Usman Haque, Super Mario and Reflexing Plants!

by Sarah Grant, 27 Oct 2008

Meeting with artists in varying cafes on Church Street seems to be a frequent occurrence for me of late, and this frequency is due to the increasing number of talented creative’s visiting the city to bid for the varying Old Town projects that are live at present.

At my most recent ‘Church Street Café’ meeting I met with the latest visitor and bidder for the Ramada Jarvis Hotel project – Usman Haque who was accompanied by his wife Ai.

Over coffee, Usman discussed his interest in coral and the way in which its life-form could be cultured to grow un-naturally by ‘man’ and this had led him to consider creating a living face for the Ramada Jarvis Hotel. I recalled a time when studying in Paris when I walked past the National History Museum and being taken aback by this beautiful vertical garden that appeared to be living on the museums entrance and asked Usman if he was familiar with this. He was, and was hoping to create something not too dissimilar; perhaps on a smaller scale for the Ramada but with an ‘Usman’ touch to the creation!

Usman was very good at describing his ideas showing Susan and I sketches of their design scrawled on a napkin over dinner the night before. He said he had been influenced by a ‘land’ which features in a recent Super Mario computer game, in which the character manoeuvres its way up a Galaxy land. I had visions of little cyber men [aka Super Mario and friends] hopping up and down the face of the hotel and shooting down drain pipes as per the original Nintendo game [or am I the only one that remembers this version?]. Usman talked about the use of reactive fibres being placed on the hotel front that would move like living plants and reflex to passing movement. The night and day aspect of the design would also vary with ‘stars’ within the living creation to come alive at night; each star to have a hidden meaning.

The involvement of the community also appeared to be very important to Usman, where his proposal appeared to involve the community in the creative process to ensure that a legacy came about the project where in years to come participants could reflect on their time spent helping change the face of the Ramada Jarvis Hotel and the visual of the Old Town itself.