Pang & Harris

ContentsOUR MOTIVATION

EXISTING EXAMPLES

The First Wave of Informal Urban Practice

Green Time Bom

The Flower’s Message

Misplaced Plants

The Combination

The Second Wave of Informal Urban Practice

Green Brick

Adopt a Plant

Random Vase

Migrating Vine

The Poster

Exhibition Photos

Faceboook

REFLECTION

THE NEW PROJECT

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We aim at stregthening the relationship between humans and nature.OUR INTENTION

A series of projects/practices that protests deforestation and encourages urban greenery.

PROJECT BRIEF

Every year more than 8.5 million hectares of tropical rainforests are being razed. Deforestation is a direct cause of the 6th mass extinction of planet Earth, an ongoing mass extinction with a rapid rate of 27000 species disappearing annually.

“With the current rate of extinction, 20% of all species would be gone by 2022. And if the rate of human destruction continues, one half of all species will disappear in 100 years.”

-E.O.Wilson, one of the greatest biologists of our time

As these species vanish from the globe, the world will be a poorer and less colorful place. But do we care? So little action is taken that I doubt it. Why don’t people care? Perhaps it’s because we all live in our own bubble. We miss out what is really happening out there in nature, we don’t see and we don’t feel. We have no connection with nature and therefore no love for it. If one has no love for something, why should he care?

“I think that our distance from nature is already a cliché. City dwellers often have no relationship with animals or greenery.”

-Edina Tokodi, creator of the “living graffiti”

So, the problem is there isn’t enough element of nature in the bubble we live in. We need more to remind us of worlds beyond our walls.

OUR MOTIVATION

A very good example will be Edina Tokodi’s Living Graffiti, where she would create images on wall using living moss or scrubs.

Edina builds on her characteristic meme of shadows-of wild-life — the fuzzy and simple reminders for urbanites that there is a wilderness out there beyond our cities.

“For me, the reaction of life on the street is also very important. I am curious about how people receive them, if they just leave them alone, or if they want to, take care of them or dismantle them.” Said Edina.

-article by Abigail Doan, Inhabitat

EXISTING EXAMPLES

The First Wave of Informal Urban Practice

Green Time Bom

The Flower’s Message

Misplaced Plants

The Combination

The idea is to design a device that could hold seeds in it, and could be hidden anywhere in the city environment without people noticing it. It will reveal itself as the plant grows up.

Nature can occur anywhere, as long as we don’t stop it.

The devise is to be made out of degradable recycled material (fast food paper bags etc.), so as the plant grows, the package degrades and disappears. The package is only needed to hold soil & water and protect the seeds while it grows, once the plant is big enough, it can sustain itself as the package fades away.

These seed packets shall be largely distributed across the city environment, such as hanging from the walls of alley ways, hidden behind a sign board, stuck under public seating, and all sorts of unexpected

places. This can also test the relationship between people and plants. Will people remove a living plant just because it is growing in the wrong place, for instance on a public chair? Or would people rather enjoy their presence? After all, who are we to decide where should a living plant grow and where it shouldn’t? Earth is a place for all life form to share.

THE GREEN TIME BOM

If this project is a success, another similar devise would be properly designed, and released as a product to be used as household item. It is a vessel that holds plants, but most importantly, it should make planting very easy. For instance, watering should be automatic, so the owner doesn’t have to constantly remember to water the plant. Easy planting encourages the laziest people to bring plants home. When everyone has plants at home, the connection between plants and human is improved. So the next time one sees a report on deforestation, he could feel the pain too.

The project structure: The informal urban practice of distributing seeds across the city, leads to the opportunity for a product that encourages urban greenery.

The Making Process

Around 30 seed packets were made and they are all hidden in different places within the city and the docklands.

green time bom

The Hiding Process green time bom

The aim of this project is to directly deliver (or say force) the message to the public, and as a side effect, encourages planting. The idea is reusing beer bottles as vase with a message attached to it (basically a piece of paper), place pretty flowers in it, and display it on the streets. Those who like are free to take one home.

The flowers are strong tools for attracting people, their desire for the flower would attract them to finally see the message (or the note attached to the vase). The message is a strong one, and could be rather depressing, it addresses some of the worse facts related to deforestation and the destruction of wildlife. When we are busy enjoying life, never shall we forget the worlds beyond our walls. If no action is taken, the beautiful nature we are witnessing now would disappear soon.

