A regenerative study of landscape and drought
Reflecting on long history of mining and its negative marks left on the land and the environment, I conceptualized a design mechanism that disperses the California poppy seeds. The design concept is highly focused on desert areas where the drought consequences have been aggravated in the past decades due to climate change and industrial activities such as mining.
Wikipedia
Dave Kavanaugh, retired beetle entomologist from the California Academy of Sciences:
“Those flower beetles in poppies are indeed there to eat pollen, which of course is a far richer and more nutritious food source than nectar. This also makes the beetles even better pollinators than most nectar feeders because they interact more directly and ‘purposefully’ with the pollen rather than just incidentally.”
"I believe that most of the beetles I have seen (often in great numbers) in California Poppy flowers have been members of the family Melyridae, subfamily Dasytinae, genus Listrus"
LOCATION : Mojave Desert, California where California Poppy seems to be present.
WATER CHANNELS : Mimicking the efficiency of beetles spreading infection through the body of trees, these channels are created by heavy seedbombs dropped from above the surface of the desert. Bombing the landscape is also a reference to gold mining during the gold rush. California Poppy was a symbol of gold on the hills to the miners. In this symbolic act of bombing the land I aim at metaphorically bringing the GOLD back to the Earth.
Over time, the air balloon above the surface of the ground, travels through the sky with a specific pattern, similar to the pattern in which bark beetles move through tree bark. Seedbombs are released on the ground to create cavities and eventually water channels in order to slow down the movement of the water on the land when it rains. This will decrease the drought levels in the area.
Variations of a Sphere
To further investigate the form of the seedboms, I made variations of a SPHERE. I kept the weigh and density equal among the two different sizes.
Then I observed and documented the ways in which each form broke in pieces when dropped from the same height.
This experiment helped to design the final form for the seedbombs. I measured the longer distances between the broken pieces in each form. I also documented whether it shattered into small pieces or broke into bigger ones.
The form n13, when broken, dispersed its pieces at the fartherest distances in respect to the rest of the forms. The maximum distance between two pieces in n13 was 104 inches. When this form broke, I realized that the spheric shape of the elements facilitated the horizontal movement of the broken pieces, which would result in longer distance seed dispersal.
Final form has been designed based on the results of the breakage experiment.
When dropped from a distance, it creates cavities on the land due to its weight and it breaks into smaller pieces. These broken pieces roll through the surface of the desert to even farther distances. Each of the broken pieces of the clay seedbombs is embedded with California Poppy seeds and potassium. These are dormant mines waiting for the rain drops. The first rain in the desert would result in the chemical reaction between water and potassium and this will activate another explosion, dispersing seeds even farther. Each of these second explosions will leave another cavity on the land. The more wild flowers growing in the desert, the stronger the root systems to keep the water in the ground. Also more beetles, bees and birds would visit the area and they bring other seeds resulting in increase in the biodiversity.
©21st Century
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