This project is about lichens and their tremendous and constant endeavor to transform the surfaces of rocks and concrete deserts of our cities into friendly, green landscapes. Lichens are first colonizers and prepare wastelands for ecologically valuable habitats.
Lichens mark the transition from natural to urban areas, in which they have been greatly reduced in their biodiversity and spread due to poor air quality, traffic, excess nitrogen and heavy use of herbicides. Citizens remove lichens from surfaces with great effort because they want to emphasize cleanliness and clarity, following a modernist ideal of architecture.
As an artist, I develop aesthetics to counteract the disregard of lichens. Design patters, that follow the growth patterns of
lichens make vegetation recognizable as an added value instead of seeing it as a flaw. Our custom made graphic software shall be used to show how buildings and façades can be designed without eliminating lichens. This is done based on modular design patterns, which are derived from lichen handdrawings on lichen photos. In the software we use bottom up graphic algorithms to learn about lichen growth and AI to understand their colonization patterns. The resulting patterns are intended to serve as inspiration and blueprints for surface design of façades, sidewalks, roofs and walls where lichen growth is expected. This should shift the aesthetic paradigm from “neat and clean” to “naturally thriving”, questioning how the aesthetics of a healthy city has are looking like and if this coincidences with our design measures.