THE FLOWER’S MESSAGE

If the reaction of the public is good (which is the case), the next stage could be introduced. The 2nd stage would be to encourage people to plant these flowers in their garden (or in a pot) instead of just displaying it on the table until in dies. The concept stays the same, except the material for the vase is to be replaced. A biodegradable material, recycled news papers for instance, could be used to plant the flowers. The public could simply take one home and place it in their garden soil or flower pot, the plant grows and the paper vase finally degrades. The message (paper note) would be changed into a two sided one; one side addressing the depressing issues, the other side offering a solution (in this case it’s planting). One flower could trigger a person’s will of planting, who knows?

The project structure: The informal urban practice of ‘educating’ by message delivering, leads to the opportunity for a project that ‘encourages’ planting. First education, then encouragement.

The response of the public is generally good. People would stop by, wonder and finally squat down to have a closer look. All the flowers we offer were taken within 30 minutes. The project is considered sucessful.

The Public’s Reaction

This is a small project, simply testing the relationship between plants and human. The idea is to place plants in the “wrong” spot. For instance, on the public chair, in the middle of the streets, next to the tram stop’s timetable, etc. By observing the reaction of the public to these plants, we can see how people view nature. Do they find it annoying because the plant gets in their way, or do people rather enjoy the presence of it? I am certain there will be people trying to remove it because it isn’t the right place to grow plants. The question is, do we humans have right to decide where a living organism should grow or where it shouldn’t? We are not GOD! We have to respect life, no matter what form it’s in.

Numerous lives out there has been on earth longer than we humans do, they have every right to exist.

THE MISPLACED PLANTS

This project is the hybrid practice of the “ugly message” and the “misplaced plant”. The idea is to place plants in the ‘wrong ‘spot, again. But this time, messages (paper notes) are included. The misplaced plants draws people’s attention to discover the messages attached to it. They are free to take a paper note which again, addresses all the environmental issues. In this practice, pretty flowers are not used. Instead, more ordinary plants like grass and small yellow flowers are used to gain attention. It’s a contrast with the previous project “pretty flowers & ugly message”. This enables us to observe the hierarchy between plants. Are people only attracted to pretty flowers, or is an ordinary plant equally important to them? Again, the question is, who are we to say if one plant is better than the other? Who are we to judge life? We are not GOD! Life is equal, no matter what form it’s in.

Who are we to judge life?

THE COMBINATION

Out of our 4 previous small projects, 2 were considered successful – the flower’s message and the misplaced plants.

What we discovered from our first wave of informal urban practice is that people do get attracted by pretty flower and plants, with a little tactic such as placing plants in awkward places or some unusual packaging can boost up the effect of attraction. People do take notice of the misplaced plants and most of them would stop by to look at the flowers in beer bottles. Even though we used cheap beer bottles as vase, the flowers are still pretty enough to gain attention, the arrangement and position are outstanding enough to gain curiosity, that all the bottles we offered were taken away by the public within 30 minutes.

What isn’t presented in the previous projects is the opportunity to gain feedbacks. The public took the objects we offered and our messages were delivered, but we don’t know how passionate people are with our ideas, we need more opinions and knowledge. Also the practices are too small and lasted for a very short time. In short, they are not impactful enough.

In our new set of informal urban practice, we decide to gather a few projects and display them together as a small exhibition. What is differ-ent from the conventional exhibition is that people are free to take away the exhibits if they like.

REFLECTION

THE NEW PROJECT

The Second Wave of Informal Urban Practice

Green Brick

Adopt a Plant

Random Vase

The Poster

These bricks are prototypes of the Green Brick concept. It demon-strates the possibility to manufacture bricks that could hold and grow plants in it. Imagine, if 5% of the bricks used to build your wall are green bricks with living plants, wouldn’t your wall look great? And mind you, green walls are perfect insulation!

Take one brick home and try to make some yourself, pile it up against your wall and wala! A green wall! (Do let your kids help you out, they will have fun!)

Green Brick

100 mm

150 mm

100 mm

200mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

Each brick we display contents different information.

The red ones present you with environmental issues caused by destruction of plants (forest).

The blue ones offer you a solution (which is planting) and why we should do it.

The green ones communicate some useful tips on eco-friendly planting and gardening.

Share Your KnowledgeThis project is run by 2 person, and our knowledge and experience are limited, so we need your help to keep the project going! Please share with us your knowledge on the below topic. If the information you provide is valuable, we will include them in the next batch of green bricks to be shared to the public! • Good things about plants that we did not include in our green bricks that you think are worth sharing?• Any tips on plantings (best be eco-friendly) that you would like to share?• Any types of plants you think are great and worth planting? Why?• Any idea to creatively display/grow plants? (like the green bricks we did).• Tell us why you love plants or planting.Please include your name and occupation if you don’t mind, thank you!

