TYPOLOGY: THE CASE OF AQUATIC PLANTS

http://www.wired.com/2013/10/beautiful-microscopic-art-is-also-world-changing-science/#slideid-493473

Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats. Theodosius Dobzhansky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptation#cite_note-Dobzhansky_T_1968-15

The ability of aquatic organisms to adapt is something that architects should learn from. Based on the question that I introduce in my previous text, of how the city of Mumbai would expand if it were to grow naturally, my design requires an analysis of the evolution of multiple adaptable living organisms.

Looking specifically at organisms that grow in the water, the research will adopt the evolution process of these living organisms – plants, coral reefs. Water is an incredible important component to the civil life on Mumbai because first of all the city of Mumbai continues to expand on the water, secondly during the Monsoon months the amount of precipitation that receives is big and thirdly floods are very often which lead in a direct relationship between water and architecture. For all the above reasons both the land expansion of Mumbai and the architectural design in the water should imitate the development and function of aquatic organisms. The analysis of these organisms and the decomposition of their natural ‘shape’, is important in order to understand the relationship between them and water flow.

Living organisms have the magical capability to grow and successfully adapt to the environmental conditions and the physical changes of their surroundings. This function is something that architecture should mimic in order to coexist with environment. If the current architecture in Mumbai had the flexibility of living organisms to adapt in the environmental and physical conditions, many of the problems that the city faces would be different.      - Symbiosis: συν + βίος-           Take as example the successful adaptation and evolution of cells to new environments. As living organisms grow they become more specialized in extreme conditions.                   -Evolutionary biology-                     In a similar way architecture should adapt and process evolutionarily.

Organisms that adapt to live in aquatic environments will help architects to understand how architecture could expand in the water, without damaging the physical environment. In this study for this purpose, I will examine the following organisms:

-        Helophytes: plants rooted in the bottom, but with leaves above the water line.

-        Numphaeids: plants rooted in the bottom, but with leaves floating on the water surface.

-        Pleuston: vascular plants that float freely in the water.

-        Coral reefs: diverse underwater ecosystems.

Instead of plants that survive on the earth or fully submerged in the water, this design project analysis the typology of plants that exist either on the surface of the water or plants that are on the ground but with leaves above the surface of the water. The method that these plants develop and function is important paradigm for the creation of architecture on the water. Moreover the examination of coral reefs development could contribute in the expansion of the land in the water surface.

The structure of most of the aquarium plants includes: roots, stems, leaves, storage organs, and flowers.(1) The aquatic plants have a special structure in order to float. The dome of their leaves is capable through variability in the size of their intercellular spaces to trap gas bubbles and in this way maintain buoyancy and provide mechanical support. The submerged aquatic leaf anatomy is different from the floating. While the first has only three-cell thickness and the shape is linear, ribbon-shaped or finely dissected, the second contains numerous cells that make it thick and the leaves are rounded or lobed. (2) This condition is known as ‘Heterophylly’ where the same organ has a change in form according to the environment. One important lesson from this kind of plants is that some floating leaves have waxy surface so that water may not wet the surface and block stomata (3). Moreover, as for stability methods the submerged leaves intercellular air spaces are not well developed, in order the plant to remain submersed by having greater specific gravity. The highly dissected underwater shoot can be tugged at and pulled by water currents without damaging the segments.(4) The appropriate minerals are collected from the epidermis of the leaves.(5) In the epidermis there are chloroplasts that function as photosynthetic tissue and provide with energy the plant.(6) Moreover, through air channels, gases are transferred from shoot to the root in order to help the development of the plant. Furthermore, the stem is spongy due to the air channels that transfer the gases. Finally, the roots function more as foundation than as water absorbance. (7) Whereas the roots of some free-floating plants are very important as they preserve the appropriate stability.

Architectural design could benefit from this analysis. For example, the case of gas captivity is very important for structures that could float in the water, as in this way they could carry their own weight using air. In a similar way of Heterophylly, architecture units should maintain a different structure inside and outside of the water surface, in order to deal with the different environmental conditions. Below the surface the most important parameter is the water currents and the stability, while above, the environmental parameters that matters are the water flood, the air and the sun. The multiple functions of the leaves could contribute in the inspiration for the design or materiality. Moreover the way that the leaves prevent flooding using the waxy surface seems to be a prominent method, which architecture could inspire from.

The understanding of the hydrodynamic structure of the aquatic plants is very important for structures in the water, in order to succeed the perfect symbiosis between architecture and water flow.

1. http://aquaticplants.animal-world.com/PlantDescriptionandStructure.htm

2. http://www.biologydiscussion.com/plants/morphological-and-physiological-adaptations-of-hydrophytes/4583

3. ibid

4.http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/lifeforms/aquaticplants/fulltextonly.html

5. http://www.biologydiscussion.com/plants/plant-adaptations-introduction-and-ecological-classification-of-plants/6902

6. ibid

7. http://www.slideshare.net/BiologyIB/plants-powerpoint-3983594