Abstract
This article posits that resiliency and adaptation in landscape architecture studio projects must plan for changes and feedback loops. With this premise in mind, the article evaluates a landscape architecture design studio focused on designing and planning adaptive landscapes that are part of the Los Angeles River and its surrounding neighborhoods. Students were charged with planning for change over time and designing multiple scenarios that assume various forms and vagaries in management, care, environmental conditions, and policies, while also connecting to community needs. Their designs were guides that envisioned a range of possibilities—feedback loops creating environmental and social resiliencies that provide value over time. The studio and this article build on Joan Woodward’s (2008) work suggesting several shifts in landscape design practice for progressing toward resilient landscapes that accommodate surprise and disruption. The case study methods evaluating the studio approach included external and internal reviews of students’ work, student written reflections regarding the course, and instructors’ reflections on the work. Some reviewers felt the paucity of final state perspective renderings in some students’ work equated to diminished design rigor. Some students pushed back on the studio’s interdisciplinary scope, but others looked beyond fixed design solutions, giving entire systems deep consideration by considering how to provide economic resiliency toolkits and adopt best practices that could unfold and adapt over time based on a particular neighborhood’s needs and desires. Overall, the studio serves as a model for teaching that advances Woodward’s concepts and promotes her goal of seeing design as an infinite rather than finite game (Carse, 1986; Woodward, 2008).
INTRODUCTION
While much attention is currently given to designing adaptive and resilient systems, many landscape architecture teaching studios still end on a relatively static note. Although end-state visions might always be a part of the design, this article contends that true resiliency and adaptation must plan for various changes and feedback loops. While this concept is not new, its application in design studios can fall short, ending in conclusions and perspectival snapshots in time that don’t conceptualize the design as a continuous process. This article uses a descriptive case study method (Yin, 2009; Singleton et al., 1999) to evaluate a landscape architecture design studio focused on designing and planning adaptive landscapes that are part of the Los Angeles River and its surrounding neighborhoods (see Figures 1–2). Students were charged with thinking about their landscape architecture design process and outcomes as an infinite game (Carse, 1986) that continues even after the studio semester ends. The article uses convergence of evidence (Yin, 2009) to establish this project as an example of an adaptive landscape architecture design studio. Largely qualitative data to evaluate the project includes:
Los Angeles River study area, including an 11-mile ARBOR Study stretch, G2 site, and surrounding neighborhoods. Source: Erin Cox.
Part of the Los Angeles River study area. Source: author.
External and internal (landscape architecture professors’) reviews of students’ work. External reviewers included a professor from the CAL Poly Pomona Department of Landscape Architecture, a landscape architect with expertise in designing resilient landscapes in Los Angeles, and Los Angeles area professionals including landscape architects, artists, architects, and community outreach nonprofits for background projects and early student analysis work.
Student-written reflections regarding the course’s methods and successes as well as student assessments of how they advanced as advocates and designers for adaptive systems.
Instructors’ reflections on the work.
Landscapes like the LA River (which for this study includes its adjacent riparian fringe and neighborhoods) are subject to unanticipated changes in management, environmental conditions, and community engagement—in part because of their varied histories, motivated actors, and dynamic ecological processes (Di Palma & Robinson, 2018; Ward, 2018). Landscape architects and other designers have engaged with the LA River (Lehrer & Latane, 2018). Their projects and the LA River setting provide an interesting, dynamic context for student studio work based on adaptation and expanded methods that disrupt the norms for studio teaching. With the LA River as the setting, this article suggests that landscape architects must design for varying levels of maintenance, management, and feedback loops across time to ensure that systems will adapt and continue to thrive.
