An urban quest for chlorophyll

The publication An urban quest for chlorophyll aims to discuss projects that engage with the cultural mediation of nature in an urban context. Architects, designers and town planners all consider the role played by green spaces within the urban terrain, from parks to abstractions such as berms and planters. The design of public urban space always takes this into account. How do these injections of chlorophyll function? If they have no possibility of simulating the rural, why are we compelled to ‘drag the pot-plant into the office’ or more ambitiously grow crops and community gardens in the heart of the city? The increase of urban rooftop gardens, community plots and urban agriculture suggest that becoming green is a high priority for urban planners with projects such as Live Green, where 30,000 plants were planted in Sydneys’ CBD over the summer 2011, attesting to these growing desires. An urban quest for chlorophyll profiles four recent creative engagements with these ideas, bringing together a range of practices where notions of urban planting are explored in a New Zealand context.