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CONSEQUENCE
GROUND UP: ISSUE 07
LAST NAME(S)
GU : ISSUE 07
GROUND UP TEAM ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Printed in Canada
And then …
Most articles are earthbound, while others reach out into our solar
system. Their mediums and modes of representation, from tapestry to
poetry to prose, suggest that the way a story is told, and by whom, is
consequential in and of itself.
GU : ISSUE 07
01
DESIG PA G
N FA I L E
06
02
THE H PHIL
URE
ARM O E VA N S
F DOI
NG NO
THING
08
CLAI R E L AT
ANÉ
GREG
03
THE W
ILD
16
KOCH
ANOW
SKI
04
DITCH
ED
22
N AT E
KAUFF
MAN
05
UBL P
UBLIC IC SEDIME
THE P
NT
28
SEDIM
ENT T
06
TIL E AM
D E AT H
DOU
M I C H A S PA R T
BORD
07
E R WA
MURO
S
LL URB ABSURDO
EL JEN
KS
38
S
MY QU
44
08 ANISM
EERNE STUDI
O
S S, MY
COMM
UN ITY
10
LAND
09
LOOK
ING A
TL
REBEC ANDSCAP
JUDEE
BURR
48
AND T E
58
A PA R C
HE SE TRIDG
AMS O E
F COL
ONIAL
ISM
62
ZANN
A H M AT
SON
CONT
ENTS
PA G
E
66 A POS
MARK
T- N AT
W E S S E I V E W O R L 11
D
71
LS
URBA
N SEN
S C H L I S O R I U M 12
E M I LY
78
C
KMAN
& ANY
UN-NA A DOM
TURAL LESKY
ET HAN M G
C K N I G E N E R AT I
86 THE B
SAND
LACK
GOL
HT ON 13
W AT Z K D TA P E S T
RA SA
88 BETW
K A R AT
EEN M
Y
S I O M P E M O RY A
RY 14
N
96 SONID D OBLIVI
ANI, T
A WA I , & LOL ON 15
L K DO A
MITH WN BRIGA
W. W. S
100 DEAFS
A L E X A C A P E 17
N TINE R
E A C H 16
104
VA U G H
N
GARD
E
CHIP S N AND C
L I M AT
1 07
U L L I VA
N E: POC
KET E
MAPP DITIO
I N
M O L LY N G M A R S 1 9
18
BUTCH
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ONLIN
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CARLA CLES: TRUE
FISHE N O RT 20
R SCH H
WA R T
Z
01 DESIGN FAILURE
PHIL EVANS
8
9
EVANS
GU : ISSUE 07
02 THE HARM OF DOING
NOTHING
CLAIRE LATANÉ
10
MY TRUANT
I received the phone call so often that just seeing the number on
my phone screen made me tense.
“This is Eagle Rock High School. Your son, Levi, was tardy or absent
for one or more classes today.” The recorded, impersonal voice
then read the list of missed classes. Usually all of them.
“It feels like a prison,” he said. “If there wasn’t a fence, I wouldn’t
feel like jumping it.”
He was in ninth grade at the time, and a third year of trees or shrubs from high school classrooms and
of spiraling grades and increased absences. cafeterias—a cut grass yard or athletic field won’t
do it unless it also has garden-like plants or trees—
Levi was not the only one to liken Eagle Rock High with reduced anxiety, quicker recovery from stress,
School to a detention center. A dear friend and less criminal behavior, better test scores, and higher
neighbor with elementary school children told me graduation rates. What better use for this research
she wouldn’t send them to the high school because than to improve high school environments?
“it looks like a prison.” In a Lyft on my way to a
meeting, my driver mentioned he went to Eagle
THE CONSEQUENCE OF RESEARCH
Rock High School.
Bring up ‘high school’ or ‘teenagers’ in almost any
“Did you like it?” I asked. conversation, and you’ll get a groan of sympathy or
wagged head. Teen-hood is infamously awful. I’ve
“No. It felt like a prison,” he replied. survived parenting two and am midway through
guiding my third teenager to adulthood. I’m
At parent night, I sat in classroom after classroom continually struck by how hard our young people
trying to listen to Levi’s teachers, but consumed have it today.
with unease. The rooms were crowded with too
many desks. Most had no windows. Those that did In 2017, the Child Mind Institute reported suicide
had posters or paint or security grates blocking the as the leading cause of death worldwide for girls
daylight and life outside. I was depressed after between 15 and 19. Nearly one-third of teenagers
two hours. will suffer an anxiety disorder, eighty percent
untreated. Sixty percent of depressed youth
go untreated. 11
RESEARCH OF CONSEQUENCE
It has been almost five decades since psychologists After months searching for a high school (or any
Rachel and Stephen Kaplan proposed attention school) designed for mental health, I called
restoration theory to describe the restful attention Dr. Sullivan.
people gain from watching leaves moving in a
breeze, the sound and sight of water, a natural view. “Do you know of any schools or communities
Their work influenced the therapeutic gardens and designed specifically with mental health in mind?” I
green schoolyards movements, as well as research asked him.
on public housing and high school landscapes.
“I don’t know of anyone doing this work,” he said
Drs. Frances Kuo, William Sullivan, Andrea Faber- by phone. “If [parents] knew that green views
Taylor, and their doctoral students connected green were roughly equivalent to a dose of Ritalin, even
views and access to nature with improved attention, for students without ADHD (Attention Deficit
social cohesion, self-esteem, impulse control, Hyperactivity Disorder), they would demand that
test scores, and graduation rates while reducing districts get rid of classrooms without windows and
stress and criminal behavior in public housing and put in gardens at every school.”
schools. Richard Louv’s 2005 book, Last Child in
The Woods, popularized the idea of nature-deficit Instead, too many urban schools remain physical
disorder, or the negative mental and physical manifestations of fear. In Los Angeles, tall fences
impacts of leaving children inside. In his 2010 made of chain link or steel bars line school
doctoral thesis on Michigan high schools, Rodney perimeters. Exits are gated and locked during
LATANÉ
Matsuoka associated open campuses and views school hours. The main entry is guarded by cameras
GU : ISSUE 07
ABOVE Eagle Rock High School, 1927. Image courtesy of Eagle Rock Valley Historical Society.
RIGHT Eagle Rock High School student entrance, 2017
or staff. The Los Angeles Unified School District was built over the old road that once continued
(LAUSD) has its own police force that patrols around the block.
middle and high school campuses. Students are
searched randomly and they are forbidden to leave TEENAGE TRAUMA
campus. The largest green spaces are reserved for In Los Angeles and across the nation, Black
competitive sports like football, which is getting teenagers fight for their lives against a law
increasing attention for causing brain injuries with enforcement system that is supposed to protect
12 violent side effects. them. Brown students and students of different
faiths are afraid of being abandoned by a country
As a journalist, I write about connecting people to that immigrants founded on religious freedom.
nature. In landscape architecture, I design school Women, young and old, rail against misogyny.
landscapes. But being a mother is what drives me LGBTQ+ youth and adults are teaching us to
to use my writing and design to advocate for high recognize them as the individuals they are. Our
school and community environments that support melting pot has become a pressure cooker. And our
mental and community health. teenagers are drowning in it.
LATANÉ
GU : ISSUE 07
PERCEPTIONS OF SAFETY AT LOS ANGELES UNIFIED HIGH SCHOOLS
Source: Los Angeles Unified School District, 2016 School Experience Survey
STAFF: I feel safe in the neighbor- 100%
hood around my school.
(% Agree, Strongly agree) 90%
STAFF: I feel safe on school grounds
during the day. 80%
(% Safe, Very Safe))
70%
PARENTS: My child is safe in the
neighborhood around the school
(% Safe, Very safe) 60%
WEST DISTRICT
CENTRAL DISTRICT
CENTRAL DISTRICT
SOUTH DISTRICT
WEST DISTRICT
CENTRAL DISTRICT
SOUTH DISTRICT
EAST DISTRICT
WEST DISTRICT
CENTRAL DISTRICT
NORTHEAST DISTRICT
EAST DISTRICT
NORTHEAST DISTRICT
(0 highest, 100 lowest)
Now apply this same principle to a high school’s of a loved one, with the latter being more common.
outdoor environments, where students are There were 1,152 shootings in Los Angeles in 2016.
14
expected to develop social skills in spaces that are And 294 homicides. About the same in 2017. But
too often devoid of defined areas, trees, gardens, those numbers don’t express the experiences our
or seating options. In Los Angeles, students eat young people and their families go through.
outside, walk outside between classes, and often
take physical education outside. Just as Levi began emerging from school-induced
depression last fall, his best friend was shot and
Dr. Jensen writes, “Adolescents are at especially killed in Watts. Isaiah had gone to a birthday party
high risk for experiencing emotional trauma with two friends, and gotten into a drunken fight
compared with the rest of the population, and the with a couple of gang members. Thrown out of the
consequences for their brain development can be party without a ride, the men came out and beat
devastating.” By the age of sixteen, a quarter of him until he lay unconscious in the alley. When one
them have experienced a “high-magnitude” or of the men pulled a gun, his friends ran for their
“extreme stressor.” lives. Shots exploded through the night, and they
ran back. He died in their arms as they tried to stop
In 2016, mental health director Pia Escudora the bleeding.
reported that 50% of LAUSD students suffer
moderate to severe post-traumatic stress disorder Isaiah was like a big brother to Levi. He was a sweet
(PTSD). These students might experience soul. He spent days at a time with us between
homelessness, an incarcerated parent, abuse, washing dishes at the Mexicatessen just around the
violence in their neighborhood, or a number of block. The morning we got the news that Isaiah was
these. The American Psychiatric Association reports dead, Levi crumpled into my arms. His heartbreak
the strongest predictors of PTSD for adolescents shook his body and mine. My head filled with heat
are exposure to violence and the sudden death and my eyes ached with tears.
Isaiah’s family, friends, and community are to carry their concerns about the neighborhood
devastated by his loss. Yet, I cannot muster up with them into school. High schools are not the
hatred of his killers—how dark their lives must bubble of safety that we as parents and teachers so
be to do such a thing. We created this situation. want them to be. Teenagers are desperate for safe,
Fear-based and racist planning, law enforcement, calm, restorative environments. Keeping students
and banking systems; inequitable resource in school is a prime objective for districts across
distribution; and lax gun laws sentence our youth the nation. California funds public schools based
to violence. Adolescents—those often neglected, on attendance. More than 80,000 LAUSD students
misunderstood, and feared young people—have missed three weeks last year, costing the district
the most to gain from us rethinking the design of $20 million in lost funds. Imagine using that money
their everyday environments. to create warmer, more welcoming high schools.
The LAUSD is piloting efforts to disrupt the school- DESIGNING WITH LOVE INSTEAD OF FEAR
to-prison pipeline, provide health and wellness Designing safe spaces means designing with love
services, and strengthen science, technology, instead of fear. Designing with love means working
engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) curriculum. with the community to first understand the issues
But the connection between mental health and you are trying to solve.
campus design is still missing.
GU : ISSUE 07
They are prisoners in training. Conduct a participatory process
LATANÉ
GU : ISSUE 07
03 THE WILD
GREG KOCHANOWSKI
“If Los Angeles hangs on long enough, it will cart entirely the mountains away ...”
- John McPhee, The Control of Nature
18
ABOVE Station Fire in Los Angeles, CA, Los Angeles is a beautifully bizarre and seductive place. Its many
August 2009. The largest fire in Los Angeles personalities sit in stark juxtaposition to each other, illuminating the
County history, which consumed 160,557 acres. rich ecological and cultural diversity that make up this vast territory.
Photo by Dan Finnerty.
The most enduring of these, and the one that is personally most
appealing, is the city's relationship to the natural environment.
RIGHT Projected development of public green
belts along the historic lines of water and
debris flows It is a city continually shaped and reshaped, not only by its many
inhabitants, but also by the many natural ecologies that surround
and impact it. The wild spaces of the Santa Monica and San Gabriel
Mountains, the vast vistas and extreme temperatures of Death
Valley and the Mojave Desert, and the unfathomable depths and
swells of the Pacific Ocean, coupled with Los Angeles’ urban,
political, and economic framework, all frame the feeling of the city’s
impermanence and ad-hoc nature.
