January 6, 2010 | jonbailey | 0 Comments

d3 | growing cities

archimorph joins the d3 housing tomorrow competition. deadline is january 15, 2010.-JB + JP

Each seed is a genetic record, 3.5 billion years of plant evolution contained in the folds of a single embryo. Each stage in the maturation of a plant species marks a state change, a crossing of a threshold
prefigured in the evolutionary pool. The unity of a seed violated as cells differentiate, roots burrowing into the soil. Envelope split in its trajectory to the sun, penetrating up through the earth and unfolding into a photosynthesizing array of leaves, of structural stem, and vascular pathways. The endosymbiotic record of the cyanobaterial seas of the Precambrian era, greening in the sunlight.

As the genetically modified seeds of agribusiness shifted from pesticide tolerant to pesticide imbued,slums swelled with the starving masses of the once fertile farmlands, until the image of a two car garage suburbia was eradicated from immediate memory. The rapid cross-species exchange of genetic information forced scientist to develop a rapid response mechanism. Rapid phenotype mutation. The artificial stimulation of plant life at critical thresholds initiated a massive shift first in the production of foodstuffs, then ultimately led to the total transformation of all production from mechanical to biotic.

300,000 known plant species delineate a possible genetic trajectory. Conditions in the soil, chemical composition, temperature, trigger differentiation within the seed. The genetic record inclined toward the
production of a certain phenotype, a fore-knowable plant emerges. Scientists discovered that at each threshold, root emergence, shift from trunk to branch, branch to leaf, the insertion of an invasive bacteria through injection could alter the trajectory of the plant. A seed of corn injected at 3 weeks with modified bacterial DNA, could emerge as an oak tree. The 300,000 known species began to multiply. It was debated if the newly emergent species would fall under traditional taxonomic classification, until the growing series of divergence rendered the debate moot. Hybridized combinations and recombinations began to occur throughout the globe as the technology became commonplace. It became possible to initiate thresholds, infinite hybridization became possible, Toyota began growing cars.