To explore this change in teaching norms, a spring 2018 landscape architecture studio of third- and fourth-year undergraduate students took on the complexities of urban design along the Los Angeles River in the midst of rapid neighborhood gentrification and massive revitalization efforts, such as the Taylor Yard G2 Projects. The studio included two studio instructors—one a regular faculty member and the other a visiting professor and LA program director of the Trust for Public Land—and focused on designing and planning adaptive and resilient landscapes, spaces, and systems that are part of the Los Angeles River and its surrounding neighborhoods. Students tackled the complexities of designing multi-benefit projects for people within these dense urban spaces. They were charged with planning for change over time and designing multiple scenarios that assume various forms and vagaries in management, care, environmental conditions, and policies, while also connecting to community needs and desires. Their designs were not perspectival snapshots in time, but rather guides that envision a field of possibilities—feedback loops (see Strategies below) creating environmental and social resiliencies that provide value over time. Woodward (2008) suggests several shifts in landscape design practice for progressing toward resilience landscapes that accommodate surprise. To guide their projects, students used her “Strategies for Shaping Resilient Landscapes,” which includes:
Establishing diverse structural conditions to support processes.
Persistent designs are often described as having sturdy frames or “good bones” which remain when other features become indistinct or disappear over time. These persistent structures slow the release of resources following disruption and nurture sources of renewal.
Utilizing ambient processes to spread self-maintaining structure.
Allowing these processes to shape landscape structure in desirable ways is a necessary strategy to ensure the continuance of designs.
Optimizing conditions when establishing new designs.
Prioritizing landscape establishment conditions increases the probability of longer-term survival.
Utilizing strategic communication to “tip” the acceptability of resilient landscapes.
Precisely targeted communication strategies spread key ideas, values, and motivations more effectively than others. Similarly, designers of resilient landscapes must seek strategic design locations to increase visibility, so that advantages can be noted and therefore spread. (2008, 102–103)
THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Infinite Games Concepts Applied to Professional and Other Life Practices
Finite and Infinite Games (Carse, 1986), based on the idea that humans “play” games with both finite conclusions and infinite possibilities, has inspired the popular imagination for decades, informing, for example, a recent adaption of Carse’s concepts by Sinek (2019). As Carse (1986) points out, one of the points of an infinite game is to keep the game going. While there might be stopping points along the way, the infinite game marches on. Some have applied this to education (Seymour-Walsh, 2019) and asked how these concepts might apply to activism and universities (Harré et al., 2017). Others have applied infinite games—or related concepts and practices—to various professions and their research disciplines. For example, business practices and research have used scenario planning for some time, and uncertain and dynamic markets have led to a resurgence in its application in business analyses (Oliver and Parrett, 2018). Woodward (2008) has asked how we might apply the infinite games concept to landscape architecture teaching and practice. In this regard, this study builds on her work, providing another example of the concept’s application.
Emergence and Adaption in Landscape Architecture and Urban Design
Designers and design researchers have called for a more holistic and adaptive approach to urban design. Some authors refer to these as generative development—design that adapts to existing conditions and unfolds over time (Alexander, 2002a, 2002b, 2004, 2005; Alexander et al., 2008; Mehaffy, 2008; Salingaros, 2000). They see this as largely absent from most 20th- and 21st-century urban development. While their perspective on emergent and generative development connects to urban design, others have called for such emergent thinking to connect to more complex problems such as climate change.
Others have called on designers to better understand the disruptions and wicked problems of our current and future systems (Batty, 2000; Fisher, 2016; Hélie, 2009). In a similar vein, designing for urban landscapes requires more than envisioning a static end (Corner, 1999, 2006). Landscape architects have long understood the need for understanding dynamic processes and patterns (Beck, 2013; Bell, 1999; McHarg, 1969; Lister, 2015; Lyle, 1999). Indeed, some have called for a reconsidering of methods and techniques to understand and project for emergent future scenarios (Barnett, 2005, 2013; Corner, 2006; Cronan et al., 2022; Geffel, 2021; Hélie, 2009; Nassauer & Corry, 2004; Woodward, 2004, 2008). Hester (2010) describes and advocates for adaptability in city design: “Adaptable cities are designed so that many environments serve more than one purpose, connect things not originally thought to be connected, are suitable for new uses, are flexible but not entirely open-ended, and are suggested but not dictatorial” (p. 255).