One of the unusual things about Los Angeles is as the vast metropolis next to which they reside.
its proximity to wilderness—not wilderness in its Mountains, thick with vegetal, biological, and
metaphorical sense, but actually wild-ness: places geologic diversity, transform through cycles of
primarily untouched, or rather uninhabited, by extreme drought and flood into fluvial territories
human culture. Sometimes mythologized and that wash through developments, expand the
exaggerated through media for dramatic effect, hillside, and reclaim areas of the city fabric. The
through the vignettes of earthquakes, fires, floods, boundaries of oceans and deserts, too, with their
mudslides, drought, sharks, mountain lions, and combination of rich ecological makeup and shifting
the like. This dramatization is itself rooted into atmospheric conditions, transform on a continuing
the larger narrative and identity of the city. The basis and challenge their occupation by human
proximity of the urban fabric to these untamed settlement. Through a deeper understanding of
environments is real. It has significant impact on the relationship between these two realms, we can
our city and the manner in which we understand its develop other urban tactics and strategies that,
overall ecological makeup, and the nature of Los although specific to Los Angeles, can be applied to
Angeles' public space in particular. similar conditions across the globe.
Typically seen as ‘empty,’ the territories surrounding In the 1870s, during the early years of the city,
Los Angeles are in fact dynamic ecosystems the landscape surrounding Los Angeles was filled
operating at the same scale and complexity orange with groves, vineyards, farmland,
LAST NAME(S)
GU : ISSUE 07
and mountain ranges. Even within the boundaries to provide adequate facilities in support of this
of the city, an extensive network of privatized increased density, we need to look for other options
gardens provided relief from the harshness of to fulfill this need. Such efforts can enhance, and
20
urban life. As such, there was no perceived need for build upon, Los Angeles’ history of open space.
public parks or open spaces. As the city developed,
becoming more and more dense, city officials In recent years Los Angeles has exhibited an
realized that publicly owned open space was extended cycle of drought, fire, and flood. These
required. By then, however, all that remained were three components of Los Angeles’ extreme
leftover residual spaces, marginal land occupied by weather cycle create a deadly combination. Fire
unstable hillsides, defunct infrastructure, and soft clears vegetation from Southern California’s steep
marshes. We can see this today in the character canyons, leaving them vulnerable to flash floods
of Los Angeles’ public spaces. Our city is not one and perilous mudslides. For most of the 20th
of singular civic spaces. Rather, the public realm century, city, state, and federal agencies have
exists in those places where wilderness and people attempted to control these natural processes as
meet: the beach, Santa Monica Mountains, desert, communities sprawled deeper and deeper into
and the Los Angeles River. As a consequence, once-uninhabitable canyons. The infrastructure
our understanding of public space and its future developed for this purpose has entered its 50-year
incarnations is radically different from that of other lifespan, leaving a void in the city’s management
major urban centers. of these systems. By hacking into this network of
debris basins and spreading fields, we can begin
As we look toward the future of public open space not only to provide an updated and ecologically
in Los Angeles, there is a substantial movement to resilient line of defense against these events, but
adopt models from other cities and cultures. But offer much needed publicly accessible open space
with increased property values being driven by a in the process.
development renaissance, the opportunities for
large public spaces are becoming limited, if not
ABOVE Quantities, areas, volume, and ultimate maintenance
eliminated, from our dense urban centers. In order cost of debris system in Los Angeles.
ABOVE Micro-Basin System. Pre-fabricated, transportable steel BELOW Mountain Making. Over time, the basins accumulate
structures are deployed across the slopes of burn sites and debris, making way for vegetation, habitat, campsites, and
organized into two configurations: those that slow debris flow, overall increased resiliency to the hillside.
and those that capture and retain.
21
KOCHANOWSKI
GU : ISSUE 07
The 2009 Station Fire, which ravaged a 252-square- mitigating future disasters. In other words, this
mile area of Southern California's La Crescenta project proposes 'hacking' into the natural
foothills and sparked multiple catastrophic mud processes of mudslides and wildfires to generate
slides, was the result of severe climatic conditions, a new 'landform infrastructure' that reuses the
cyclical weather cycles, and an outdated, aging material these events produce. As debris is
infrastructure. In our SLIDE project (illustrated redistributed along historic lines of mudflow,
here), we reimagine the existing debris basin larger urban connections can be created in the form
infrastructure being transformed into a more of greenbelts, establishing open space networks for
sustainable model that protects residents living adjacent residential neighborhoods, and serving
at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, while as a catalyst for increased public space and
simultaneously allowing greater access by the property values.
public. This project attempts to deconstruct both
the meteorological disaster and the infrastructure The project proposes the installation of a network
that failed to contain it in hope of identifying a of oversize gabion cage structures throughout the
more landscape-driven approach. In particular, the hillsides. The cage walls, made of varying aperture
project proposes the use of waste management sizes, slows the slide of debris and traps the rock
systems, landscape interventions, and the and soil at different rates throughout the year, while
differences between local and regional approaches allowing water to filter through. After 15-20 years of
to devise a more resilient infrastructure for extreme weather, this intervention would result in a
communities vulnerable to these natural disasters. network of micro-basins along the foothills, linking
the canyons together in a single, dynamic system of
Currently, following a mudslide, trucks clean out extreme weather mitigation.
debris basins and then haul away the debris to
22
landfills at a rate of half a million cubic yards per “Landslides and other ‘ground failures’ cost more
year. This expensive solution carries a huge carbon lives and money each year than all other disasters
footprint, and is also spatially unsustainable: the combined, and their incidence appears to be
1,365-acre La Puente Landfill, where so much of rising. Nevertheless, the government devotes
this debris has been trucked over the years, is now few resources to their study—and the foolhardy
full. As such, this project utilizes the debris as a continue to build and live in places likely to be
reusable material, capable of being reorganized consumed one day by avalanches of mud.”
and redistributed to help stabilize the hillsides, - Brenda Bell, The Atlantic Monthly
23
LAST NAME(S)
ABOVE A desert severely denuded of The ditch must rank quite near the top of inglorious
24 vegetation by cattle grazing (left) in 1957. At
landscape features. Patently unsophisticated, aesthetically
right, it has returned to a scrubland skinned
uninspired, and even phonetically grating, ‘ditches’ are not,
in blue gramma grass after only a decade of
managed use. Image at left courtesy of U.S.
at first blush, fertile ground for deep examination. Yet fertile
Bureau of Reclamation. ground is exactly what the proverbial ditch is all about. In the
pantheon of low-tech innovations of Homo sapiens, perhaps
BELOW A map of the Rio Puerco (left fork) and
none were more fundamentally consequential. Ancient
Rio Grande (right fork)
infrastructural systems that redefined entire geographic
regions employed the ditch as their common unit, beginning
the process of turning deadly-dry dirt into productive land.
Indeed, human beings arguably wrenched themselves from
their nomadic origin, and established their roots as settlers,
by no single act more transformative than the digging of a
shallow rill to swamp a field they’d sown.
and smaller structures or micro-topographies settlers to the deserts of the American Southwest in
(brazos, bancales, melgas, ancones, eras, ramos, the 19th century, and somehow kept them here.
GU : ISSUE 07
Mining, trade routes, and almighty war generated The desert is a strange place, which anyone who
livelihoods in the least likely of places. Commerce has spent time in it can attest to. The scale of the
connecting the Gulf of Mexico, the Sea of Cortez, visible landscape and the seeming emptiness
and the mighty Pacific meandered across the therein somehow refocuses one’s attention to
landscape. In the 20th century, the Southwest vacillate between the massive and the micro. And,
played host to some of man’s most marvelous because of its extreme nature, the desert displays
and Machiavellian machinations, as stupefying a dramatic, sometimes dangerous dynamism:
civil engineering projects like the Hoover Dam the monsoon and its flash-flooding; the haboob;
threatened to blot out the sun and a thermonuclear electrical storms that rake the plains and scorch the
arsenal was tested in the background. earth. Routine inconveniences become existential
in such an unforgiving place: flat tires, dehydration,
26 The Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District or simple bad timing can prove lethal turns of fate.
(MRGCD), which today manages irrigation and
flood control systems in the area, and the Bureau Yet the desert is also a terribly alive place, for all
of Reclamation (formed, literally, to reclaim land for its arid, bleak vastness and potential fatalities. The
the 17 western States) have spent decades testing intersection of the drama that is the desert’s severe
interventions aimed at taming and directing the weather and the sere palette that it plays upon
hydrology of an extremely arid place, in a process becomes apparent when an arroyo is activated
that is, depending on your perspective, awesomely by storms so intense that the land melts in the
audacious or pathologically misguided. Perhaps it embrace of its torrent. The parched earth simply
is a bit of both. cannot soak up the rain fast enough, and nearly
every drop of the ensuing flood races down the To look upon it, the Rio Puerco does not appear
valley as quickly as gravity and friction can conspire to be a large river. Much of the year, it doesn’t
to shuttle it. Major river and arroyo systems of appear to be a river at all. Its power and occasional
deserts are such tempestuous agents of the fury, however, draws from a sizeable, 7,500-square-
landscape because they focus so much energy mile watershed draining the Nacimiento Range
so rapidly. northwest of Albuquerque. In the astonishingly
fast melt of New Mexico’s spring thaw, the winter’s
If the Rio Grande is the mother of the Chihuahuan cache of snow goes ripping down the valley with
Desert, the petulant Rio Puerco is her proverbial a vengeance. True to its name, the Puerco is a
problem child. Diving diagonally southeast across tremendously silty waterway. Though puerco
New Mexico’s northern scrubland to join the Rio translates to ‘pig,’ it is the porcine proclivity towards
Grande, the Puerco has permanently shuttered at 27
muddiness that informs the colloquial connotation.
least one town. Its flooding can only be described The Puerco is legendary for the amount of silt and
as biblical. To study fluvial processes is to discover
that water is only half of the story; rivers are IMAGES Land use changes in far-off places contributed to the
landform-making machines, and their sediment flooding and geomorphology evident in these 1950s photos
transport is one of the most active processes (courtesy of U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, at left), juxtaposed with
photos of current conditions (by author, at right), to illustrate
continuously shaping the earth. The chasms, voids,
timelapse. A decade later, though native vegetation has crept
canyons, and valleys we so often associate with
back into the landscape, the dreaded and famously thirsty
riverine systems are emblematic of water’s removal, Tamarisk (or salt cedar) has established itself along all waterway
movement, and commensurate deposition of mind- banks in dense colonies, adding another chapter to the complex
boggling volumes of ‘land.’ saga of western water woes.
KAUFFMAN
GU : ISSUE 07
mud that it activates, transports, and relocates But the acequia system employed on a modest
during flood events. In 1957, the Puerco carried scale was an ingenious, flexible, and sustainable
2.25 million tons of earth downstream in a system. The scheme deployed and maintained
single day. today by the MRGCD is undeniably inflexible and,
given shifting weather patterns and predicted
The command-and-control ethos that drove the precipitation reduction in the Southwestern deserts,
reclamation of the West sought to harness, utilize, nearing the verge of irrelevance. It may be that
or altogether ignore the reality of the region that today’s residents of the Rio Grande Valley are living
waterways like the Puerco embody. The Rio Grande through the twilight of the region as we know it.
and its tributaries act as barometers, registering
the impacts of distant upstream logging, grazing, Until quite recently, the management practices
wildfires, and development. Salinization, seepage, employed by agencies such as the Bureau of
28 silting, aggrading, erosion, and sedimentation Reclamation would likely frighten and astonish
of waterways is problematic for the rhythms of any current civil engineering student. Before
civilization, so an extensive infrastructure was adopting a view of the sinuosity of a river like the
designed and deployed. This complex network Rio Grande as an important and dynamic aspect of
includes our ancestral acequia system, as well as its health, and thus an indicator for its monitoring
canals, diversion dams, pumps, and reservoirs, and management, Bureau engineers would literally
all of which are collectively managed by regimes drive a fleet of D9 Caterpillars up the river channel
charged with ensuring the infrastructure maintains a to straighten it out and maintain bank profiles,
predictable function—in times of extended drought grades, and channel shapes that conformed
and flash flooding alike. with grandfathered-in engineering specs. After
leaving their bulldozers in the river channel over
It is notable that the acequia, as a hydrologic unit, the weekend, a particularly unlucky crew returned
could not deviate more from the geomorphology during an unexpected storm to find one of the
of the area’s natural waterways; acequias are always machines lost to the torrent. Upon dragging it
wet, devoid of turbulent flow, and thus typically out of its watery grave-to-be, the local Caterpillar
transport minimal sediment. distributor disassembled, cleaned, and rebuilt the
entire machine, at an undisclosed cost to taxpayers.