Feedback

Migrating Vine

Exhibition Photos

Faceboook

Green BrickThe green brick is inspired by the methods used in the flower’s message. We used the same principle: attract people with plants then deliver them a message, but this time it takes a different form.

Each of the bricks is attached with a note, containing information on three categories: 1. the environmental crises brought by deforestation, 2. the benefits of plantings and 3. Useful tips on Eco-friendly gardening. In the previous projects, we deliver messages only on the 1st categories, addressing all the depressing issues, but now, we add in 2 new categories, the 2nd one offers a solution and states reasons for doing it, the 3rd one offering ways and methods of actually doing it. This is because it turns out that encouragement is more effective than educating.

When it comes to raising environmental awareness, it turns out encouragement is even more important than education.-Eric Eckl, founder of Water Blog “Environmental awareness: encouragement vs education”

The most powerful aspect of our project is the ability to let people manipulate. What we are truly sharing is the ideology that is embedded within the objects that are given away. That is why the new project takes form of a brick. The green brick is just an example that we used to demonstrate creative planting. It is easy and fun to make, and it shows potential to form a vertical plant wall.

We encourage planting by allowing people to see the possibility of bringing that idea home and reproduce it easily. We encourage planting by demonstrating the fun it could bring. And we certainly encourage planting by addressing the importance and needs of plants in our living.

The green bricks are made out of waste cardboard boxes as structure (found on the side of the road), and scrap fabrics as soil medium (found in the fashion design department). Using recycled materials is also part of our project philosophy. Our intention is to raise environmental awareness, so it is important that we adopt methods of Eco-design.

This practice is the continue version of the previous “flower’s message”. As stated in the previous proposal, the “flower’s message” project if successful, will be developed into t h e next stage to encourage real planting. So instead of using flowers as decoration until it dies, we offer baby plants in newspaper bowls containing soil. This is a gift for those who would like to start planting, a motivation for the beginners. Those who took one home can either replant it in a pot, or can simply drop it into their garden soil (even with the newspaper as it will degrade).

Like the Green Brick, each of these plant units is attached with a note containing the same information mentioned previously.

The shelving unit for the baby plants takes a “voronoi pattern” ish form. This kind of shelving is not at all innovative, but it is a relevant shape

Adopt A Plant

for this project. It is a shape that is very much inspired by nature, the cell structure, the bee hive, venation of a leaf etc. It is a shape that well promotes nature, which is what our projects intend to do.

It says clearly on our display stand: “when you are into planting, everything looks like a vase”. This display aims at demonstrating the fun and creative side of planting. Dealing with plants in the traditional way could be boring; some interesting planting vessel could light up people’s eyes and get them interested. That’s why we use the famous energy drink can, the Coke bottle, Converse’s canvas shoes, Smith’s chips package etc. We make use of all the contemporary waste that youngsters produced. This enables us to also target the younger population.

The Random Vase

The PosterWe stick an A1 size poster on the wall along with our projects. The poster contains of 3 parts. The first part introduces our project and ideology, the second part shows a diagram on how to make a Green Brick while the third part is a white space requesting feedbacks from the public.

The diagram that illustrates the makings of the Green Brick allows people to bring this idea home and DIY. We also encourage them to let their kids participate in making the bricks and planting, which will not only be educational for the child, but can also strengthen family relationship. We sated specific topics for the feedback area, requesting the sharing of knowledge on plants and gardening as well as ideas of creative planting.

These bricks are prototypes of the Green Brick concept. It demon-strates the possibility to manufacture bricks that could hold and grow plants in it. Imagine, if 5% of the bricks used to build your wall are green bricks with living plants, wouldn’t your wall look great? And mind you, green walls are perfect insulation!

Take one brick home and try to make some yourself, pile it up against your wall and wala! A green wall! (Do let your kids help you out, they will have fun!)

150 mm

100 mm

150 mm

200mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

Each brick we display contents different information.

The red ones present you with environmental issues caused by destruction of plants (forest).

The blue ones offer you a solution (which is planting) and why we should do it.

The green ones communicate some useful tips on eco-friendly planting and gardening.

Share Your KnowledgeThis project is run by 2 person, and our knowledge and experience are limited, so we need your help to keep the project going! Please share with us your knowledge on the below topic. If the information you provide is valuable, we will include them in the next batch of green bricks to be shared to the public! • Goodthingsaboutplantsthatwedidnotincludeinourgreenbricksthatyouthinkareworthsharing?• Anytipsonplantings(bestbeeco-friendly)thatyouwouldliketoshare?• Anytypesofplantsyouthinkaregreatandworthplanting?Why?• Anyideatocreativelydisplay/growplants?(likethegreenbrickswedid).• Telluswhyyouloveplantsorplanting.Please include your name and occupation if you don’t mind, thank you!