Gandy (2016) describes how complex, unintentional landscapes—such as marginal or interstitial spaces—are usually left out of traditional design in landscape architecture. As Gandy (2016) argues, these spaces “appear to transcend existing Eurocentric circuits of landscape discourse” (p. 433). The LA River landscapes and surrounding neighborhoods provide just such milieu of terrain vague (Gandy, 2016).
Resilience, Green Gentrification, and Displacement
The studio also focused on advocacy design and community engagement as critical for widespread systems resilience. If components of resilient cities are to include dynamic and fine-grained systems, landscape architects must look to the social and economic structures inherent in landscape decisions, including green gentrification and rights to the city (Rigolon & Németh, 2018; Vale, 2014). Hester (2010) warns about creating stress and dysfunction by forcing people to adapt to unnecessary community and landscape design changes. For example, post-Katrina New Orleans illustrates the disproportionate negative consequences and uneven justice for certain neighborhoods and socio-economic classes attributable to landscape systems. On one hand, unequal resilience in landscape systems caused physical disruption for certain groups of people; on the other hand, the term resilient was applied to those same people who were disproportionately displaced and harmed. This (mis) use of the word to refer to the people of Louisiana (in the BP oil spill and the Katrina flood) led to the Louisiana Justice Institute’s quoting Tracie Washington’s (2015) words: “Stop calling me resilient. Because every time you say, ‘Oh, they’re resilient,’ that means you can do something else to me. I am not resilient.” Her statement illustrates the point that resilient landscape architecture and planning must avoid calling for a resilient response from citizens when they are confronted with environmental injustices, including inadequate and unequal resource and risk distribution. Instead, providing for a just city that equitably distributes ecological, economic, and social risks—while still calling on nimble, adaptive and creative solutions from its citizens—will be key when building future cities that are truly resilient. Along this line of thinking, Lawrence Vale (2014) has called for a more just definition of city resilience and design and planning practices that includes disadvantaged groups. Realizing these goals requires unifying the contributions from multiple disciplines, including the physical and social sciences.
STUDIO WORK
Understanding the Site Through an Immersive Visit
The students took a studio trip to Los Angeles in the fifth week of classes for site visits on and near the river and meetings with organizations (both non-profit and private firms) working to bring more parks and open spaces to communities around the Los Angeles River (and other areas of Los Angeles County). The course’s visiting professor (LA program director of the Trust for Public Land) served as the key nonprofit liaison and guide. The trip included visiting the Trust for Public Land, other community-based projects, an artist’s studio near the river, design firms, and nonprofits in Los Angeles. This included a visit to a landscape architecture firm very active in LA River design projects, Mia Lehrer Associates, as well as meetings with other professionals from the private, public, and nonprofit sectors.
Additionally, students spent two days analyzing sites in and around the LA River’s 11-mile ARBOR stretch and considering factors such as neighborhood connections, place-making, and stormwater infrastructure (see Figures 1–5). This 11-mile stretch and its surrounding neighborhoods became the primary focus area for their studio.
Students visiting sites to learn about neighborhood connections, art, and place-making near the LA River. Source: author.
Students investigating the LA River. Source: author.
Students viewing stormwater infrastructure adjacent to the LA River. Source: author.
Learning about the LA River Context and Its History: Research, Mapping, and Analysis
The students’ analysis was necessarily intense and robust, taking longer and going into more detail than their previous studios. This was due to the complex and deep history and ecology of the river and its neighborhoods (Gumprecht, 2001; Hise & Deverell, 2000; McPhee, 1988; Reisner, 1993; Towne & Polanski, 1974). It was also necessary because as students sought complex, less static solutions, they had to be well-versed in the systems interacting with the actions they were proposing. Some key analysis components and questions follow in Table 1. Students presented and vetted their inventory and analysis work with help from Los Angeles area landscape architects with experience and knowledge of the LA River’s legacy, the neighborhood contexts, and other areas of the analysis.
Students’ Required Inventory and Analysis Components
The Studio Design Project and Place-Based Work
In the second half of the course, students were charged with creating adaptive design interventions. Final project deliverables included:
As a small group (of 2–3), a cohesive project at the concept site plan level.