KAUFFMAN
05 PUBLIC · SEDIMENT
PUBLIC SEDIMENT TEAM
The Public Sediment Team is: The consequences of human action are felt across geography
SCAPE: Pippa Brashear, Gena Morgis, and time. The Bay Area is beginning to viscerally experience the
Kate Orff, Sophie Riedel, Nick Shannon,
Gena Wirth, Nans Voron
effects of elevated global greenhouse gas emissions, facing new
environmental realities of rising sea levels, unpredictable weather
DREDGE RESEARCH COLLABORATIVE:
Brian Davis, Yuanyuan Gao, Rob Holmes, patterns, and increased flood, fire, and erosion events. While
Justine Holzman, Yuzhou Jin, Jingting Li,
Brett Milligan
global change impacts the region, its response is shaped by the
legacies of past decisions—resource management policy, physical
UC DAVIS: Victoria Eilish Chau, Beth
Ferguson, N. Claire Napawan, Brett infrastructure, and social patterns—that can exacerbate the impacts
Snyder, Sahoko Yui
of climate change at the local level. While the consequences
ARCADIS: Christopher Devick of some choices, like building in the floodplain, are clear and
ARCHITECTURAL ECOLOGIES LAB: perceptible to the general public, other actions reveal their
Evan Jones, Margaret Ikeda, Adam Marcus
impacts slowly over time and are invisible to the human eye. Public
TS STUDIO: Abby Granbery, J. Lee Sediment proposes to investigate the invisible yet considerable
Stickles, Wright Yang
effects of a material largely out-of-sight and out-of-mind: MUD.
VIDEO: Nabi Agzamov, Huai-Kuan Chung,
30
Guan Min
Mud is infrastructure, an infrastructure that is slowly eroding,
ARTIST: Cy Keener drowning, and subsiding in the Bay Area. The region’s shorelines,
beaches, marshes, and mudflats all rely upon a supply of sediment
PHOTOGRAPHS that is transported downstream from regional waterbodies and
LEFT Manzana Creek photographed by local tributaries to replenish these ecosystems over time. This slow
Eric Vizents
wash of mud (or more technically, sediment supply) is critical to
CENTER Hydraulic Mining in Nevada
the sustained ecological and community health of the region. It is
County, California, 1866. Courtesy of the
Library of Congress.
literally the substrate for the bay’s shallow water ecosystems, which
RIGHT O’Shaughnessy Dam stabilize and protect urban neighborhoods with stronger living
photographed by Johnnie Chamberlin edges, buffer the impacts of sea level rise and extreme flooding,
and improve social and environmental health capacity and water storage. In the bay’s greater
31
through the production of cleaner water, cleaner air, watershed, land is managed to slow erosion and
and access to living systems. Yet the region faces reduce sediment flows downstream, for the benefit
a looming scarcity; scientific predictions indicate of water supply and habitat management. Yet,
that soon there will not be enough sediment to go muddy water, at the right times and volumes,
around. The trickle of mud that currently moves is essential to a range of Bay Area ecosystems.
downstream is insufficient to sustain marshes and Large-grain sediments, like sand and cobbles,
mudflats with aggressive rates of sea level rise.1 provide critical spawning habitat for fish in creeks
Current sediment management practices are not and channels. Fine-grain sediments nourish bay
adapting at a pace that meets new climate realities. ecosystems, helping them accrete over time and
keep pace with sea level rise. Without sediment,
Today’s practices were shaped by the 20th century
the Bay Area’s marshes will drown.
perception of sediment as a nuisance, waste
product, and contaminant. Sediment is treated as Public Sediment proposes to invest in sediment
an obstruction; huge volumes are annually dredged infrastructure—the building block of resilience in
from the bay to clear passage for ships. When the bay. The team aims to design with mud, to
timing and budgets allow, some of this material connect the region’s uplands with its lowlands,
is beneficially reused for wetland creation, while and rethink sediment management as part of an
in other scenarios dredged sediment is shipped engaged and dynamic public realm.
off the coast and dumped in offshore disposal
PUBLIC SEDIMENT TEAM
GU : ISSUE 07
HOW DO SEDIMENT FLOWS IMPACT THE BAY? SEDIMENT TRENDS
The bay is entering an era of sediment scarcity.3
Historically, the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers
provided the majority of its sediment, building
historic marshlands and mudflats. During the Gold
Rush, hydraulic mining power-washed hillsides and
flushed huge volumes of sediment into these rivers.
This surplus helped build some of the marshes
and mudflats known today. Contemporary dams
trap sediment far upstream of the bay, leading to
sediment scarcity at a time when it is needed most.
Without sediment inputs, shallow habitats will
drown, and the bay will flood more intensely.4
MARSH DECLINE
Given sufficient sediment supply, marshes can accrete up to 3F T SLR M HW
6mm a year, potentially keeping pace with rising seas. However, MLW
faster sea level rise and low sediment supply create conditions
where marshes and mudflats cannot keep up. Bay scientists
project that many marshes will transition to mudflats in coming
SUB TI DAL E XPANSI O N
decades, reducing the protective benefits of the bayland buffer.
BAYLAND DROWNING
As marshes and mudflats convert to subtidal baylands, habitat
7F T SLR M HW
will shift, floods will intensify, and tides will be amplified. While MLW
today this change is slow and imperceptible, it presents serious
risks to humans and ecosystems over time.
2100,
2100,
3.5
2100,
ft
3.53.5
SLR
2100,3.5
ftftftSLR
SLR
SLR
ESTIMATE
ESTIMATE
OF OFOF
ESTIMATE
ESTIMATE OF ESTIMATE ESTIMATE
ESTIMATE
ESTIMATE OF
OF OF OF
SUPPLY AND DEMAND: 2100, 3.5 ft SLR POSSIBLE
POSSIBLE
FUTURE
POSSIBLE
POSSIBLE FUTURE POSSIBLE
FUTURE
FUTURE POSSIBLE
POSSIBLE
POSSIBLE FUTURE
FUTURE
FUTUREFUTURE
The bar chart to the right is based on preliminary analysis by
BAYLAND BAYLAND
BAYLAND
BAYLAND BAYLAND
BAYLAND
BAYLAND BAYLAND
SEDIMENT
SEDIMENT
SEDIMENT
SEDIMENT
SUPPLY1 SUPPLY1
SUPPLY1
SUPPLY1 SEDIMENT
SEDIMENT
SEDIMENT DEMAND2
SEDIMENT DEMAND2
DEMAND2 DEMAND2
SFEI. A more detailed analysis is being conducted as part of (assuming
(assuming
current
current (assuming
(assuming
current
current
(assuming
(assuming
current
average
average current
annual
annual
load)
load) (assuming(assuming
baylands current
baylands extent) current
extent)
the Healthy Watersheds Resilient Baylands project averageaverage
annual load)
annual load) baylands baylands
extent) extent)
400
400
(hwrb.sfei.org). 400 400
BAYLAND DROWING
this slow but dramatic drowning of the baylands as
WITH 7’ SLR BY 2100 sediment needs outpace sediment supply.
GU : ISSUE 07
34
35
PUBLIC SEDIMENT
GU : ISSUE 07
DESIGN WITH MUD
Where does that leave the bay? If even mobilizing To meet rising challenges of sediment scarcity,
all of these sources will be inadequate at some Public Sediment looks to connect the uplands and
point in the future, what can we do today? Should the lowlands with a series of sediment actions:
we give up? Abandon wetland restoration? No. The harvest, retrofit, and remove dams; unlock tributary
Public Sediment team proposes to treat sediment channels; and test new methods of mud placement
as a public resource, and to DESIGN WITH MUD. that use currents to move mud in the bay.
The next few decades are a critical period, when Experimentation is vital to ecological resilience.
designers must test methods that can be scaled Current practices, like beneficial dredge placement
up in the future to strategically sustain baylands in contained, non-tidal sites, are positive but are not
for a range of ecosystem services, particularly being explored at a scale or pace that meets the
flood risk reduction, habitat provision, and carbon urgency of the problem. Collaboration—between
sequestration. Projections of large-scale change regulators, engineers, watershed managers, policy
make bayland restoration and creative sediment makers, and designers—is critical to developing
management more urgent than ever. The team aims new methods and new implementation pathways
to invest differently with sediment, developing new for sediment management and sea level rise. The
management regimes for portions of the bay with team is building these relationships as part of
the greatest capacity for long-term survival. the design process, working to pilot new ways of
managing mud collectively in the bay.
36
37
Simply moving mud is not enough. Public dialogue must change around sediment to understand the material as
a resource, not a contaminant. Likewise, scientific and regulatory dialogue must shift to encourage experimental
pilots developed to mitigate climate impacts. The goal is to MAKE SEDIMENT PUBLIC and engage broader
PUBLIC SEDIMENT TEAM
communities in monitoring and interpreting their sediment systems. At the neighborhood scale, the team
envisions a series of elements that link vulnerable neighborhoods with the bay and engage youth and volunteers
to monitor climate change in their backyards. Upland and lowland communities will be connected by pathways
and flows of sediment along water bodies. Community sensing stations and mud rooms will reveal the region’s
slow and invisible threats, spurring the long-term stewardship of our public sediment resources.
GU : ISSUE 07
UNLOCK SEDIMENT FLOWS DESIGN FOR FISH MAKE SEDIMENT PUBLIC
Public Sediment is designing for sediment systems stewards that physically connect to the bay.
at the scale of a tributary, targeting the sediment Design efforts focus on unlocking Alameda
flows of the largest local sediment-shed in the Bay Creek to move sediment downstream and into
Area: Alameda Creek. This waterbody contributes the bay, where it is needed most. Selectively
more sediment to the South Bay than any other breaching levees will feed neighboring marshes
tributary. Even so, its potential is far from realized; with sediment, re-connecting the channel and the
the flood channel was only designed for the flow of bay. Inland, the team will test the use of upland
water. Sediment is trapped upstream behind dams sediment sources, dredged materials, treated
and in the channel itself, where it reduces flood wastewater, and biosolids to support fresh- to
storage capacity and requires expensive dredging. saltwater transition zones and plan for future marsh
Public use of the creek is limited, and fish passage migration areas. Along the channel, strategically
38 is impaired. The team aims to redesign Alameda altering the flow of sediment will feed distributaries,
Creek to bring sediment to the baylands, reconnect build erodible tributary sediment pools, and move
steelhead with their historic spawning grounds, and mud downstream. In the creek’s upper reaches,
organize a tributary-based network of community sediment must be harvested from behind dams.
ALAMEDA CREEK CRAWL Over 100 people joined the team on February 24, 2018 for a tour of the creek. The tour began at the Niles
Canyon Staging Area, where the creek enters the flood control channel at the mouth of Niles Canyon. Photographs by Ramon Estrada.
These actions approach sediment management as Dusterhoff, S., Pearce, S., McKee, L. J., Doehring, C., Beagle, J., McKnight, K.,
Grossinger, R., and Askevold, R.A. Changing Channels: Regional Information
a system, developing an interconnected suite of for Developing Multi-benefit Flood Control Channels at the Bay Interface.
