The innovative team behind NYC’s Low Line have designed advanced solar technology that allows plant life to thrive deep underground. Raad Studio’s latest installation Invasive Regeneration uses a high-powered, solar-powered funnel installed at street level to shoot light onto a concrete block underground, allowing vegetation to grow in an otherwise inhospitable environment.
The technology behind Invasive Regeneration is an extension of that used to create NYC’s subterranean park, the Lowline. Created by James Ramsey and Dan Barasch, the world’s first underground park implements an innovative daylighting system of fiber optic cables and mirrors to capture and funnel sunlight underground.
Related: Brooklyn Hotel by creators of the Lowline boasts winding gardens and tiny hidden spaces
According to the team, the solar-powered installation – which is currently on display at the 2017 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism – is inspired by the complex relationship between nature and the manmade environment. Their description of the project reads, “Nature represents both decay and renewal, and the continual struggle to gain mastery over the natural world can be inverted to foster growth and rebirth.”
Images via Raad Studio