As individuals, three scenarios of management as well as four phases of development (see Table 2).
As a small group, a master network plan that emanated into the larger context of the G2 site, including the 11-mile ARBOR study stretch of the LA River and its surrounding neighborhoods.
Students’ Required Project Scenarios and Phasing
Through these and any other necessary deliverables, students’ projects addressed multiple pressing issues. They required that students synthesize many aspects rather than designing based on an isolated issue. To accomplish this, students were asked to do the following:
Use design as a tool for advocacy.
Address critical issues and/or gaps in the ARBOR study, including:
◦ How people and neighboring communities use and access the site(s).
◦ Designing for multiple scenarios, including the possibility that federal funding does not materialize.
◦ Identifying critical aspects of the ARBOR study that should go forward for implementation.
Address current political and social agendas.
Address issues and possibilities of gentrification and displacement.
Provide amenities in the community for the community.
Design for environmental systems, (e.g., developing habitat or encouraging dispersal and establishing/starting plant communities; Barnett, 2013; Dramstad et al., 1996; Woodward, 2004, 2008).
Address surface water and ground water systems and contamination susceptibility.
Address climate change (there are numerous aspects to possibly address, such as flooding and drought).
Design for and/or in interstitial spaces.
Address change over time.
Scale up in project geography and scope.
The students were given flexibility in choosing their site for the final project. They used the G2 site (see Figure 1) as a focal point but were not limited to an on-site location. They were encouraged to expand and/or locate their designs off-site (which they all did). However, their designs had to relate to G2, including its site conditions and environs. They were instructed to imagine the G2 site as a high-profile, well-funded catalyst that could potentially enable their adaptive design project to get started.
The project’s multiple scenarios and phases (Table 2) required students to envision landscapes as living systems that include a variety of actors, including people, plants, animals, soils, water, wind, and policies (Barnett, 2005, 2013; Woodward, 2004, 2008). This means their designs were not perspectival snapshots in time (although the deliverables could include perspective drawings), but rather guides that envision a range of possibilities—feedback loops that propose environmental and social resiliencies providing value over time regardless of management and funding.
Groups of three students created cohesive projects at the concept plan level, proposing scenarios that would unfold over time to generate the guiding principles and plans for the individual projects. Students then individually investigated and designed for one aspect or thread of their small-group concept plans. At this stage they each worked on the three scenarios and four phases in detail, going much further into the projects on an individual basis than the small-group concept plans did. It was essentially one design concept, but the maintenance and management scenarios required students to individually produce three landscape designs phased in over time.
Students also had to consider one or more focus areas for their analyses and final design projects. For example:
Housing and equitable development
Ecology—habitat connectivity, stormwater capture and cleaning
Recreation and access—connectivity, open space, trails
Safety—for visitors, residents adjacent to the river, and people in the channel
Homelessness
Levels and types of maintenance
Year-round recreation
Water quality and supply and the LA River
Students were charged with creating a master network plan that emanated into the larger context of the G2 site, including the 11-mile ARBOR study stretch of the LA River and its surrounding neighborhoods. They were to expand their three Phase 4 Scenarios in scope and geographic reach, addressing larger ecological and social systems, such as:
Creating tools for advocacy that speak to a larger audience.
Connections to larger habitat corridors and patches (utilize landscape ecology principles).
Implications for watersheds, including surface water and connected ground water systems.
Human circulation networks.
Community connections to counter displacement associated with “green gentrification.”
The final project emerged from analyses of the many complex natural and cultural systems connected to the Los Angeles River. Students were charged with planning for change over time and designing multiple scenarios that assume various forms and vagaries in management and care while also connecting to community needs and desires. To address adaptive changes that occur over time, they used a form of scenario planning in which they envisioned multiple futures for landscape designs. Woodward (2008) successfully used such techniques in teaching and research. She suggests several shifts in landscape design practice for progressing toward resilience landscapes that accommodate surprise. Woodward (2008) outlines four main practice shifts:
Testing and adjusting design proposals with prospective “what-if” scenarios.