Flood Control 2.0. SFEI Contribution No. 801. San Francisco Estuary Institute:
projects that generate watershed-wide benefits. Richmond, CA, 2017.
awareness of the connective landscape systems 3 In addition to the San Francisco Estuary Institute’s work in this area, the
Dredge Research Collaborative dedicated DredgeFest California 2016 to
that define this watershed are crucial for long-term understanding this era of sediment scarcity.
ecological and human health. This #trib connects Milligan, B., Holmes, R., Wirth, G., Maly, T., Burkholder, S., and Holzman,
J. “DredgeFest California: Key Findings and Recommendations.” Dredge
communities that are diverse in race, ethnicity, age, Research Collaborative. 2016. http://dredgeresearchcollaborative.org/works/
dredgefest-california-white-paper/
and income level, linking them with each other
and the bay. Community events oriented around 4 See Diana Stralberg’s 2011 “Evaluating Tidal Marsh Sustainability in the
Face of Sea-Level Rise” and Mark Stacey’s 2014 “Coupling of Sea Level
natural systems, like the Alameda Creek Crawl, Rise, Tidal Amplification and Inundation” for more information about
compounding impacts.
create moments to reveal our inter-connected
Stralberg, D., Brennan, M., Callaway, J., Wood, J., Schile, L., Jongsomjit, D.,
environment, get our hands and feet muddy, and Kelly, M., Parker, V., and Crooks, S. “Evaluating Tidal Marsh Sustainability in
the Face of Sea-Level Rise: A Hybrid Modeling Approach Applied to San
discuss collective public sediment infrastructure for Francisco Bay.” PLoS One 6, no. 11 (2011).
the future. The larger proposal constructs a network Holleman, R.C. and M.T. Stacey. “Coupling of Sea Level Rise, Tidal
Amplification, and Inundation.” Journal of Physical Oceanography 44 (2014):
of paths, mud rooms, and community sensing 1439–1455.
stations along the creek to enable inter-species 5 SFEI’s projections were shared at San Francisco Estuary Partnership’s 2017
State of the Estuary Conference as part of their presentation “Sediment
interactions and empathy, building capacity over Supply to San Francisco Bay: Today and Into the Future.”
time for a new sediment public. Resilient By Design Bay Area Challenge is a year-long collaborative design
challenge bringing together local residents, public officials, and local,
national, and international experts to develop 10 innovative designs around
the Bay Area that will strengthen the region’s resilience to sea level rise,
severe storms, flooding, and earthquakes. Please join the Public Sediment
ENDNOTES
PUBLIC SEDIMENT TEAM
GU : ISSUE 07
06 TIL DEATH DO US PART
MICHAEL JENKS
40
“
A PHOTO ESSAY DOCUMENTING
“
41
I OBSERVED A MARRIAGE
INSEPAR ABLE IN THEIR OLD AGE
IN LOVE THROUGH PROSPERIT Y
LOYAL THROUGH HARDSHIP
JENKS
GU : ISSUE 07
THE Y WERE BE AUTIFUL, FULL OF LIFE
NOW LEF T IN THE WAKE OF UNCERTAINT Y
THEIR OUTCOMES SHARED
42
43
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44
“
TO HAVE & TO HOLD; FROM THIS
DAY FORWARD; FOR BET TER, FOR
WORSE; FOR RICHER, FOR POORER;
IN SICKNESS & IN HE ALTH, TO LOVE
AND TO CHERISH ...
“
JENKS
GU : ISSUE 07
46
47
There are 14 major sister cities along the United States-Mexico border
whose urban, cultural, and ecological networks have been bifurcated by
a borderwall. With 650 miles already constructed, and the population in
these urban areas expected to grow to over 20 million inhabitants over
the next decade, the long-term effects of the wall’s construction must
now be carefully considered. This speculation serves to anticipate the
consequences of its incision into a context of rapid growth and massive
migratory flows, especially as the current political climate calls for further
wall construction.
GU : ISSUE 07
BORDERWALL AS BACKGROUND BORDERWALL AS SITE
There are more invisible walls than visible ones— In Tijuana, the studio attempted to ground
especially in the case of the U.S.-Mexico barrier— theoretical frameworks of the borderwalled city
48
dividing rivers, farms, Native American lands, public in on-the-ground site research. This transition
lands, cultural sites, and wildlife preserves. At this from an academic space to an active-participatory
scale, the invisible walls that exist in parallel to one unearthed a variety of conflicting responses
the U.S.-Mexico borderwall are unsurmountable. and questions from students about how this site
The grander the walls, the greater the inability to should be constituted, as we challenged our roles
discuss, negotiate, and resolve common challenges and expertise in a highly politicized space. This
or problems. Understanding how the Borderwall article plays back reflections on our experiences in
manifests a cultural condition that is imposed onto the U.S.-Mexico Borderwall city. Questions about
the landscape, onto the city, framed the discussion agency and intention in an unfamiliar, multinational
of the course. space weighed on us. Questions about identity and
interference were vocalized. Questions about our
Several field trips brought students directly to relationship with the Borderlands emerged. Here
border sites, where they learned from examples we highlight and confront these questions—from
of local artists, writers, and designers whose work theories on activism and architecture, to personal
reacts to the wall. This article recounts student recollections of the ever-evolving borderland.
experiences and reflections as investigators and
designers in the borderwalled city, Tijuana. The
final project, to be completed after the date
of publication, will consist of individual and
TOP Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman of Estudio Teddy Cruz, UCSD
collaborative works that will be deployed at a site
MIDDLE Marcel Sanchez-Prieto of CRO Studio, Woodbury Univ.
along the border.1
BOTTOM Marco “Erre” Ramirez, Mexican artist, Tijuana native
ENDNOTES
GU : ISSUE 07
08 MY QUEERNESS, MY COMMUNIT Y:
STORIES FROM THE L ANDSCAPE OF
PERSONAL IDENTIT Y & ITS CONSEQUENCES
FOR FUTURE- BUILDING
JUDEE BURR
up and standing out. In bucking social pressure to PERSPECTIVES FROM THE LANDSCAPE OF
conform, queer individuals have been forced to QUEERNESS: FINDING THE WORDS 51
act as architects of the self, re-casting their own
“I felt like I had to make a decision as to what I
molds, spitting out assumptions, and delivering
identified as, I felt really strongly that I had to find
the consequences of this personal work to the
the word. And I felt really strongly that I couldn’t,”
communities they live in.
says MJ Robinson (they/them/theirs). MJ is a 25
year-old artist, community organizer, and a museum
From the Stonewall riots led by trans women
educator with the Rhode Island School of Design.
of color and gender-non-conforming activists,
They now use the word queer to describe their
to intersectional queer feminist activism of
sexuality and genderqueer or trans to describe their
the 1980s and 90s, to the Black Lives Matter
gender. Growing up north of Philadelphia at a time
movement, queerness has had the reputation
when they knew only a couple other gay people in
and consequence of social transformation. The
their high school, they remember feeling a lot of
deep and personal journey embedded in queer
anxiety when coming out. “The most intense wave
experience, of norm-toppling and identity-finding,
of panic consumed my body,” they say, describing
impacts our communities beyond gay-coded
one night a crush cuddled close to them.“ That was
spaces. An important look ahead emerges from the
sort of my trigger that I need to figure shit out.”
perspectives to follow—futures through a queer
lens confront business-as-usual practices with a
Words map the expanding landscape of queerness.
honed skepticism of ‘the ways things are,’ with
Discovering explanations and labels that subvert
the boldness to envision more powerfully the way
dominant narratives about gender and sexual
things could be.
identity and using them to name one’s reality is a
formative experience for many queer people. These
words can capture an experience outside the box of
BURR
GU : ISSUE 07
52
Steph France (she/her/hers) first heard the word in Toby (he/him/his or they/them/theirs) works
second grade at her all-girls Catholic school, where in the field of sexual health and sexual violence
she remembers lesbians often getting teased. prevention on a mid-sized university campus. (Toby
“Mom, I think I’m a lesbi-OWN … I like girls,” Steph is not his real name). Toby identifies as transgender
recalls saying when she cornered her mom doing and queer. “I think a lot of queer and trans folks
her hair in the bathroom. “And she’s like: ‘Oh, I find themselves drawn to information, because so
know that … Of course I know.’” many of us are not afforded information about our
identities,” Toby says. “I remember the first time
Steph France and Rowena Jones (she/her/hers) I heard the word transgender and transsexual,
are both 29 years old and live together in southern and I was definitely overwhelmed with my own
Rhode Island. They have been dating for five transphobia. I really tried to play the game,” Toby
years. Steph works independently as an actor and says. Then I finally realized the game is rigged ...
together with Rowena to manage a business selling The truth is that vanilla, straight, cis-gendered-ness
53
books and other retail through Amazon. is such a tiny slice. And any time that any one of
us, it could be argued, steps a foot outside one of
Steph remembers feeling ‘like a dude’ when she those boxes, we’re experiencing queerness.”
was growing up in southern Rhode Island. She
became comfortable identifying as a woman in
her late teens. “Not all women have to be super
feminine, not all women have to fit into the
stereotypes,” Steph says. “I’m not going to call
myself a guy because I’m masculine. I want to put it
out there that women can be whatever they want.”
I finally realized the game is rigged
Rowena also identifies as a lesbian and remembers … The truth is that vanilla, straight,
some of the judgment she faced when exploring
cis-gendered-ness is such a tiny
her own identity. “She didn’t think at all that I
could possibly not be into guys,” Rowena says of slice. And any time that any one of
her mom, remembering getting ‘the talk’ from her us, it could be argued, steps a foot
about sex and relationships. “That affected me. I
outside one of those boxes, we’re
tried to be with guys until I was in my twenties,”
Rowena says. “It really messes you up and confuses
experiencing queerness.
you when people tell you what you are.”
GU : ISSUE 07
“I never hid it,” Luisa says of her lesbian identity,
thinking back on coming out to her Catholic and
conservative family in Venezuela. “I was brave
enough to come out, still at 15, and the first person
I told was my mom,” Luisa says. “I was strong in
my belief that I needed to be out there, even if
they treated me like shit. Because, especially in
Venezuela, you don’t see it out there. It’s not like we
don’t exist, we are there. We’re just hidden. And it’s
not fair.”
ABOVE From “Reborn,” a film by Luisa Piña inspired by her coming out. Photo by Daniel Oliver.
Ash Trull (they/them/theirs), is a 30 year-old like I lose that solidarity with femmes or with
community organizer, facilitator, coder, and farmer women,” Ash says. “AFAB is something that’s really
in Providence, Rhode Island, who identifies as non- helpful for me in talking about my socialization,
binary, queer, and genderqueer, occasionally using my upbringing, what gender I was assigned, and
the term AFAB, or ‘assigned-female-at-birth,’ to then pushed into for a huge chunk of my formative
describe their identity. “I’ve chosen a lot of different years.” As a queer coder, Ash has gravitated to
words for my gender over the years, and a lot of communities like ‘She Hacks’ and ‘Lesbians Who
times it’s just like meeting someone whose gender Tech,’ but notices the ways in which non-binary
I resonate with and then hearing what they say identities are invisible in the title font of
and being like ‘oh yeah! Non-binary! That’s me,’” these gatherings.
Ash says.
“I feel like we’re missing something if we can’t
Ash explains that, as a non-binary person, they get all people together who suffer from gender
have had to use the term AFAB—assigned-female- oppression,” Ash says. “There’s complexity to the
at-birth—to gain access to spaces more explicitly way that you experience privilege and oppression,
marketed to women. “A thing that happens in but we have to be able to hold that so we can
identifying as non-binary or genderqueer is feeling support each other.”
BURR
GU : ISSUE 07
PRIVILEGES AND THREATS community. In Chechnya in 2017, the round up
Coming out as queer and openly adopting and torture of gay men—their crime: being gay—
queer-identifying labels is challenging and often sparked an international outcry.
dangerous—many individuals in the United States
and around the world face enormous pressure to Lana (she/her/hers)—not her real name—grew up
live up to straight and cis-gender cultural norms. In in Siberia and won asylum in the United States to
many places, this pressure takes the form of open, escape Russia’s persecution of the gay community.
violent discrimination. In the United States, as of
2017, people can still be fired by their employers “I came out at a relatively young age … I wasn’t
for being gay or transgender in 28 states; the really thinking about the consequences of being
45th president has attempted to ban transgender open. It is dangerous because you actually have
individuals from serving in the military; and to be on high alert all the time, because you don’t
transgender individuals—especially trans women of really know what’s going to happen to you. You
color—are murdered at a disproportionately high can be attacked by your classmates or you can
rate. The second deadliest shooting in modern U.S. be attacked by your neighbors or people on the
history happened at a gay bar, the Pulse nightclub street if they know that you’re gay,” Lana says. “And
in Orlando. moreover, nothing is going to happen to them.”
Around the world, there are more than 70 countries In the United States, the transgender community
with laws that criminalize being queer. In Russia, has also been more visible in recent years and
anti-gay propaganda laws purporting to protect there has been a reciprocal backlash. “Queerness
the morality of children have resulted in hate is much more widely accepted, trans-ness
crimes against gay individuals and allow officials is so misunderstood,” Justice Gaines says.
56
to imprison people for being part of the queer “We’re at a flashpoint for trans identity where
GU : ISSUE 07
The community organizing work that Justice
Gaines does directly addresses harm experienced
by the transgender community. In 2017, RI
Jobs with Justice supported a community-wide
campaign to pass the Police-Community Relations
Act in Providence, an act that includes protections
for transgender individuals during police stops
among other rights for community members.
Now, the campaign is working to ensure the act is
implemented to full effect. Justice says xyr trans
identity is connected to xyr organizing work.