These bricks are prototypes of the Green Brick concept. It demon-strates the possibility to manufacture bricks that could hold and grow plants in it. Imagine, if 5% of the bricks used to build your wall are green bricks with living plants, wouldn’t your wall look great? And mind you, green walls are perfect insulation!

Take one brick home and try to make some yourself, pile it up against your wall and wala! A green wall! (Do let your kids help you out, they will have fun!)

Green Brick

100 mm

150 mm

100 mm

200mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

Each brick we display contents different information.

The red ones present you with environmental issues caused by destruction of plants (forest).

The blue ones offer you a solution (which is planting) and why we should do it.

The green ones communicate some useful tips on eco-friendly planting and gardening.

Share Your KnowledgeThis project is run by 2 person, and our knowledge and experience are limited, so we need your help to keep the project going! Please share with us your knowledge on the below topic. If the information you provide is valuable, we will include them in the next batch of green bricks to be shared to the public! • Good things about plants that we did not include in our green bricks that you think are worth sharing?• Any tips on plantings (best be eco-friendly) that you would like to share?• Any types of plants you think are great and worth planting? Why?• Any idea to creatively display/grow plants? (like the green bricks we did).• Tell us why you love plants or planting.Please include your name and occupation if you don’t mind, thank you!

Feedback

These bricks are prototypes of the Green Brick concept. It demon-strates the possibility to manufacture bricks that could hold and grow plants in it. Imagine, if 5% of the bricks used to build your wall are green bricks with living plants, wouldn’t your wall look great? And mind you, green walls are perfect insulation!

Take one brick home and try to make some yourself, pile it up against your wall and wala! A green wall! (Do let your kids help you out, they will have fun!)

Green Brick

100 mm

150 mm

100 mm

200mm

100mm

100mm

100mm

Each brick we display contents different information.

The red ones present you with environmental issues caused by destruction of plants (forest).

The blue ones offer you a solution (which is planting) and why we should do it.

The green ones communicate some useful tips on eco-friendly planting and gardening.

Share Your KnowledgeThis project is run by 2 person, and our knowledge and experience are limited, so we need your help to keep the project going! Please share with us your knowledge on the below topic. If the information you provide is valuable, we will include them in the next batch of green bricks to be shared to the public! • Good things about plants that we did not include in our green bricks that you think are worth sharing?• Any tips on plantings (best be eco-friendly) that you would like to share?• Any types of plants you think are great and worth planting? Why?• Any idea to creatively display/grow plants? (like the green bricks we did).• Tell us why you love plants or planting.Please include your name and occupation if you don’t mind, thank you!

Feedback

The plan was to use useful feedbacks (such as benefits of planting or environmental crises that we don’t know) and incorporate them into the next batch of green bricks which will be given out. This way it becomes a cycle, you take a brick and share some knowledge, then we take that information and put it into the next display, the next person takes a brick containing the information you provide, then he leaves another piece of information… This cycle allows us to harness knowledge, ideas and opinions from the public, and could potentially make it an archive.

However, all the feedbacks that we got are mostly telling us how great we are, how awesome our ideas are and how thankful they are for the free plants. The one useful feedback is someone requesting to find us on the internet, so the next thing we did is create a Facebook account!

After displaying for 2 days, we created a facebook account. Uploading photos and writing notes about the projects we’ve done so far. Then we post a notice on the wall where we displayed our projects announcing that we are on facebook. We see opportunity to create a community on the internet that is passionate about the idea of a greener city. We could exchange ideas and knowledge via facebook and plan for new informal urban practice. By then, more people will be taking part with us!

Facebook

This is the furthur development of the Green Time Bom. It is made using beer bottles, fishing lines and crawling plants. The idea of the Green Time bom was to hide plants anywhere in city and let people notice them when they grow to a certain size. However, the limited soil couldn’t store enough water, causing most of the plants to die. Through our testing, we realise that vine has very survival power and it could growing in water without any soil medium. The fishing lines are used to support the bottles but its main purpose is to direct the veins growth.

We tested this idea on the No.2 Yarra River Bridge. We decided to display them during the evening as this is the time where most people would walk pass towards the train station. The responses of people felt good and they are generally interested in what we were doing. However, when we went back on the next day, those bottles were gone. Although this project was not fully successful, people still get some ideas of creative planting and they seemed to like it.

Migrating Vine

Exhibition Photos