Building in manageable disruptions to siphon off catastrophic back loops.
Acknowledging maintenance as a critical activity to maintain acceptability while emphasizing distributed, non-hierarchical maintenance activities that align with a variety of inclinations already in place … for example, the desire to play, the desire scavengers experience to gain “something for nothing,” and the tendency to pocket loose objects.
Recognizing the integrity of resilience and continuity. Carse (1986) suggests that our problems may stem from thinking of design work as a finite game, played for the purposes of winning, as opposed to an infinite game, played for the purpose of continuing the game. (pp. 106–108)
DISCUSSION
Studio Outcomes and Reception
The study area’s vast network of terrain vague (2016)—along with the rich cultural context of Los Angeles—drove the students’ understanding of landscape architecture settings and processes. The studio provided multiple lessons learned, including the need for more understanding of how designs and management scenarios might scale up to larger systems. This thinking and context pushed their understandings of the capabilities and responsibilities inherent in landscape practice. The deep demographic and historic analyses conducted in the first half of the semester were largely successful (based on the feedback from reviewers with deep local and professional knowledge). Nearly half of the final design reviewers felt that the limited number of final state perspectival moments in students’ work equated to diminished design rigor. While some students pushed back on having to adopt an unfamiliar scope of landscape architecture practice, others embraced the opportunity to look deeply into systems thinking. Some students also questioned the ability to design with true impact and understanding without a more robust community engagement process.
Small-Scale Site Designs for Adaptive Processes
Most students in the class did the bulk of their final design work on small-scale adaptive site designs and management strategies (e.g., see Figure 6). They looked at ways landscapes could respond over time at a small scale. These students were particularly inspired by Woodward’s “Strategies for Shaping Resilient Landscapes” (2008). Of her four strategies, that of “utilizing ambient processes to spread self-maintaining structure” was the most used. These projects tapped into students’ landscape-specific knowledge and sensibilities and included emergent habitats and space-making. In that regard, they were largely successful based on instructors’ grading and external reviewers’ feedback. Students’ speculations on user interactions were deemed largely plausible by outside reviewers. However, many of their designs did not dig very deeply into political, social, or neighborhood systems and contexts (such as the gentrification happening and projected to happen in the Frogtown neighborhood) beyond their analyses. In other words, their design outcomes did not address these political, social, and neighborhood systems in a robust way.
Site designs for adaptive processes in LA River basin. Scenario Two, Phase Three. Source: Payton Cook.
Plans for Adaptive Processes and Policies
The students with the most robust solutions also varied the most from small-scale site design (a different group) to instead focus more on neighborhood-scale policies and processes. The most policy-focused was a group looking solely at the Frogtown neighborhood next to the river. This group used multiple data sources—convergence of evidence—to better understand the neighborhood. Their findings combined US Census analysis, an online survey of residents, social media engagement campaign, and on-site observations to gain a more accurate understanding of Frogtown’s people. Their findings point to an underserved community with great potential, including physical spaces, a diverse community, and rich culture. Key results include the following:
Most site users surveyed considered themselves active in the community (although this might be a nonrepresentative sample).
The household median income was relatively low for Los Angeles (US Census Bureau, 2018).
Thirty-seven percent of household income was being used for housing (US Census Bureau, 2018).
Most users considered small businesses a high priority in the community.
Opportunities and constraints for place-based interventions near the LA River included:
◦ Limited access.
◦ Vacant lots and parking lots.
◦ Declining industrial real estate.
◦ Dead-end streets.
In response to these results, one student proposed an incremental housing model to prevent gentrification in the neighborhood (see Figure 7). Another student evaluated economic development and how, for example, marketing strategies foster incremental yet catalytic economic development focused on keeping wealth in the neighborhood (see Figures 8–9). The student’s project statement read, “The project explores how a desire for urban experience may be harnessed through various strategies to achieve place-based economic viability in which community members participate with stakeholders to develop an equitable and sustainable place for all. Three design and planning scenarios visualize how place-based economic interventions can unfold over time in Frogtown” (student project, 2018). These first two required the students to learn a great deal about housing typologies and marketing strategies well beyond what a typical landscape architecture studio requires. The third project in this group of policy-oriented students looked at Frogtown through the lenses of landscape ecology and biodiversity (see Figure 10). Her project again focused on phases and toolkits, including how they might be scaled up beyond Frogtown. Two of these projects won the Student ASLA Central States Honor and Merit awards, indicating the value placed on the students’ work.
