065 Urban nature

Our small contribution to the exposition Urban Nature by VAI in deSingel 

Exposition from 15 November 2023 - 17 March 2024.

BWMSTR Label 028 Urban Nature research by 1010, Fallow and Grue. 

The city is a collection of different timelines: natural and built, alive and lifeless. 

Some things last longer and become permanent layers of the city, while others are temporary. 

Some things are adaptive and seasonal, like the plants taking root in a crack in a stone wall. 

The tension between temporality and permanence. 

A temporary structure is built around a weathered stone cathedral. 

The plant will be there as long as someone does not remove it while restoring the historical building. 

Urban structures become s support for the new ecosystem for plants. 

Under the sewage grating, one finds a small universe of some green species. 

We imagine a city overrun by plants.

A city where people let the plants grow.

A city where wildlife takes over, where people appreciate the imperfections of nature. 

The tension between the architecture and nature is the tension between the past, the present and the future ….

The tension between the preservation of architecture and the struggle against the nature that constantly wants to take over the architecture.

* Images (from left to right): work in progress (2023) - Duomo, Milan (2023) - Sewage grating, Paris (2023)

Collage of drawings and photographs by Malgorzata Maria Olchowska and York Bing Oh