flexiblefullpage
billboard
interstitial1
catfish1
Currently Reading

Decaying city: Exhibit demonstrates the fragility of the man-made world

Decaying city: Exhibit demonstrates the fragility of the man-made world

Theater set designer Johanna Mårtensson built a model cityscape out of bread only to watch it decay.


By BD+C Staff | April 26, 2013
Photos by Johanna Mrtensson http://johannamartensson.se/

The Architizer blog (via Fast Company) brings us a fascinating exhibit by theater set designer Johanna Mårtensson. To demonstrate the fragility of the man-made world, she constructed a city out of bread and then snapped a photo every day for six months to document the decay (warning: if you haven't eaten breakfast yet you may want to skip the last two photos).

For her efforts, Mårtensson recently won a Platinum A' Design Award. In her submission, she described her inspiration for the project:

"I was inspired by an article about how well the earth would do without us. Within 500 years all buildings would be half-fallen or fallen, perfect homes for animals and plants. The forrest would soon grow in cities. Buildings as well as pollutions would be taken care of by bacterias and micro-organisms. If a UFO came here in a couple of hundred thousand years, they would not see many signs of that gang of primates that once thought they were the lords of the planet."

Check out Mårtensson's decaying city:

Related Stories

| Oct 6, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Growing green building market supports 661,000 green jobs in the U.S.

Green jobs are already an important part of the construction labor workforce, and signs are that they will become industry standard.

| Oct 6, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Dow Corning features new silicone weather barrier sealant

Modular Design Architecture >Dow Corning 758 sealant used in GreenZone modular high-performance medical facility.

| Oct 6, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: NEXT Living EcoSuite showcased

  Tridel teams up with Cisco and Control4 to unveil the future of green condo living in Canada.

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Johnson Controls announces Panoptix, a new approach to building efficiency

Panoptix combines latest technology, new business model and industry-leading expertise to make building efficiency easier and more accessible to a broader market.

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Software an architectural game changer

Interactive modeling software transforms the design­build process. 

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Tile manufacturer attains third-party certification for waste recycling processes

Crossville has joined with TOTO to recycle that company’s pre-consumer fired sanitary ware.

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Sustainable construction should stress durability as well as energy efficiency

There is now a call for making enhanced resilience of a building’s structure to natural and man-made disasters the first consideration of a green building. 

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Solar PV canopy system expanded for architectural market

Turnkey systems create an aesthetic architectural power plant. 

| Oct 5, 2011

GREENBUILD 2011: Kohler builds sustainable booth at Greenbuild 2011

In a setting composed of reclaimed materials, biodegradable signage, energy-efficient lighting and more, exhibitor highlights its new products with ecological awareness. 

boombox1
boombox2
native1

More In Category




halfpage1

Most Popular Content

  1. 2021 Giants 400 Report
  2. Top 150 Architecture Firms for 2019
  3. 13 projects that represent the future of affordable housing
  4. Sagrada Familia completion date pushed back due to coronavirus
  5. Top 160 Architecture Firms 2021