ARCHIVE: How do we index materials?

The ‘Taxon | Archive | Lab – Library’ or, TAL-L, is a database and teaching tool for landscape materials. The database is open and extendable to capture the ever-varied materials that make up Hong Kong’s constructed terrains. The TAL-L library helps us to challenge and rethink traditions of making and material experimentation, and ultimately to reengage with notions of environment in landscape architecture.

This video introduces the ‘Archive’, the body of material samples and the process that regulates how we collect, store, and digitize our resources. Types of data in the ‘Archive’ include text descriptions and records of physical or chemical properties, photographs or other graphic representations of a material, and specifications related to shape, makeup, form and procurement of a given sample.