Phased, site-based housing modeling for adaptive housing polices and planning to protect against gentrification in the Frogtown neighborhood. Source: Ben Magee.
A student’s place-based economic development strategies in Frogtown. Source: Jacob Costello.
An example of students’ economic development toolkits and phases for adaptive reuse and new development in Frogtown. Source: Jacob Costello.
Scenario 2 from a student’s biological diversity toolbox scenarios in and surrounding Frogtown. Source: Erin Cox.
Studio Challenges
The studio had a few challenges and critiques. For example, it was difficult for students to speculate on how design ideas could scale up to impact larger systems over time. Most failed to produce this network plan deliverable, likely due to limited capacity and time. Environmental planning techniques using GIS and other modeling tools could provide more robust solutions in this regard (Cronan et al., 2022). However, given the time constraints and the large amount of material to absorb, students’ inclinations to stick to site and neighborhood scales was probably wise. In light of the constraints, staying within their comfort zones and grounding any speculations in site conditions with which they were familiar made sense.
Critiques of Limited Site Designs
About half of the final reviewers were critical of student projects that lacked a detailed site design component—particularly those of the two students with the housing and economic development policy-driven approaches. While most embraced students’ efforts to tackle complexity with interdisciplinarity solutions, some communicated that the designs should have been conveyed through more design graphics (e.g., perspective drawings). While “perspective” drawings from these students were included in the form of a toolkit, the design ideas were conveyed more diagrammatically than some reviewers expected. For future reference, an expansion of deliverables for studio projects may be needed, along with a clear explanation from the instructors indicating the degree and manner in which outcomes vary from studio norms.
A related finding from the final reviews was that it was simply too difficult to understand what the students were trying to convey—especially the three students focusing more on adaptive policy and planning. There was not enough time to explain it all. While this can be a challenge for any landscape architecture studio, it seems that our review metrics need to be adapted to allow for deeper, more robust projects.
Student Skepticism
About half the students questioned the authenticity of providing adaptive designs for communities across the country. For example, providing economic resiliency toolkits and best practices that could unfold and adapt over time based on a particular neighborhood’s needs is seemingly a worthwhile pursuit, but this would have been more effective with a richer community engagement process. Nearly all students reported an advanced and more nuanced understanding of advocacy, particularly the need for robust community participation. One student explained this position in the final reflection for the studio:
What I’ve learned about advocacy through this semester does not necessarily come from something we actively did, but from a resource we were unable to access, those we are advocating for: the people of Frogtown. Without direct community interaction or input, we can design to the best of our ability through analysis and research. However, vital pieces of information that should inform the entire process are missing. Much of these pieces cannot be observed. They are found in the social capital and local culture of the community, much of which are intangible and can only be learned through immersion into the local narrative. The history and traditions of any group will inform their specific needs, wants, and goals. From working in Frogtown, I’ve learned that we can attempt to understand these elements and work to design with them in mind, but when it truly comes down to it, we can only speculate. There is a great difference when designing for advocacy between perceived needs and actual needs of a community. (Anonymous student response, 2018)
On one hand, students identified a limitation of the studio as a lack of participation from local residents. They seemed to be particularly critical of the instructors’ desires for students to produce adaptable design work (which provides feedback loops and treats design as an infinite game) if those strategies did not include the people living in those neighborhoods. This is clearly a limitation of the studio. However, students now value authentic, place-based participation as a necessary step, indicating an effective learning outcome for the students.
