just as the animation showed. 

This just reminded me Dubai's Dynamic Twisted Building:

I noticed that the pattern in which the building twists is predictable because it has a starting point. From that starting point, the building twists until eventually it resumes its original position. Almost like a twisting "cycle" - and "cycle" is the idea I want to incorporate into my architecture.

4:52pm - After much research, I can't get onto Second Life to try out the sculptie I just formed on 3D max :(

Looking at different forms that the box shape could morph in too:

I thought about whether I should research on how plants will react if they get too much of what they need to be sustained. I thought NO, because I wanna focus on needing only "enough" of something in order to be sustained, and the effects of not having enough. Not sure if that makes sense!!!

11:42pm - Just got back from a looooooooooong wait at the hospital. Just scribbling up some different shapes in which a square box could morph into. 

 

Thursday 11/08/11.

PROBLEM:

I've realised that I've only been thinking about how the building would respond to the things that sustain a plant (sunlight, water, rich soil, and temperature). So I'm trying to think of ways in which the building/room can respond to the person walking through it. What the building responds to however, will be something related to these means of sustenance.

For example:

-The person's body temperature - for Temperature.

-A person's body structure when they're weak - for Lack of water.

-When someone flies - to show that they don't have ground support.

-At night - the building changes colour.

Scripting a prim to respond to a person's body temperature might be impossible. Nate suggested that maybe I could script the prims to CHANGE when my avatar says something. For example, when they walk into the building/room, they say "cold" and the walls morph into a blanket or something. Or when the avatar says "hot", the building blooms open like a flower to allow air into the room.

Here I tried to script one of my walls to change colour every 3 seconds. I couldn't get it to work. As soon as the wall turned green, it didn't go back to it's original colour :(

The other problem is, I'm loosing track of how the building changes in a CYCLE - which was my original idea :(.