Growing Cities Like Plants

Working with city planners at Cambridge University’s North West Cambridge Development (NWCD) and researchers at the Sainsbury Plant Laboratory, this project used research into the regulatory systems underlying plant growth and techniques acquired from plant biology to re-think principles of city planning and the growth of cities. The project built robotic hardware which generated city maps, using software that simulated the growth of cities like the meristem of a plant; from initial settlements of few houses, gradually adding roads and buildings as the population of the city increased and traffic flows changed. The project questioned whether flows of populations, money, industries, commerce and traffic could be modelled similarly to how plant growth simulations model diffusion and reactions of hormones within a plant. The project was exhibited at The North West Cambridge Development (NWCD) and at the Sainsbury Plant Laboratory. It was sommissioned by Cambridge University and curated by The Contemporary Art Society and InSite Arts.