One student explained the importance of a design process, iterative processes, and human connections in order for landscape architecture to works as an infinite game. In their final reflection, they stated:
Without the necessary multiple mistakes of repetition, you cannot achieve good work, no matter how much you think and plan. There is one stipulation though. To be truly sustainable, it is a must to think about the human factor. Materiality, longevity, and design for the infinite game are all valid arguments for what sustainability truly looks like, but when the human factor is left out, it voids the validity of the design. (Anonymous student response, 2018)
CONCLUSION & POSSIBILITIES FOR FURTHER TEACHING, SCHOLARSHIP, AND PRACTICE
This case study provides suggestions and possibilities for further landscape architecture teaching—and by extension, scholarship and practice—that move design into an infinite game. These include going beyond studio norms of fixed design outcomes. Suggestions for best practices include:
Advocating for interdisciplinary partnerships and solutions
Partnering with connected and informed locals
Including robust community involvement to ground possibly abstracted scenario planning and design
Normalizing flexible and emergent solutions that include user adaptations over time
Normalizing adaptive outcomes and design as an infinite game, including plans for emergent processes and policies as part of studio outcomes.
Create Interdisciplinary Opportunities to Bring Rigor to Strategies Outside Design
The studio explored projects, policies, and issues from outside the typical scope of landscape architecture. However, the instructors, interim reviewers, and final reviewers were mostly landscape architects. Likewise, all students were landscape architecture students. Partnering with interdisciplinary students, instructors, community partners, professionals, and reviewers could have enabled more fluency with issues outside of landscape architecture design. For example, the two students proposing adaptive housing and economic development might have benefited from specialists and partners in these areas. These two students did provide robust solutions, but it is likely more of a testament to their curiosity, work ethic, and skills. Requiring such interdisciplinarity from landscape architecture-only student teams is probably expecting too much. If adaptable policy and design solutions are to be a goal for future design studios, then interdisciplinary partnerships should likely be the norm. Related to this, transdisciplinary action research as a new norm in landscape architecture has been proposed and studied (Thering & Chanse, 2011). While this interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity could lead to even greater complexity (including communication challenges), it might also lead to more confident and sound decisions about strategies outside students’ expertise. Likewise, bringing in interdisciplinary specialists throughout the design process to evaluate students’ proposals might increase the rigor of students’ projects. On the other hand, including landscape architects in strategic planning and adaptation strategies beyond spatial design could add rich graphic communication to the work of other disciplines (e.g., strategic planning from business and scenario planning from urban planning that often lack compelling visual communication).
Partner with Connected and Informed Locals
The rigor and validity of students’ analyses and designs was made possible through local connections, particularly with the relationship with the Trust for Public Land and other local stakeholders. While students were not locals, they were well-informed, and their findings were regularly vetted by local professionals—including the studio’s co-instructor. This enabled students to get deeper into their analysis and knowledge-building, which in turn enabled adaptive designs and plans.
However, as student feedback indicates, some students found community engagement helpful, and many indicated how important they thought it was for truly effective solutions. While it can be acceptable to be speculative and removed in some situations, in other cases it leaves designers questioning many decisions. This is particularly true if the speculative proposals are phased and generative—each decision building on previous decisions. This calls for partnerships in local communities that building lasting relationships for more lasting outcomes over the long term (de la Peña, 2019; de la Peña, et al., 2017; Hester, 2010).
Normalize Adaptive Outcomes and Design as an Infinite Game
Perhaps the tools of representation in landscape architecture are too static to provide meaningful strategies to dynamic problems. In contrast, adaptive studio outcomes could be rewarded and fostered. This might mean that outcomes such as management strategies, policy recommendations, and proposed generative design processes would take predominance over traditional renderings. These outcomes and strategies likely will vary depending on the project context, but students’ designs and projects can be guides to envisioning a field of possibilities and creating environmental and social resiliencies that provide value over time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We thank Joan Woodward, Kyle Brown, and Ken McCown for their encouragement and feedback during the studio course. We also thank Charlene LeBleu, Robert Corry, James LaGro, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article.
Footnotes
PEER REVIEW STATEMENT Landscape Journal uses a double-blind peer review process for original research manuscripts, systematic literature reviews, and other article types.
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