“I think being gay—especially if you’re persecuted and is poisoning watersheds, land, and air. Growing
or you’re bullied and you decide to come forward it where we live and eating that food is just an
and use your own experiences and trauma to immediate connection to the earth—
change the world for other people—that has you’re grounded.”
everything to do with the way that you are and the
fact that you’re gay,” Lana says. Lindsey has noticed more queer people joining 59
The impacts of queer identity are playing out in Of what consequence is the queer rebellion, of
physical spaces—from human rights’ rallies to new purple lipstick against a bearded face, of two
stories for film scripts to the radical act of small- women locked in an embrace, of naming ourselves
scale, local, holistic farming. and asking that others call us by our names—of
being open to the idea that there is a brighter
“It’s the only reasonable, sustainable future—if future ahead for the building? What we have is not
we all grow food everywhere,” Lindsey Medeiros enough. Every furrowed brow, every questioning
says. “The more that we learn about where our look, every life-threatening act of being—that is
food actually comes from, the more we learn about in itself an act of facing down the old guard, of
how unjust it all is, the whole system—from the fearlessly bucking broken trends and creating the
way that the practices of industrial agriculture is vessels in which our communities can live
stripping the soil and essentially uses slave labor out loud.
BURR
GU : ISSUE 07
09 LOOKING AT L ANDSCAPE
REBECCA PARTRIDGE
PARTRIDGE
GU : ISSUE 07
The landscapes I depict are remote; they are border
zones where human narrative is absent, as well as
places in which we become more aware of our own
perceptions. I see these ambivalent, empty spaces
as a place from within from which to explore very
basic ontological ideas. Through the observation
of landscapes that appear out of reach, there is
an attempt to pull apart the difference between
‘landscape’ and ‘nature,’ that which we perceive
and that which exists beyond us.
62
PARTRIDGE
64
The traces of these colonial legacies have often that defines land in the settler colonial state, these
become the seams of visible contestation, powerful acts of Indigenous refusal are essential
evidenced by the continued protests over to making visible the continued logics of colonial
infrastructure development across Indigenous land control.3 Despite the significant ruptures in
sacred sites in the United States. At Standing the status quo that these examples provide, there
Rock, Water Protectors have been resisting the also are many contexts in which the legacies of
construction of a pipeline through land with deep colonization and continued dispossession are
significance to ecological and human health, less visible. Instead, the insidious foundations
spiritual practice, and prolonged histories of of how land and landscape are categorized and
occupation. Indigenous Hawaiians have shut down
1
commodified often persist largely unchallenged.
the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope
on Mauna Kea, contesting the establishment of In order to spatialize this discourse within a specific
space infrastructure on a culturally and ecologically site, I turn to the context of Colombia’s eastern
significant site. Their acts undermine the hegemony piedmont region to consider the ways in which
MATSON
of the settler colonial occupation that persists on landscape typologies have been constructed
their land. As just two examples of the tension
2
through colonial mapping and natural history
GU : ISSUE 07
expeditions. The prolonged effects of colonization crop production.
endure in Colombia, both through the construction These representational
of the country into regions, and through deeply narratives can still be
unequal systems of land tenure and property read in arrangements
ownership. By emphasizing this location specifically, of land ownership into
I do not intend to suggest that this case is haciendas and more
representative of all contexts, nor do I consider this contemporary
site exceptional in its relation to larger patterns of accumulations for
hegemonic control. Rather, I turn to an examination agroforestry and oil
of this region to indicate both the potential and palm plantations.
possible approaches for critical site research within These demarcations
the design disciplines. of land and its
parceling into
The early scientific and state-building expeditions unequal systems of
to claim the territory of present day Colombia ownership for the
employed landscape painting traditions that fixed production of capital are now
landscape typologies into place, subsequently fundamental to our understanding of site. As
categorizing Indigenous populations according designers, the lot lines derived from surveys and
to imagined geographies. While Alexander von ownership deeds are the starting point for our
Humboldt’s travels—in the land that is now known drawings. If left unchallenged, the ordering power
as Colombia—are well documented, the most of the colonial gaze and unequal traditions of land
significant of these projects was the Comisión accumulation will and do persist in the very base
Corográfica de Nueva Granada. Led by Augustin map that underlays our designs.
66
Codazzi, the Commission produced maps, written
accounts, and a series of watercolor paintings that Moving from this specific case to its broader
classified landscapes and divided the country into significance for lands of consequence, there is
distinctive regions. Images from this expedition
4
an imperative for design to research, represent,
to the Amazon, painted in what is present day and challenge the multiple and conflicting
Caquetá, depict lush vegetation in riverside scenes. histories of site. It is important that we consider
Indigenous people are treated as a part of the these contested places as more than composed
landscape, coding both bodies and landscapes of historic overlays through time, and instead
as ‘other.’ Analyzing this archive, historian Nancy understand that amplifying underprivileged
Appelbaum has suggested that the Commission’s narratives is necessary to effectively counter the
work in the Eastern Plains and the Amazon dominant histories of site. While the task is certainly
represented an ‘ethnographic cartography’ that, a difficult one that stretches into some of the very
while indebted to the local knowledge of people foundations of our design process, the orientation
that lived in these regions, sought to justify their and lineage of design disciplines make them adept
subjugation and the control of territory by the newly at interrogating the status quo and critiquing that
formed state. 5
which has been constructed as natural. To move
beyond the colonial perspectives of the sites we
While these expeditions produced perspectival operate on, it is necessary that we challenge the
images of the landscape, they also influenced the visual archives from which we derive our materials,
establishment of colonial structures of land tenure. considering alternative locations to find base
Lands in Eastern Colombia were idealized through information and critically speculating about the
representations as territories suited to cattle voices that are missing from the site research we
production or verdant landscapes of bounty for have been doing. Considering the limitations of
67
ABOVE Highway development through the landscapes of Eastern Colombia seek to materially connect this region to national and
international markets, while they also serve as important symbolic constructions that constitute this region as part of the national imaginary.
about the institutions, firms, governments, and 3 Nunn, N, and Z. Matson. “Space Infrastructure, Empire, and the Final
Frontier: What the Mauna Kea Land Defenders teach use about colonial
interests that we have come to accept, and in turn totality.” Society and Space Online, Investigating Infrastructure Forum, 2017.
http://societyandspace.org/2017/10/03/investigating-infrastructures-a-forum/
how this acceptance has shaped the histories and
4 Codazzi, A, and C.A. Domínguez. Obras completas de la Comisión
priorities of site design. Corográfica: geografía física y política de la Confederación Granadina.
COAMA-Unión Europea, 2002.
GU : ISSUE 07
11 A POST-NATIVE WORLD
MARK WESSELS
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GU : ISSUE 07
TEMPERATURE DIFFERENCE
BETWEEN URBAN & VEGETATED
LAND DUE TO IMPERVIOUS
SURFACE AREA
CHANGE IN AVERAGE
SURFACE TEMPERATURE
(1986-2005 TO 2081-2100)
70
ABOVE Cities are already irreversibly altered from their natural state. By the time the trees we plant today mature, the world will have
warmed by several degrees. Cities are a harbinger of things to come. Top image source: “Impact of Urbanization on US Surface Climate.”2
Bottom image source: IPCC, 2013: Summary for Policymakers.3
A CASE STUDY IN NATIVE FRAGILITY: parasitica, which was introduced from the
AMERICAN CHESTNUT, ELM, AND ASH planting of non-native Japanese chestnuts
(Castanea crenata).
Prized for its timber and as a source of food
for people and animals, the American chestnut
In the early 20th century, the chestnut blight was
(Castanea dentata) once made up 20% of the
described using the narrative of a foreign invader
trees in the Appalachian forest. Due to the value
decimating American trees. In a 1915 article in
of its wood, nuts, and shade, it was the most
American Forestry, Samuel Detwiler wrote, “Less
economically and ecologically important tree in
than fifteen years ago the chestnut blight was
much of the eastern United States.4 In 1904, a
unknown to the scientist or the woodsman. Seven
forester in the Bronx, New York, noticed a large
years after the discovery, in 1904, near New York
number of chestnuts under his care were dying
City, of this undesirable alien from Northern China
from an unknown blight. By 1912, all of the chestnut
it was conservatively estimated to have done
trees in New York City were dead, and over the
$25,000,000 worth of damage ... It is thought that it
following three decades, the blight spread to wipe
will all but exterminate the chestnut in the Northern
out nearly every American chestnut, leading to an
States ... and may invade the South with like
effective extinction of the species.5 The chestnut
disastrous results.”6
blight was caused by the fungus, Cryphonectria
‘Undesirable alien,’ ‘exterminate,’ and ‘invade’ expect to see trees succumbing to foreign invaders,
framed the blight as a human-generated attack human action, and differences in precipitation at
against nature and an unnatural abomination an unprecedented rate. No amount of caution and
that had to be prevented at all costs. The U.S. prudence will protect us from this type of disaster.
government responded by felling thousands of
acres of chestnut trees, in the hopes of stopping Should we keep trying to turn back the clock,
the spread of the disease, and by passing the Plant prevent change, and restore ecological systems
Quarantine Act in 1912 to prevent a repeat of this that are no longer suited to an altered
disaster. Additional resources were poured into
7
environment? Or will we finally embrace and take
plant pathology, development of fungicides, and responsibility for our role as a disruptive species
monitoring of forest health. The United States and ecosystem engineers?
did everything in its power to protect the natives
against foreign invaders. DIVERSITY OF APPROACHES VS.
SINGLE STRATEGY
But then it happened again. In 1928, Dutch
Globalization has irreversibly altered the planet,
Elm Disease swept through the United States,
but it may also hold the key to surviving climate
eventually resulting in the loss of 75% of American
change. Designers today have unprecedented
elms.8 The country was heavily invested in the elm;
access to plants from around the world. For
many American cities had planted long, important
millennia, plants have been continuously evolving
streets exclusively with elm trees. When Dutch Elm
new, more efficient ways to survive in an astounding
Disease hit these streets it rapidly decimated the
array of environmental conditions. In a post-native
population, leaving main streets entirely devoid of
world, we will have to reconsider the idea that each
trees and denuding neighborhoods over the course
plant is custom-evolved for a particular place on the 71
of a few years. Again, the cause of the outbreak
earth, and instead think of global biodiversity as a
was determined to be a fungal pathogen from Asia.
library of adaptation. This library holds the key to
Again, the disease was framed as a battle against a
successful planting in urban areas today, and hope
foreign invader, and again America lost.
for an uncertain future.
GU : ISSUE 07
THE CONSEQUENCES OF urban ecologies that will carry us through the
NATIVE PLANT DOGMA changes ahead.
the climate changes and we hold plants static, we 1 McBride, Joe. The World’s Urban Forests: History, Composition, Design,
Function and Management. Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2017.
are pushing the ecosystems on which we depend
2 L. Bounoua, et al. “Impact of Urbanization on US Surface Climate.”
to mass extinction. Our desire to undo the damage Environmental Research Letters 10, no. 8 (2015): 084010.
that our species has caused to this planet is causing 3 T.F. Stocker, et.al. “Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basics.”
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press,
us to hide our heads in the sand and hope the 2013.
problem goes away. It’s time we take responsibility 4 Davis, D.E. “Historical significance of American chestnut to Appalachian
culture and ecology.” Proceedings of the conference on restoration of
for our role and accept the consequences of our American chestnut to forest lands, Steiner, K.C. and J.E. Carlson (eds.), 2005.
actions. There is no going back. However, if we 5 Freinkel, Susan. American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a
embrace the forces of nature (diversity, evolution, Perfect Tree. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
creativity) rather than clinging to the image of 6 Detwiler, Samuel. “The American Chestnut Tree: Identification and
Characteristics.” American Forestry 21, no. 362 (1915): 957-959.
nature, we can move into an unpredictable future
7 Waterworth, H. E. and G. A. White. “Plant Introductions and Quarantine:
with hope. If we learn to recruit the tenacity of the need for both.” Plant Diseases 66 (1982): 87-90.
nature as an ally, rather than framing it as an enemy, 8 “New Varieties of Elm Raise Hope of Rebirth For Devastated Tree.” New
York Times, Dec. 1989.
we can use its incredible diversity to build robust
12 URBAN SENSORIUM:
PROJECTING A NEAR FUTURE FOR
5 CITIES IN 5 SENSES ON 5 MAPS
GU : ISSUE 07
THE FUTURE
OF NEW YORK
COULD BE
BRIGHT
74
THE FUTURE
OF HOUSTON
COULD BE
FRAGRANT
GU : ISSUE 07
In recent years, Los Angeles has been among the top cities with the highest THE FUTURE
car sales, the highest number of hours spent in traffic, the largest municipal
OF LOS ANGELES
street system in the U.S., and the highest number of lanes in an urban
highway. And all those cars on the highway make noise. An apartment next COULD BE
to a freeway registers at about 90 decibels, or ‘very loud’—the same range as
a gas lawn mower at three feet. In an effort to reduce decibel
levels and save scarce highway improvement dollars,
the California Department of Transportation
(Caltrans) has taken an interest in “quiet
pavements” in lieu of noise walls. From
2002-2006, Caltrans built and tested
five sections of quiet pavement north
of L.A., with the hope of getting the
data incorporated into a highway
traffic noise prediction model that
maps decibel levels at an urban
scale.10 Compared to Caltrans’ normal
dense graded hot mix asphalt (HMA), open-
graded friction courses (OGFC) and rubberized
asphalt concrete were better at reducing noise
in the tests, according to the Volpe National
Transportation Systems Center.11 Out of 100
different pavement samples from Caltrans’
76
pavement noise database, testing in 2005 showed that
the loudest pavements and the quietest differed by as much as
16 decibels—the difference in noise level between the inside of
a subway car and a live rock concert.
