As a plant collector myself, I thought about sharing some really interesting surfaces of living plants from the plants that I’ve tried growing myself!

I’m not sure if this is applicable to surface design per say as we can’t preserve or harness these textures, but its no doubt good points for inspirations!

Living Velvet

Introducing Ludisia Discolor! a type of Jewel orchid grown specially for its folliage. Interestingly its an orchid that grows in soil! What really makes this unique is the way its leaves are textured, when bent against the light, it exhibits a very velvet-like texture. These plants can be bought from most orchid nurseries in Singapore and they are really cheap! whats cool about these textures is that they turn a bright red under sunlight and retreat to a deep green when in shade. These are generally easy to grow plants as well!

Orchid Fur

Contrary to popular belief, orchids do grow fur too! introducing Dendrobium Senile, Senile meaning old, it resembles that of a really old person, with white hairs throughout its body!

These are specially grown for its fur-like growth and unfortunately for us, these plants require a cold drop in night temperatures to flower which Singapore sadly does not have. The dried bulbs of these plants could be used for some sort of surface material?

Living Metal

Similarly to Ludisia Discolor, Malaxis Metallica which is yet another jewel orchid showcases a very metallic appearance of its leaves. Under lighting, they glow in a high definition gloss that plant collectors go for! Perhaps the purplish tinge could be used as a dye as well? unfortunately these plants are valuable that one should think twice before extracting their pigments.

Oh I figured out I could post directly to the class’s site!

I would like to share with everyone basically some findings I had during my research process for my FYP. As my FYP simply revolves around a cooling case to induce flowering for plants, I had to seek insulative materials apart from styrofoam or acrylics. Fortunately I found some pretty cool alternatives here:

Mushroom Leather

Leather created from mushrooms! These are created from the caps of mushrooms, and intertwined with pieces of linen and hemp fibres before treatment with tanning chemicals.
link>> http://www.ecouterre.com/muskin-a-vegan-leather-made-entirely-from-mushrooms/

Prof Galina did mention this for me before and its no doubt something cool to consider! there’s also a derivative of mushroom styrofoam as well that are laced with the mycellium needed to grow more mushrooms!

Pineapple Leather

Leather created from pineapple leaves. These could very well be shaped into pockets or holders that can keep the coldness in.

The fibres for the leather are extracted from pineapple leaves through a process called decortication and are hung up to dry. These fibres are then processed in an advanced textile machinery process.

link>> http://www.ananas-anam.com/pinatex/

link>> https://www.fastcoexist.com/3059190/this-gorgeous-sustainable-leather-is-made-from-pineapple-waste

 

Cool fact:

Pineapples are actually related to air plants, they are both within the brommeliad family and if you look closely at the pineapple and air plant leaves, they are starkingly similar with a outer silverish covering that turns green when you scrape it.

Flora Felt (made from recycled plastic bottles)

Simply put, these are felt fabrics woven from plastic water bottles, it is an array of inter meshed plastic fibers.

What you see above is a product named Woolly pockets made from these plastic felt materials and one really good thing about them is that they are waterproof and do not break or tear apart easily which makes it really good for holding soil in position. Unfortunately, based on my own experiences working for a plant company, salt deposits from the soil composition would accumulate at the base of these fabrics, resulting in a very unsightly textures.

Was tending to this greenwall at the Taxi association of Singapore and that project was no doubt a failure as the plants were not only doing badly due to the poor lighting, the felt were all crusted with salt.

This material was one of the options I suggested to my superior at Gardens by the Bay for a vertical wall system to be set up within the Flower Dome.