KEEP OFF THE GRASS! Planar Landscape Phenomena

Under Grass at Opening.

Words from the architect

The project was a temporary exhibit at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI_Arc) installed in the schools gallery for an eight week period between December 12, 2003 and February 6, 2004.

The ubiquitous lawn was the subject of this heuristic exercise about our cultural relationship to that thin plane of suburban carpet. The installation included the suspension of over 1, 000 square feet of grass sod in the exhibition space exploring the tectonic nature of this plane by emphasizing its tissue-like thinness, flexibility, and texture, while commenting on its negative impacts on our larger environment.

Grass Opening.

The decision to work with sod allowed us to examine the relationship between the organic (living) and the manufactured (processed.) This dichotomy relates to our continued exploration with hybrid dialogues. Our research into this ubiquitous material furthered an understanding of the material as a manufactured product in its shaved thin plates, that are grown and scraped off the earth, cut into standardized modules, and delivered to their respective destinations. Yet it also is an organic, changing, living organism, one which also has serious environmental implications.

Installation Exhibit.

There is a an irony in the decision to place sod in an interior space, as well as in the location of SCI-Arc, in an industrial urban area of Los Angeles. By placing the sod in a quite unnatural state (suspended) we emphasized its inherent physicality as a manufactured plane and as the sod slowly decayed and changed over the duration of the exhibition we also called attention to the actual maintenance required of such a material. The slow decay then serves to remind us of our precarious relationship to landscape, and in this case the very obvious need that this specific material has to water. Statistical information placed on the walls critiqued the pervasive use of grass in our desert environment, while a long strip of light placed against the wall at three and half feet above the floor recorded the volume of water needed for one year's worth of maintenance.

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