In March 2017, the Los Angeles Times reported that between 2005 and
2015, the number of building permits L.A. granted increased sharply
within 1,000 feet of freeways. In 2015 alone, the city issued building permits
for 4,300 homes near freeways—more than in any year over the last decade.12
Miles of freeway and expressway are already becoming more desirable
areas for living and easier to permit. More residential density next to major
thoroughfares could create a new urban form—thin linear villages situated in
the former buffer areas or odd lots between inaccessible, elevated highways
and existing neighborhood grids. With the addition of quiet pavements,
existing property values could increase, and reduced noise could mean
better health outcomes for those already living nearby.13
and additional highway building. could be quiet in the future due to changes in transit. Base
data acquired from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics’
National Transportation Noise Map.
THE FUTURE
OF SAN
FR ANCISCO
COULD BE
DRY 77
In San Francisco, a typical summer day starts with A drier, sunnier San Francisco might have broader
a heavy blanket of fog streaming into the bay. It effects beyond shifting regional ecologies. The fog
dissipates for a few hours, then in late afternoon, is often seen as an unexpected nuisance by summer
it rolls in again. The iconic fog can be attributed visitors; miserably cold tourists on open air double
to a dramatic temperature differential between decker buses are a common sight. A reduction in
the Pacific Ocean and the inland Central Valley. summer fog could translate to increased tourism for
According to UC Berkeley professor Todd Dawson, the region.
this pattern is beginning to shift, with a reduction
in summer fog due to climate change.15 Warmer Or, the future of San Francisco could be wet. Even
temperatures along the coast are heating up the if Bay Area summers shift towards drier, sunnier
surface of the ocean, weakening the upwelling weather due to climate change, more extreme
effect, and in turn, decreasing the amount of fog winter storms could be ahead for the state.16
SCHLICKMAN & DOMLESKY
GU : ISSUE 07
Small-scale agriculture has traditionally dominated A shift in foodways and eating habits might come
the landscape of outer Shanghai. However, local with health benefits for the Shanghainese. A 2015
vegetable production has decreased 45% since study in the BMJ suggests spicy food may have
the 1980s. The municipal government of Shanghai health benefits ranging from boosting metabolism
has made a renewed effort to safeguard food to reducing the risk of heart disease.21 If a spicier
self-reliance since 2000 by regulating land use diet contributes to longevity, Shanghai could
to preserve farmland and launching a number experience more development pressure as people
of programs to support farming in the city.17 live longer, adding to population increases from
Sometimes referred to as planning for a ‘green rural migrants and rising birth rates.
ring,’ authorities see agriculture as a way of also
preserving green space.18 At the same time, over Or, the future of Shanghai could be mild. If air
the past five years, eight of the twelve highest quality declines further, there could be a different
temperatures recorded over the past century in crop shift; shade-loving plants such as chard and
the city have been set, according to the Shanghai cabbage might be better adapted to grow in a
Meteorological Bureau. While Shanghai is
19
smog-laden environment.
classified as having a humid subtropical climate
with four distinct seasons, light rains in the normal BELOW Dark spots indicate areas in Shanghai we project could
wet season have decreased over the past years.20 be spicy in the future due to changes in food. Base data acquired
Urban farmers may soon have to shift from crops from the 2020 Plan of Shanghai Central City.
ENDNOTES
1 Trujillo, Jesus Leal, and Joseph Parilla. “Redefining Global Cities: The 13 Kihlman, Tor, Kropp, Wolfgang, and William Lang. “Quieter Cities of
Seven Types of Metro Economies.” The Brookings Institution, 2016. the Future: Lessening the Severe Health Effects of Traffic Noise in Cities by
Emissions Reductions.” International Council of Academies of Engineering
2 For the full scenarios and alternate scenarios, see and Technological Sciences, May 2014.
www.urbansensoriumexhibition.com.
14 Lu, Wei. “Densest Cities in 2025.” Bloomberg, September 12, 2014.
3 “Green Light: Sustainable Street Lighting.” New York City Department of
Transportation, September 2009. 15 Johnstone, James, and Todd Dawson. “Climatic context and ecological
implications of summer fog decline in the coast redwood region.”
4 Chaban, Matt. “LED Streetlights in Brooklyn Are Saving Energy but Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, March 2010.
Exhausting Residents.” New York Times, March 23, 2015.
16 Xiang, Gao, et al. “21st Century Changes in U.S. Regional Heavy
5 Panko, Ben. “Nighttime light pollution covers nearly 80% of the globe.” Precipitation Frequency Based on Resolved Atmospheric Patterns.” Journal
Science Magazine, June 10, 2016. of Climate 30 (2017): 2501-2521.
6 “AMA Adopts Guidance to Reduce Harm from High Intensity Street 17 Jacobson, Martin. “Shanghai Urban Farming.” World Wildlife
Lights.” American Medical Association, June 14, 2016. Foundation, March 1, 2012.
7 “Across U.S., Heaviest Downpours on the Rise.” Climate Central, May 27, 18 Shanghai Urban Planning Exhibition Center. Visited December 17, 2016.
2015. http://www.supec.org/
8 Wolkovich, Elizabeth, et al. “Temperature-dependent shifts in phenology 19 “Hottest Day Ever in Shanghai as Heat Wave Bakes China.” Agence
contribute to the success of exotic species with climate change.” American France-Presse, July 21, 2017.
Journal of Botany 100, no. 7 (2013): 1-15.
20 Tian, Zhan, Chen, Baode, and Jianguo Tan. “Climate Change in Mega-
9 Peter Del Tredici has worked to re-term invasives as “spontaneous City Shanghai and its Impacts.” Impacts of Climate Change on Future
vegetation.” See https://placesjournal.org/article/the-flora-of-the-future/. Societies Workshop. Australia-China Science and Technology Week,
August 2010.
SCHLICKMAN & DOMLESKY
GU : ISSUE 07
13 UN-NATUR AL GENER ATION
ETHAN MCKNIGHT
water on a catastrophic scale. “Everything ends,” scales of industrial impact, and leverages
they say, “except the pumping.”
GU : ISSUE 07
Record breaking First manmade
First manmade object to object
Power Record breaking power to break
break the soundsound
barrier barrier
Queen Mary
Queen Mary visits
Visits Father of Centralized Decomissioned
Energy
Father of centralized electricty inDecommissioned
2012
in 2012
Q
U
First all steam
First all steam
I
T
power powerplant
plant C
O
A
L
Twenty years
Twenty years ofprotest
of sustained
sustained
and action
protest
Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison
the subliminal scale of the site into a Station’s historical, cultural, and environmental
projective carbon monument that engages history, as well as its location in the midst of a
visitors in constructing a future. dense urban core, make it particularly potent.
The station opened in 1903 at the dawn of the
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE
modern age, smashing records for generating
FISK GENERATING STATION
capacity and efficiency, and demonstrating
The Fisk Generating Station, a the promises held by centralized power run
decommissioned coal plant in the Pilsen on fossil fuels. It was described in a 1908
neighborhood of Chicago, is an auspicious issue of Electrical World as a “great cathedral
site in which to explore these ideas. Of devoted to the religion of power,” whose
course, every post-industrial site presents an gigantic supersonic turbines inspired a feeling
opportunity to engage the public in future of worship and attracted luminaries such as
82
ramifications of industrialization, but the Fisk Thomas Edison and Queen Mary to marvel at
its scale and efficiency. It is no exaggeration to
say that our national landscape might not be so
TOP Timeline of the station’s history
defined by the proliferation of power lines and
TOP RIGHT Mapping the annual emmissions of pollutants from
smokestacks if the Fisk Station had failed to set
the Fisk Station, and the health impacts of the Fisk and
such a high standard.
Crawford Stations
BOTTOM Tracking the transportation of coal to the Fisk Station.
The Fisk Station’s record-breaking power,
Yellow numbers indicate annual trips of each transportation
mode for the station.
of course, depended on the accumulation
115 Tons/Car
115 Cars - 1.4 Mile Length
13,225 tons/Train
74 Trains/Year to Fisk Station
Environmental Justice Offenders (2010) Fisk: 374 Megawatts
1. Crawford Generating Station, Illinois
Environmental Justice Offenders (2010) People living within 3 miles: 314,632
2. Hudson Generating Station, New Jersey
1. Crawford Generating Station, Illinois
Average Income within 3 miles: $15,076
Fisk: 374 Megawatts
Output (Tons)
Annual Pollutant Output (Tons)
x 4924 Crawford
Annual Health Effects of Fisk and Crawford
x 550
x 1178
x 41
1.5 Miles
x 1784715
x 230
1937 - Fatal Burn
1974 - Fatal Accident
1938 - Ladder Fall
1976 - Firefighter crushed
1945 - Fatal Burn
Station Fatalities
x 2800
1954 - Two Fatal Burns
Station Fatalities
Crawford: 597 Megawatts
Crawford: 597 Megawatts
People Living within 3 Miles: 373,690
Average Income within 3 miles: S11,097
and compression of organic materials from far was responsible for 550 ambulance deaths, 2,800
afield over millions of years. Benefitting first from asthma attacks, and 41 premature deaths annually.
an abundance of coal in Pennsylvania and West People died as a consequence of this station’s
Virginia, and later the even greater abundance power. Sure the C-train runs smoothly, but we don’t
of the giant coal pits in the Powder River Basin really ever get to see the other side of the ledger
of Wyoming, the station irrevocably changed as clearly, do we? Both local activist groups such
landscapes thousands of miles from its property as the Pilsen Environmental Right and Reform
line. The volume of coal it consumed, at a rate of Organization (PERRO) and national groups such
one million tons of coal every year, dwarfed this tiny as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace targeted the
35-acre site. Communicating these monumental station for protests year after year until finally, in
scales of time and material is a primary driver of the 2012, the station was shuttered.
new programming in the site’s design. 83
Physically and metaphorically, the Fisk Station
The station holds the dubious distinction of dominated the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago for
being named as the third worst environmental over a century. Its contaminants and chemicals will
justice offender by the National Association for linger in the site’s soils for hundreds of years, and
the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in its emissions will contribute to rising temperatures,
2010. A 2002 study conducted by Harvard’s School ocean acidification, and all manner of global
of Public Health concluded that the Fisk Station, chemical imbalances for thousands of years.
in conjunction with its contemporary in the west This speculative design for the Fisk Station
side of Chicago, the Crawford Generating Station,
Annual emissions (2003-2006)
230 lbs of mercury
17,765 tons of sulfur
260,000 lbs of soot
1,784,715 tons of Carbon Dioxide
4,924 tons of Sulfur Dioxide
1,178 tons of Nitrous Oxide
North Antelope Rochelle Mine 374 Megawatt
Generator (1959)
Chicago
Des Plaines 16 Miles from Fisk
River
with Fisk
Coal Storage & Station
Transfer Station
Rail to Barge
1500 Tons/Barge Trip
2-3 Trips/Day
GU : ISSUE 07
Mining SiteSurfaces
Mining Site Surfaces Exploting
Exploiting Toxic
Toxic Soils Soils Creating a Carbon Monument
Creating a Carbon Monument
84
4
14
13 13
11
2 5 1 9
13 10
6 3
12
TOP Diagrams of the primary programmatic and spatial drivers for the new site design
MIDDLE Diagram of the processes and the locations of removal and deposition
These drivers engage the impacts of coal Over 600 years, the massive structures
generation at multiple temporal scales. Site
of the station will be filled with the
programming and spatial organization are driven
by three primary actions of material displacement,
carbon equivalent of only 42 days of
aimed at explicitly presenting to visitors the power plant operation.
