The ‘Taxon | Archive | Lab – Library’ or, TAL-L, is a database and teaching tool for landscape materials. Open and extendable, it indexes the varied materials that make up Hong Kong’s constructed terrain, recording the material alterations, extractions, and accumulations within its physical composition over time. The project reflects on the environmental challenges of contemporary material design and specification in landscape architecture and challenges designers and educators to restore traditions of making and material experimentation within our public realm.

TAL-L is an ongoing research initiative led by Susanne Trumpf and Ivan Valin, instructors and scholars from the Division of Landscape Architecture at the University of Hong Kong. This exhibition is co-curated by Ceci Sze Lee Wong.

Material Practices in Hong Kong

TAL-L (Taxon I Archive I Lab – Library) provides a platform for understanding the material compositions and histories of Hong Kong through documenting its local materials and initiating material experiments in landscape architecture. In this online panel discussion, Ivan Valin and Susanne Trumpf discuss the ambitions of the Library and the potential for a more productive, grounded, and innovative set of material practices that might be found in Hong Kong. Panelists representing different streams of material expertise: collection, application, and discovery, will discuss their own work and questions framed by the TAL-L project. Man Tsang, from the Material Resource Center at Polytechnical University, will share her work on developing material resource archives. Steven Chiu, General Manager at NF developers, will discuss durable and sustainable practices through specification and design detailing. And Lidia Ratoi, Assistant Professor in the HKU Department of Architecture, will share her experiences with material experimentation and robotic fabrication.

Online Seminar

Know more about “TAL-L: An Archive for Living Materials” Pop-up Exhibition
Website: https://tall-materials.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hkulandscape Llive-streamed
Instagram: @tall_materials