material samples

Nature Lab

                                                                                                                RICE HULL

                                                                                                                BAGASSE

                                                                                                                RICE STRAW

                                                                                                               SUGAR CANE

We had the chance to go to the Nature lab and look the materials trough the microscope.

These are some pictures I took, the materials that interested me the most are the rice hull and the bagasse.

The reasons why I was surprise by the rice hull are: the external surface is covered by an interesting texture that I didn’t notice before, the other reason is that the two parts that contain the rice grain are different, we can divided them in male and female part, the male part has in the bottom part a different conformation that I called the holder.

Regarding the bagasse it is really interesting to notice that there are still some crystal of sugar that give to the bagasse a shining aspect.

first materials experiments

Interesting and useful discover....I hope

I just find this interesting company that makes blocks out of rice straw.
This could be useful for our investgation with bio materials.
 http://www.oryzatech.com/index.html

System Research: SOCIAL CULTURE Costa Rica & Latin America

At the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard University we had the chance to see and understand better how the Central Americans use the natural materials in order to make their every day tools.

The aspects that I like the most are the textures and the pattern created by the weaving.

Almost all the elements that we saw were made by this technique but it is interesting how weaving one material in a specific way can generate a very different product.

PROJECT MASILULEKE