Commonstudio's Global Urbarium is an evolving, multi-city exploration of spontaneous urban plants (SUP). Bringing the traditional practice of herbarium specimen collection into the 21st century using digital tools, the project attempts to to reframe the conversation (and challenge negative stereotypes) surrounding "weeds" in cities. Inspired by Emerson's assertion that "A weed is a plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered", we believe that touching, identifying and celebrating the latent beauty of these urban ecologies may be a first step toward discovering those virtues.
Field observations are made in collaboration with dozens of volunteers from around the world, visit the iNaturalist project page to see more, or scroll down for a curation of our most recent digitally preserved specimens via Instagram.
For an expanded exploration on the context and framing of the research, please click the following:
In addition to digitally preserved specimens (available in full via Instagram), there are several concurrent projects underway, powered in part by the citizen science platform iNaturalist. The Global Herbarium is an umbrella project comprised of several regional and city-specific field campaigns (links below). A recent grant from the Graham Sustainability Institute has enabled us to expand the Rustbelt Urbarium into a larger research project within southeast Michigan. The Sunbelt Herbarium was also recently established, focused on the states of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. One of the goals of this work is to understand how the perception and performance of urban spontaneous vegetation compares and contrasts across various urban contexts.
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