EXPANDING THE SCOPE OF LANDSCAPE DESIGN: ECOLOGY, PEOPLE, AND TIME 33rd Annual Landscape Symposium

Landscape designers who successfully employ an ecology-based approach typically draw from a variety of sources. The inextricable link between people and ecology only increases the need to broaden the investigative lens. Join us as we explore the integration of “ecology-based” design with “people-based” factors, including the lingering effects of historic land use and the need to accommodate diverse cultural perspectives on the meaning of “ecology”.

Module 2:  The City as Habitat

Urban Landscape Inspirations from Native Plant Communities
Ethan Dropkin, MLA
Whether at ground level or high above the city streets, growing plants in an urban setting imposes stress,
both for the plants and the people maintaining them.  By using existing native plant communities found in
stressed ecological environments to guide us, we can use urban conditions to our advantage and create resilient, productive plantings.

Urban Shores: Untangling Ecology and Access in a Changing Climate
Gena Wirth, RLA
As hotly contested spaces facing competing demands, urban shorelines sit at a meeting point between the needs of local communities and broader issues like climate change, inequitable access, ecological deterioration, and disputed ownership. In this lecture, Gena Wirth will share three projects with different approaches to thinking long-term about urban shorelines as essential infrastructure for the next century.

Ecologies of Memory
Sara Zewde, RLA
In order to understand “place”, we need to understand both the ecology of that place, and how people have used and interacted with it over time. In the midst of a changing climate, rapid urban development, and clarified political tensions, ecologies of memory can offer creative departures for landscape design today. Sara Zewde will discuss the recent design work of Studio Zewde in this context.