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Research ArticlePeer-Reviewed Articles

Teaching Design as an Infinite Game

Adaptive Systems and Resilient Landscapes

Noah Billig and Tori Kjer
Landscape Journal, May 2023, 42 (1) 91-107; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3368/lj.42.1.91
Noah Billig
Noah Billig, PhD, is an associate professor of Landscape Architecture and Planning in the Fay Jones School of Architecture and Design at the University of Arkansas. He has taught, researched, and worked in the landscape architecture and planning fields in the United States, Turkey, and Austria. His research focuses on adaptive design and planning, including community engagement; environmental justice; generative design; and perceptions of environments.
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Tori Kjer
Tori Kjer, executive director at the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, holds a master’s degree and licensure in landscape architecture, with over a decade’s experience implementing projects and advocating for policies focused on improving community health outcomes through fresh food access, stormwater capture, and green space development. Previously as LA program director of the Trust for Public Land, Kjer established TPL’s Los Angeles Parks for People Program, collaborating with partners and community stakeholders to identify priorities, build trust, and lead coalitions, helping raise over $50 million in public and private grants and overseeing the development of a dozen new parks.
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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).

KEYWORDS
  • Emergence in landscape architecture
  • studio teaching
  • adaptation
  • Los Angeles River
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Landscape Journal: 42 (1)
Landscape Journal
Vol. 42, Issue 1
1 May 2023
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Teaching Design as an Infinite Game
Noah Billig, Tori Kjer
Landscape Journal May 2023, 42 (1) 91-107; DOI: 10.3368/lj.42.1.91

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Teaching Design as an Infinite Game
Noah Billig, Tori Kjer
Landscape Journal May 2023, 42 (1) 91-107; DOI: 10.3368/lj.42.1.91
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  • Article
    • Abstract
    • INTRODUCTION
    • THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
    • STUDIO WORK
    • DISCUSSION
    • CONCLUSION & POSSIBILITIES FOR FURTHER TEACHING, SCHOLARSHIP, AND PRACTICE
    • ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
    • Footnotes
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  • Using Senses of Place to Help Communities Navigate Place Disruption and Uncertainty
  • Guerrillas in Our Midst
  • Transdisciplinarity and Boundary Work for Landscape Architecture Scholars
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Keywords

  • Emergence in landscape architecture
  • studio teaching
  • adaptation
  • Los Angeles River
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