Living Systems: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture

Science News, Jan 19, 2008

LIVING SYSTEMS: Innovative Materials and Technologies for Landscape Architecture

LIAT MARGOLIS AND ALEXANDER ROBINSON, EDS.

The growing demand for ecoconscious technology calls for new concepts and materials drawn from the work of designers, engineers, microbiologists, and ecologists. One such project proposes a fiber-optic marsh along a polluted coastline in Providence, R.I. The fiber-optic rods would both monitor contamination levels (shifting in color as water chemistry changes) and provide a substrate for organisms that lived on native eelgrass before it was devastated, all the while providing an glowing spectacle. The marsh is one of the 36 novel, built and unbuilt projects described in this book by landscape architects Margolis and Robinson. The projects demonstrate state-of-the-art technologies designed to adapt to the natural processes of water flow, growth, and erosion, among others. Rather than a frozen backdrop, the editors imagine landscape as a motion picture film or as an evolving organism that influences man-made structures day to night, season to season. More than an enticing coffee-table piece, Living Systems demonstrates the successful synthesis of art and science. Birkhauser, 2007, 191 p., color illus., hardcover, $89.95.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]