MCKNIGHT
GU : ISSUE 07
Poplar/Black Locust
Grove
Poplar/Black Locust Grove
PAHs
Coal Tar
VOCs
BTEX
Heavy Metals
Phytoaccumulation
Volatization
Rhizodegradation
Bulkheads planters
Bulkhead planter
New water barriers and Remove existing bulkheads,
Remove existing bulkheads,
Existing Bulkhead
Existing bulkhead Property Line
Property Line bulkheads
New water barriers and bulkheads tiebacks, and polluted soils
tiebacks, and polluted soil
River Channel
River Channel
Puncture new bulkheads
Puncture new bulkhead Siltation in shallow
Siltation in shallow channel channel
The most toxic soil on site is located in the Typical carbon sequestration strategies fail to
southwest corner, where a former manufactured gas contextualize a coal power station’s carbon
plant operated for over a century. Here industrial expenditure within a human experience.
processes have contaminated almost 50,000 cubic Wood harvest sequestration is a developing,
86
yards of soil with petroleum byproducts. As with inexpensive strategy of storing harvested wood
all of the primary site moves, the goal with the underground or within structures, preserving
polluted soil is not to cap and hide it but rather to carbon for thousands of years. This technique
reveal its scale, to give it purpose as a reference will be used to fill the station’s massive boiler
of the past and a resource for the future. To this and generator structures with carbon. The
end, the soil is placed in phytoremediation bunkers projective monument looms over the site and
(petroleum byproducts are some of the most the city itself, measuring both past and future
suitable for phyto technologies) that frame the site material accumulation and confronting visitors
along the lines of vanished, historic canals. The slow with the almost unintelligible temporal and
incline of the bunkers rising above the heads of material scales of the plant’s impact.
visitors as they enter the site presents a progressive
understanding of the polluted soil volumes
As designers, we should no
resulting from a century of the station’s operation. longer be content to stand idle
in the willful obfuscation of
The bunkers will only become accessible as cycles
industrial landscapes.
of phyto-treatment render the soil safe for human
contact over years and decades. The soil bunkers Remediation groves and polluted soil bunkers
also frame the site, buffer from ongoing adjacent are used to supply carbon sequestration
industrial activity, and eventually provide unique volumes. The ongoing management of the
elevated views of the neighborhood and the river. groves contributes to the sense of time
Their most crucial role, however, is to yield the required to engage the volumes of coal
growing medium for the lengthiest program of the consumed by the station, and provides an
site design: carbon generation and storage. evolving set of experiences for residents and
Carbon + Remediation Carbon +
Carbon + Remediation Lumber +
Carbon +
Experience
Lumber +
Experience
Carbon + Lumber
Carbon + Lumber
Hybrid PoplarHybrid
Saplings
Poplar Saplings Poplars Poplars
phytoaccumulate
phytoaccumulate and Harvest Poplar
Harvest poplar forests
Poplar and Locust
Poplar and Locust Mix Plantings
Harvest
hardwood species
poplar
Harvest poplar and replace with
Managed mixed
Managed mixed hardwood forest
and degrade pollutants forests mixed plantings and replace with hardwood forest
degrade pollutants
hardwood
hardwood species species
Hybrid Poplar Saplings Poplars phytoaccumulate and Harvest poplar forests Poplar and Locust Mix Plantings Harvest poplar and replace with Managed mixed hardwood forest
degrade pollutants
interior scrap
0 years 10 years 20 years
0 years 10 years 20 years
GU : ISSUE 07
88
89
LAST NAME(S)
GU : ISSUE 07
14 THE BL ACK GOLD TAPESTRY
SANDRA SAWATZKY
LAST NAME(S)
GU : ISSUE 07
15 BET WEEN MEMORY AND OBLIVION
ROUTES OF MOURNING
MARIA KARATSIOMPANI,
NINA TSONIDI,
& KONSTANTINA LOLA
92
On October 28, 2015, a tragic shipwreck claimed the lives of nearly 100 refugees en route
to the island of Lesvos. The bodies were buried in an olive grove near the village of Kato
Tritos in a harried and haphazard manner.
We have proposed redesigning the burial ground to honor those lost and create dignified
places of rest for the newly deceased.
On one hand, the original site is preserved to respect collective memory and to function as
an operative monument. On the other, the new burial grounds constitute the shards of the
collective memory—that is, private memory. The threshold to the cemetery traverses the
middle ground between the old and new burial sites, like a fracture in the landscape. This
space is charged with routes, routes of bereavement between memory and oblivion.
LESVOS: LAND OF DISPLACED POPULATIONS
RIGHT Map of Lesvos showing common sea routes and refugee camp locations. Source: UNHCR.
GU : ISSUE 07
94
Excerpt from an interview with the volunteer that carried out the burials
GU : ISSUE 07
65 atypical burials
96
of death can be considered the causa causans of manipulation, we attempt to create appropriate
every religion. spaces to contain bereavement, where one may
pivot between memory, the present, and what
In an effort to better understand this complex lies beyond.
reality, we asked ourselves: What happens in
between life and death? How are they separated FROM CONCEPTUAL TO SPATIAL:
and how do they communicate? What is the THE PROPOSAL
transition from one to the other? Our design attempts to spatially materialize the
notions of memory, loss, and bereavement. We
In ancient Greek mythology, the river Acheron differentiate between the individual and the
served as the physical boundary between the two collective memory, as the former constitutes a very
worlds of life and death. Once in Hades, the dead personal matter. Collective memory,1 on the other
would drink of the water of oblivion in order to hand, is the sum of all individual memories and
forget their loved ones and their previous lives. contains those concerning historical events rather
Their relatives were left behind to come to terms than personal ones.
with their loss.
KARATSIOMPANI, TSONIDI, & LOLA
GU : ISSUE 07
Where time is frozen, the dead must be is important to note that this cemetery attempts
commemorated, and the root cause of their deaths to provide for the needs not only of the refugee
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emphasized, in order for the site to retain its power population, but also of any foreigners living on
and meaning. We strongly believe that visitors the island.
in this place should not be ‘shocked’ by artificial,
man-made constructions, but rather, be allowed In between the memorial and the new burial
to interpret the events through their own personal grounds there exists what we call a transitional
experience of the site. The informal burial site space resembling a fissure. Anyone there is in
remains at the highest elevation to illustrate that it limbo, preparing for what follows. There are two
gave occasion to the whole project. possible routes; guided by the water or the
earth, one can either descend to the burial
Conversely, the new burial sites represent the grounds or follow a straight line leading to the
shards of the collective memory—the individual memorial ground.
memory itself. They are situated on the south
section of the property and sunken into the ground. We hope that this project draws attention to the
Here, the lower grounds are better suited to issues surrounding the respectful burial of refugees,
host and contain bereavement. This depression a problem created by the modern migration crisis
intensifies the sense of enclosure, creating an and very rarely discussed in the public realm.
indirect interplay with the scenery. By fusing monument and cemetery, we honor
those lost at sea, and create dignified spaces for
We propose three distinct burial grounds: one mourning, reflection, and final rest.
Muslim, one Christian, and one interfaith. To reach
this decision, we were compelled both by the actual ENDNOTES
ratios of the religions of the dead and by our wish 1 Halbwachs, Maurice.”Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire” (translated: “On
Collective Memory”). Les Travaux de L’Année Sociologique. Paris: 1925.
to respect the beliefs, if any, of the deceased. It
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Hespero! O Hespero!
Dear Cupressus, sta nd ing strong
In a line, your li m bs defia nt
As stalwart sent’nels, a cent’ry long.
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Before The Sea Ra nch
Was ever a thought
Frick redefined the la nd scape
This m ajesty, he wrought!
The la nd is process!
Our i m print too
We live in the lee
Of what our forefathers do.
Re m e m b er, my friend!
M r. Frick a nd his sheep
For the legacy of Sea Ra nch
Of his m e m ory, must we keep.
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SMITH
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17 DEAFSCAPE
APPLYING DE AFSPACE TO L ANDSCAPE
ALEXA VAUGHN
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Defined by the DSDG, DeafSpace is a space “in which Deaf
culture, in all its diverse dimensions, can thrive through full access
to communication and the unique cognitive, cultural and creative
dimensions of the Deaf experience are encouraged.”3 Within a
predominantly hearing world, the built environment poses many
real, physical barriers to people who are Deaf, as well as people
with disabilities. These barriers range widely from the absence
of visual signage on public transportation to the lack of space to
communicate with sign language while walking on public sidewalks.
dimensions, can thrive built environment is viewed as static rather than flexible. While
people with disabilities have been guaranteed rights to public
through full access space through the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) since
to communication and the 1990, these regulations are not exhaustive, and historically have
unique cognitive, cultural given less attention to those who are Deaf and HoH.4 With recent
challenges to the ADA as we know it under H.R. 620,5 designers
and creative dimensions
must use their power to design beautiful and accessible public
of the Deaf experience spaces for all. DeafSpace, and other principles of Universal Design,
are encouraged.” have the power to take the ADA a step further—celebrating
the beauty of form as well as function, bringing to tree planting, and design of other outdoor rooms
light the unique identities of those who are Deaf or and shelters (e.g., parklets). Derrick Behm, a Deaf
disabled. DeafSpace asserts that the environment graduate student in urban planning at Georgetown
can be changed to create better public space for University, explains that he generally prefers action
individuals that deviate from the hearing 'norm.' to happen in front of him, "with a wall or tree
However, in applying DeafSpace to landscape, not behind to feel subconsciously safe" and to be able
only the Deaf community—but all people—serve to to better control what goes on behind him.
reap the benefits of more accessible public space.
COLLECTIVE AND CONNECTIVE SPACE
Spatially, people in the Deaf community require Social interaction is fundamental to Deaf culture.
enough space between individuals to sign and 360° Placing collective spaces next to high-activity areas
sensory reach, dependent upon visual and tactile promotes activation of these spaces by forming
senses. The DSDG attempts to create a better built both physical and visual connection. Nodes
environment for the Deaf community through five are central connecting points and intersections
units: "Space and Proximity," "Sensory Reach," along main areas of circulation, which promote
"Mobility and Proximity," "Light and Color," and spontaneous social interaction as people move
"Acoustics and Electromagnetic Interference." It from place to place. Eddies are located along the
must be noted that these guidelines focus upon edges of major pathways and can provide space for
applications for the American Deaf community. conversation and people-watching; an eddy can be
Although many guidelines were found to be scaled for different uses and serves as a degree of
cross-cultural, Deaf cultures are extremely diverse. enclosure in public space. Both nodes and eddies
Currently, there are over 200 sign languages in use can be applied to busy city sidewalks to provide
around the world. space off of the main path for conversation, limiting
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obstructive incidents and allowing for space to sign.
As a Deaf graduate student in landscape
MOBILITY AND PROXIMITY
architecture, new to the Deaf community and
ASL, I wondered how I could apply DeafSpace Critical to DeafSpace is the provision of freedom
to the larger scales of landscape and urban of movement for communication, with minimal
design. Although most of the guidelines are hazards. Wider pathways can accommodate for
specifically for architectural interiors, much can signers to converse while walking. Dependent on
be applied to the broader, exterior scales of the place, pathways should allow for enough room
urban landscape. Here, I attempt to dissect the for two or more people to sign; typically, smaller
DSDG (excluding "Acoustics and Electromagnetic corridors should be a minimum of seven to eight
Interference," best suited for interior design), by feet wide to accommodate two signers, while
selecting the guidelines that my Deaf colleagues public sidewalks should be a minimum of ten feet
and I have found critical for urban space. To the wide to accommodate for several groups of signers
Deaf community, the landscape is a rich sensory (and others) to pass through easily. 'Shoulder
experience; in the absence of sound, the visual, Zones' act as dedicated buffer zones parallel to
tactile, and even the olfactory senses are amplified. busy urban sidewalks and streets; they should
include areas for eddies as well as street signage,
DEGREES OF ENCLOSURE: PUBLIC SPACE lighting, and plantings. The pedestrian pathway
A comfortable degree of enclosure would provide should be kept clear of barriers and should always
a safe, semi-private space for people to see and be be designed with visual dominance and safety
seen. One is able to feel secure from behind, with lighting, particularly at busy vehicular intersections.
a view opening outward toward public activity. This Matthew Sampson, also a Deaf graduate student in
VAUGHN
can be achieved through the design of alcoves, urban planning at Georgetown University, describes
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TEXTURED TRANSITION to provide cues
between sidewalk, planting areas, and the street
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AN URBAN DEAFSCAPE is a
critique of the planning profession itself.
