Lightness

Keep O the Grass!: planar landscape phenomena is project was an installation at the SCI-Arc Gallery (Southern California Institute of Architecture). Since there was no real program or pedagogical agenda related to the gallery program, we were able to investigate work in an installation form that was free from the constraints placed on typical projects. We began with an interest in the paradoxical nature of sod as a material. While sod is bound to the ground plane as a topographical surface, it is also a highly manufactured product. Sod is grown on large farms throughout the United States, then literally sheared o the land in rolls and cut into 2 by 4 sections that are stacked and delivered to their various destinations. Installed like carpeting, sod is returned to the earth and becomes the ubiquitous suburban lawn that is so prevalent in our environment. We became interested in the notion of exploiting and inverting the heavy earthbound nature of this material, and exposing its hidden but inherent manufactured characteristics. e site of the installation, in the downtown area of Los Angeles, devoid of landscape and green space, added to the paradoxical notion of using a literal green material in an area where little existed. Over 1,000 square feet of hydroponic sod grass was treated as a oating surface and formed into an undulating, hovering carpet suspended over the oor of the gallery, nearly lling the space. To underscore the plane as a levitated piece, the entire structure was hung from steel cables attached to the gallery ceiling, leaving the ground beneath it free. Two parallel 12-inch-deep CNC-milled plywood beams provided the primary support for some seventy 1-inch steel pipes placed a foot apart (Figures 16.10-16.11). e attachment of the pipes to the plywood beams was purposely separated so the plywood appeared to be oating slightly beneath the underside of the sod. Diagonal cables weaved between the pipes and the plywood beams to provide lateral stability and limit buckling of the members (Figures 16.12-16.13). In one area the sod was omitted and the structure of one beam exposed, allowing an unobstructed view of the support system. e undulating form is derived from obvious notions of rolling bucolic hills, at the same time engaging the visitor by requiring movement around the piece to understand its totality. us the undulations required the viewer to move around, under, and nally above the form to the gallery balcony to fully read the piece. e curvilinear plane was lowered at the entrance to invite the viewer into the space. Further deformations arched toward the back of the gallery where a larger volume was created by the underside of the roots and supporting structure (Figures 16.14-16.18).