Reformed Rural Paradigms: An Archetype of British Columbia's Rural Agenda by Andrei Rizea

Reformed Rural Paradigms An Archetype of British Columbia’s Rural Agenda

Andrei Rizea

Graduation Project POLITECNICO DI MILANO

© 2021 Andrei Rizea All rights reserved Printed and bound in Canada Cover art: Mt. McLean Scenarios, Andrei Rizea (author) Right image (Fig. 1.): Sketch of a crossroad junction at Mt. McLean, a community gathering place (Node 5), author, 2019. Academic Institution: Politecnico di Milano Department: Architecture and Architectural Engineering (LM-4) Program: M.Sc. Sustainable Architecture and Landscape Design Supervisor: Matteo Poli Notes: All figure captions (unless specified otherwise) follow a ‘symbol-based’ organizational system where the direction and number of arrows indicate the location of the figure referenced (i.e. “<<<” is three pages back) for space saving and layout purposes. The figure citations are often separated or grouped together with their respective sources despite being physically attached together or not. A detailed figures list is located after the “Contents” page. Certain figure sources that were not taken from their respective “in-text” citation sources or figures that do not contain key information in substitute for text (such as “visual significance”) are not included as separate entries in the “Bibliography” for space saving purposes and an appropriate representation of works consulted. Please refer to the “List of Figures” section after the “Contents” page for further details. All figure citation descriptions referencing other authors in “Part II: Three Scenarios of Intervention” are listed only in the “List of Figures” section (listed in a clockwise direction with respect to the indicated general location) in order to keep a focused and uncluttered portrayal of the author’s work. Figures containing icons from “The Noun Project” are fully cited at the end of the “Bibliography” section where the original author’s names of all icons used in this book are listed in alphabetical order of first name (if applicable) as illustrated underneath each icon in its original composition. All quotations used as thematic separations (as opposed to research material referred to in the main body of text) between this book’s sections are only listed as citations and not complete bibliographic entries. Last Two Figures: The full description for the collection of photographs by the author in the second last two spreads can be found before “The Noun Project” list of authors at the end of the “Bibliography” section; an “in-text” citation was not used for those two figures. A “List of Abbreviations” is omitted from this book due to a limited number of repeated instances (B.C. British Columbia; DOL District of Lillooet; CLT Cross-Laminated Timber; TJI Trus Joist I-Joist; STEM Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). Note only “B.C.,” mainly present in “Part I: Contextual Framework,” keeps periods as instructed on the Gov. of B.C. website. Some abbreviations, mostly in “Part II: Three Scenarios of Intervention,” are not listed as they are “universally understood abbreviations” (i.e. compass directions, standard units, and shorter versions or signs of common words). “N” on pg. 194 is Node.

Reformed Rural Paradigms An Archetype of British Columbia’s Rural Agenda

A N D R E I

R I Z E A

“To envision architecture as a mimetic re-enactment of topographical form is to underestimate what actually makes place namely layers upon layers of human action, sedimented in memory, language customs and physical form. Architecture creates new places—and re-creates old ones— forever negotiating and reinterpreting the meaning of both nature and place.”1 — Mari Hvattum

Abstract Throughout the 20th century, from Le Corbusier’s Ville Contemporaine to Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, the growing urban model became the focus to which our everyday lives got shaped by and referenced to. Despite the growing climate change repercussions and livability concerns related to the densification of our cities, the UN’s 2007 projection indicated that 70% of our global population will inhabit these overcrowded spaces, a limited surface area that represents solely 2% of our earth’s land mass. What is happening on the remaining 98% of our usable spaces?2 The countryside, as Rem Koolhaas’ think-tank AMO describes, is becoming an increasingly complex territory which no longer bears its former strict agricultural title. These vast ‘in-between’ spaces framing and serving our increasingly consumptive and unsustainable urban counterparts are beginning to experience a paradoxically nostalgic yet redefined reversal back to their former ‘agrarian’ selves heavily shaped by the prominently digital age we live in. The mode by which this shift is being perceived varies considerably across the globe, in particular between ‘developed and underdeveloped’ economies. This thesis project focuses on the former ‘developed’ theoretical condition where the shift is manifested as a progressive ‘migratory rural-urban metamorphosis’ back to the occupation of rural areas formerly dwelled by agricultural workers which now experience a mosaic of lifestyles and identities. Conversely, on a more empirical note, the climatological effects of our unsustainable growth model are increasingly felt across our diverse rural territories, further shaping a new identity of the ‘countryside’ as their physical properties and appearances irreversibly begin to adjust. British Columbia’s vast, diverse, and ‘virgin’ territories provide an unexplored potential to investi-

