Membranes cut for colour- a history

Across Levis, there exists a style of artistry and architecture still known, still maintained in several parts of Levis but rarely fashionable on the newer houses around the country. While modern places prefer an open portal window, often with a membrane curtain, to promote airflow within the domicles and businesses of Levis; there used to be a old style of window grown into the open portals of the building, inspired by images of places long forgotten.

The windows went through several designs and types, each trying their hardest to be a style that brought life and love and artistry to the buildings they inhabited while doing as little damage to the greenery that's grown in on and around them. A false mimicry of this style are the frosted doors of the Sky Terrace, their power in their grandiosity, but lacking the wonder and love of many of the coloured membranes in Levis.

The ancient era.

The earliest attempt of this style weren't even done with plant membranes, but instead with saps their liquid forms dyed with powders and the still cooling liquids molded onto frames of matured wood, usually a eucalyptus, but this meant that the project was almost always a long term project. This style came into style during the human era, and the only surviving records of this style so far are in enchanted bindings, and shards of coloured sap that can be found in some of the ruins around Levis.

More complex shaped would have been formed by laying and tying the sap pieces into a grown framework, for which molds of the pieces would have cooled flat -measured to fit.

The reformation years

Two styles of colored membranes formed in the reformation era, indeed it is from this era that the coloured panes of the Natare Arboretum came from.

The first and the infinitely more boring was the act of growing the membranes from giant leaves, making sure that their veins were thick, and their fibrous material was thin and seethrough. Dyes would then be injected into the plant itself, magic used to help the plant absorb the pigment into the system itself and pulse with those alter-natural colorings and shapes, though using this technique required (and requires to this day) repeated maintenance and conservation of the pigments used in the process. This is also subject to bleed between the colors unless one color only is used.

This was the technique used for the membranes of the Natare city council building, and it was a major contention within the city when it was discovered just how much time, energy and trade was being used to preserve the window after the recent leadership changeover. Ultimately it was decided that the membranes were a part of history, and deserved to be preserved. The membranes themselves depict a rudimentary scene of the planting of the Sakura tree that gives Natare its crest, though said action seems disingenuous given the tree's age.

The other method discovered in this era was the method of growing multiple vines thin with each vine growing a specific colour. This works best for massive projects like the Natare Arboretum where scale is not an issue needed to be worried about, or simpler projects like the Sky Terrace where the only 'colour' needed was frosted white.

The biggest issue with this technique is that it usually requires numerous support struts, a lattice of networks - like the trees that hold up the Arboretum, due to the weight that all that vinework entails. When done correctly though, you can get things like a dome of infinite colour that paints an entire public garden in the shades of a spring made from all the plants and animals of the country.

'Modern' Creativity

While one would suspect that the stunning windows that line the Academy library came from the far past, they are more of a modern era construction, only 100 years old. The way these ones are constructed are built around a core of a thick and sturdy vine, who is grown around a framework by artists into shapes where grafts are applied from seeding plants, their specifically cultivated leaves moving to fill the gaps. While beautiful to behold, the problems with acts such as these are the expense and time required for something that cannot go with you through the journey of your life and as such is an investment for other people - should your life be on the move.

The other problem is that these particular displays tend to, unless designed for, restrict airflow and with many of the cities and townships around Levis being in warm regions, the need for airflow has become a priority, especially as the density of towns become larger as they begin to thrive.

Still, for many, the creativity that goes into these windows are stunning, and mastery of the art has brought inspiration to many more as they peruse the grounds of the academy and places around Levis that sport these creative works.

One of the more memorable Membranes that have been made in recent times is for Seku Fungalborne, a Whencis Calago Bug keeper. With their hives on a second floor of their apartment filled with soil, they comissioned the House of Angles to build them a building that they could then get an artist from the Academy of Natare to build them a massive seethrough 'wall' of a Calago bug with holes throughout. Both for the access of the bugs that they love to feed sugar water to, and for ventilation for their asthma.

The bug itself is grown in purples and golds, on a smokey white background to let as much light into the display room as possible, using the hybrid vine method, a support strut bisecting the image grown from the apartment itself. The holes were built by coaxing the vines to grow around intrusions, who were removed when the plant grew past the point of the vacancy. Constant pruning is needed to maintain the holes and the paths for the bugs.