Many of these guidelines appear to be
standard practice in streetscape design,
as per the ADA. However, they are often
overlooked or treated as an afterthought.
Applying these simple guidelines to streets
has the potential to go beyond the ADA
in creating space for the Deaf community,
increasing safety, improving circulation, and
Image by author and Courtney Ferris making better urban landscapes for all.
curb bump-outs—or areas where sidewalks bulb TRANSPARENCY AND REFLECTIVITY
out at busy intersections—as "a way of reclaiming Transparency is primarily applied to building
pedestrian land, putting pedestrians in the driver's interiors and windows, but creating flow between
field of view," which can create the visual security interior and exterior—extending the line of sight
required by those who are Deaf as well as security outdoors—allows for greater use, understanding,
for other pedestrians. Ramps are preferred by many and connection to the surrounding landscape.
in the Deaf community; they can prevent barriers to Reflection can be applied to many landscape and
conversation and minimize tripping hazards posed urban materials (e.g., stone, metal, wood) to create
by stairs. They should be kept wide as pathways to subtle clues about surrounding activity. Materials
accommodate for visual conversation. should not be overly reflective to avoid undesirable
glare. Natural lighting and night lighting should
VISUAL AND TACTILE CUES
be maximized to prevent eye strain, but shaded
Shared sensory reach is deeply rooted practice exterior paths are also crucial for glare-free
in Deaf culture. Visual cues can aid people who comfort on sidewalks, which can be achieved with
are Deaf to safely use and travel through public tree canopies and overhangs.
space. View corridors can visually connect different
parts of a larger public realm, creating a visible FIXED AND FLEXIBLE FURNITURE
hierarchy that can be achieved topographically Furniture, too, plays an important role in the Deaf
and through the planting of trees. Landmarks community’s use of the public realm. Flexible
and placement of design elements can also aid in seating that is light, durable, and movable allows
orientation within a larger space. Danielle Koplitz, for accommodation of small to large groups of
a Deaf graduate student in architecture at the people joining in signed conversation. Circular or
University of Texas, notes the use of topography U-shaped tables and chairs allow for a sustained
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"to show transition from one space to another" line of sight. Fixed seating and pedestals (e.g.,
and "indicate important buildings or a change in low-rise walls and planter edges) at different
the purpose of space" on her campus in Austin. heights allow for places to set down belongings,
Textured transitions provide subtle cues to which can be obstructive to signing. Both types of
differentiate between edges of the ground plane seating encourage mixed social use and can be
and thresholds, as well as safety cues along the applied in various forms to parks and plazas within
edge of curbs, which are crucial for the DeafBlind the urban landscape.
community. Easing and eliminating curbs in public
spaces can also limit tripping hazards and provide
ENDNOTES
more access to people who use wheelchairs or
1 Gallaudet University is the only university in the world designed for Deaf
baby strollers. Rhythm can be employed in the and Hard of Hearing students and provides bilingual education in English
and American Sign Language. Three of my colleagues quoted here (Behm,
landscape to provide continuous, recognizable Maiwald, and Koplitz) are alumni of Gallaudet and contributed to DeafSpace
in various forms and stages over the years, from conception to application.
visual references and alignment for signers. Tree
2 Deafness is a spectrum: Deaf with a capital 'D' describes individuals
placement (and canopy) is especially important in that identify with a central deaf, cultural identity and who primarily use
sign language. Hard of Hearing (HoH) describes individuals with some
creating a visible pattern in the urban landscape degree of hearing. Hearing impaired is an unacceptable medical term to
the Deaf community; it carries a negative connotation, views Deafness as
along sidewalks. According to Sean Maiwald, a an impediment to well-being, and invalidates Deaf language and culture.
Furthermore, DeafBlind describes individuals who are both deaf and blind,
Deaf graduate student in public policy at The with a unique cultural identity of their own.
George Washington University, "immediate visual 3 Bauman, Hansel. DeafSpace Design Guidelines, Volume 1. (Working Draft)
2010.
indicators of space" are crucial and should allow for
4 The ADA has focused on visual emergency systems (e.g., strobe alarms) in
wayfinding and understanding of use, "especially places like hotels and real-time captioning in stadiums for the Deaf and HoH.
at a quick glance." Color (e.g., planting, façades, 5 H.R. 620 (The ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017), if passed, will
provide amnesty for access violators, allowing businesses to ignore ADA
signage) can provide contrast for signing as well as
VAUGHN
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19 MAPPING MARS
A DYING PL ANET
& A DE AD ONE MOLLY BUTCHER
SPACE TODAY
The space industry as we know it is transforming. Once, there was
only NASA. Today, private-public partnerships are taking the place of
government space entities. Dubbed ‘New Space,’ these companies are
working to make cheap satellites, mine asteroids, and develop reusable
rockets—in effect, bringing space landscapes into the everyday.
BUTCHER
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THE LANGUAGE OF MARS
By taking a look at A Trip to the Moon, a silent Familiar tourist icons (e.g., a camera and hikers)
film created in 1901 by Georges Méliès, one branded onto the surface of Mars reinforce the
can see the travelers to the moon encounter possibility of putting humans on the planet. Green
‘moon-natives,’ dressed as African aboriginals— icons of two hikers with walking sticks dot the map;
an orientalist ‘other’ that lends an exotic but humans become green Martians. These hikers walk
familiar quality to the foreign, unimaginable, lunar on the tallest mountain on Mars and in the dried
landscape. Since much of Africa was colonized river beds. This representation of human bodies on
by 1900, the placement of (a generic ‘African’ or maps of Mars, without spacesuits, suggests human
‘other’) aboriginal on the moon suggests that ownership of the landscape, as well as its future
the moon, too, can be conquered. Similar tropes
were followed in later films about Mars, including
Thomas Edison’s 1910 Trip to Mars and Out of the
Inkwell’s 1924 cartoon of the same name. In both
films, Mars is human-scaled and the protagonists
interact with characters that reference on-Earth
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realities, from the gas masks of WWI to tattoos that
allude to the African colonies of the time. In all of
these examples, the creators use the landscapes of
Mars and the moon as tabula rasa, projecting
their own humanity and experience onto a
foreign ‘other.’
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habitability. Gray camera icons denote images
taken by rovers.
placing Google Earth Mars in the history of Mars’ Earth showing the Mars map
LEFT Details include the
cartography. Within Google Earth, Mars awaits the
dropdown menu in which Mars is
arrival of humanity.
embedded under Earth (A), hiker
icon (B), and camera icon (C).
Image courtesy of Google Earth,
Mars offers a utopic alternative to ESA, DLR, and FU Berlin, 2014.
5 It is worth noting that the major players in New Space and Mars
Colonization are predominantly white male billionaires. Most publicly, Space
X’s Elon Musk, former PayPal founder; Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos, founder
and CEO of Amazon; and Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson, founder of
Virgin Group. In effect, the wild economic disparities of our current time are
enabling space exploration in a way that NASA has not been able to with
limited federal funding.
6 ABC News. World News This Morning, New York: American Broadcasting
Company, July 3, 1997. Cited in Dittmer, “Colonialism and Place Creation,”
126.
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0 6 MICHAEL JENKS Originally from Nashville, TN, Michael 09 REBECCA PARTRIDGE was born in the UK, and currently
Jenks now lives in Southern California studying architecture as well lives and works between Berlin and London. Since graduating
as founding SOVRN skateboards in Los Angeles. from the Royal Academy Schools in 2007 she has exhibited
internationally. She has been awarded several international
15 MARIA KARATSIOMPANI, KONSTANTINA LOLA, & scholarships including awards from The Nordic Kunstnasenter
NINA TSONIDI are graduate students at the National Technical Dale, Norway; The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation, USA; and
University of Athens. They share an interest in landscape The Terra Foundation for American Art Fellowship in Giverny,
architecture, and center their work around identities and social France. She is currently co-curating “Scaling The Sublime,” an
aspects of architecture, introducing parameters of interaction exhibition at Nottingham University, UK, in 2018.
between personal and collective memory.
07 BORDERWALL URBANISM STUDIO is a multidisciplinary
04 NATE KAUFFMAN is a PhD student in UC Berkeley’s studio in the College of Environmental Design at UC Berkeley led
Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning department by Professors Ron Rael and Stephanie Syjuco.
at the College of Environmental Design. A national award-winning
educator, his research focuses on the optimization of material 14 SANDRA SAWATZKY is a film writer, producer, and director.
flows through large spatiotemporal fields for climate change Her productions Passing Lane, The Water Cooler, Belly Boat
adaptation purposes. He founded the Live Edge Adaptation Hustle, Indian Blue, Swing Fling Thing, and feature film The Girl
Project (LEAP); the Climate, Infrastructure and Resources Group Who Married a Ghost are told through choreographed action and
(CIRG); and is the principal at Biosphere Design Lab, a without dialogue.
consulting firm focused on the emergent challenges of a rapidly-
changing world.
05 PUB LIC SEDIMENT TE AM | SC APE is a 17 ALEXA VAUGHN is a Deaf woman studying at UC Berkeley
multidisciplinary design team that views sediment as a core (BA, 2016; MLA, 2018). She specializes in designing landscapes for
building block of resilience in San Francisco Bay. The team is difference and dis/ability and hopes to remove systemic barriers
led by SCAPE Landscape Architecture with Arcadis, the Dredge to the urban landscape in professional practice, teaching, and
Research Collaborative, TS Studio, the UC Davis Department of writing. In 2017, she received a Student Award for her research
Human Ecology and Design, the UC Davis Center for Watershed poster highlighting campus inaccessibility (Crip the Campus Map)
Sciences, and the Architectural Ecologies Lab. Their proposal at the Berkeley Circus. Recently, she was nominated for the 2018
was developed for the Resilient By Design Bay Area Challenge, Landscape Architecture Foundation Olmsted Fellowship.
a collaborative research and design project to explore and
implement innovative solutions to the issues brought on by 16 W.W. SMITH is a nomad by nature, adrift in his vessel on
climate change. the stream of consciousness, flowing forth from flood to sonder
seas of soul’s soliloquy. His poetry and prose contemplate the
18 CHIP SULLIVAN is an artist and professor of Landscape intertwining relationships of the perceivable universe with and
Architecture at the College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley. amidst us—the intrepid perceivers! His temple is the forest, his
Chip received the 2016 Jot D. Carpenter Teaching Medal from deities the trees; his words will whisper on the wind, in time from
the American Society of Landscape Architects, which recognized he to thee.
significant excellence in landscape architecture education. His
latest book, Cartooning the Landscape, concerns the metaphysics
of drawing and learning how to ‘see.’ The Foundation for
Landscape Studies selected Cartooning the Landscape for the
2017 Jon Brinckerhoff Jackson prize for accomplishment in the
field of garden history and landscape studies.
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12 ANYA DOMLESKY is an urban designer at SWA Group where ONLINE ARTICLE: www.groundupjournal.org
she co-leads XL: Experiments in Landscape and Urbanism, the
firm-wide innovation lab undertaking practice-based research. Her 0 0 CARLA FISHER SCHWARTZ is a visual artist and
research on the built environment focuses on scales beyond the educator based in Chicago, IL. Her studio practice
designed site, both larger and smaller. Anya has taught at Harvard investigates the relationship between the mapped image
Graduate School of Design and Boston Architectural College. She and contemporary notions of exploration, virtuality, and the
completed her graduate work in landscape architecture at Harvard simulated environment through print media, sculpture, and
Graduate School of Design and in architecture at McGill University. video installation.
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GROUND UP...
IS the student journal of the Department of Landscape
Architecture & Environmental Planning at the University of
California, Berkeley.
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Borderwall Urbanism Studio
Judee Burr
Molly Butcher
Phil Evans
Michael Jenks
Nate Kauffman
Greg Kochanowski
Claire Latané
Zannah Matson
Ethan McKnight
Rebecca Partridge
Sandra Sawatzky
Chip Sullivan
Alexa Vaughn
W.W. Smith
Mark Wessels