1. Mari Hvattum, quoted in Lotta Tiselius, “A Second Countryside: Future scenario for coastal life in Bohuslän archipelago” (thesis project, Aarhus University, Spring 2017), 62, https://issuu.com/lottatiselius/docs/ redeg__relse_lotta_tiselius.

gate this increasingly complex relationship between the societal and physical implications of the transformative countryside as opposed to the ‘domesticated’ and ‘cultivated’ connotations associated with the undergoing study on Europe’s rural situation. Thus, an increasingly influential natural phenomena in terms of scale and intensity acting on both a regional and global scale, shaping both the lives and physical characteristics of rural areas in a cyclical process, is examined: wildfires. Consequently, as a means to present a situational example that allows for a flexible study model acting as a framework within different contexts, yet in turn provide a tangibly perceptible vision adhering to a clear ‘corporeal experience,’ the District of Lillooet is the site of this rural manifesto. Its rich history, diverse geographical features, evolving rural-urban interface, and ideal location for wildfires allows for a holistic materialization of these potential changes to be speculated upon. Methodologically, the vision is separated in three distinct yet interwoven scenarios: urban strategies, architectural visions, and landscape identities. Furthermore, three topics are employed to organize the multiple layers adherent to each scenario: scale, time, and place. In sum, the resulting rural archetype eludes both the past and the foreseeable future. A tangibly imperfect agrarian hand meets an intangibly computerized ‘modular’ solution. The resulting ‘rural superstructure’ becomes reminiscent of Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack, where the former organizing principles of a city become superimposed upon the rural networks that no longer operate on a separate platform serving our urban lifestyles, yet act as systematic territories in which the re-envisioned occupant becomes a ‘pixel’ within a distinct code that governs the ‘ruralscape.’

2. Rem Koolhaas, “Ignored Realm,” in Countryside, A Report (Cologne: TASCHEN, 2020), 1–2.

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Contents Prologue

vii vii ix xi xxiii xxv

Global Context

Abstract Contents List of Figures Foreword Introduction

Rural and Urban Identities

Global Context 6 8 9 15 17 22 29 34 36

43 47 50 53

B.C.’s Agricultural History Urban-Rural Migration Patterns B.C.’s Rural Social Transformation Emerging Local Economies

Design Methodology and Site Introduction

216

Scenario I: Urban Strategies Scenario II: Architectural Visions Scenario III: Landscape Identities Vision: A Reformed Rural Network

Epilogue 216 218

220

A B.C. Case Study: District of Lillooet Demographics and Socio-cultural Identity Local Economies Environmental Properties A Fire-Prone Community

Three Scenarios of Intervention 156 166 186 210

Global Context

84 89 93 98

Wildfire Statistics Historic B.C. Wildfire Seasons B.C.’s Forest Health Factors

153

The Grid History Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Three Powers of the Grid’ Superstudio’s ‘Supersurface’ Theory A Similar Approach: Archizoom and Group 9999

The Sublime Countryside Rem Koolhaas’ ‘Countryside Theory’ Benjamin Bratton’s ‘The Stack’ and Rural Prototypes Local Context

121 127 131

147 150 150

B.C.’s Landscape Identity Iconography of the Canadian Landscape

59 63 75

Climate Change Overview Global Wildfire Scenarios Post-wildfire Landscape Identity Local Context

142 143

Reconstructed Rural Agendas

107 110 116

140

The Urban Condition and Future Living Scenarios Urban Fringe Landscape Identity Henry Thoreau: Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) Iconography of the Landscape Radical Narratives Artificiality and Abstraction Local Context

The Grid and Supersurface

Wildfires

106

Discussion Vision

Bibliography

List of Figures Fig. 1. Sketch of a crossroad junction at Mt. McLean, a community gathering place (Node 5), author, 2019; pg. v.

phy/side-effects/; p. 12. Fig. 13. “The Landscape Identity Circle: landscape identity laid out on two axes of spatial–existential landscape identity on the one hand and personal–cultural landscape identity on the other. Scientific disciplines involved in landscape studies are placed around (outer sphere).” Quoted p. 325. Redrawn. “Perspectives on Landscape Identity: A Conceptual Challenge,” Derek Jan Stobbelaar and Bas Pedroli, June 2011. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2011.564860; p. 13.

Fig. 2. “9. Nature is Over,” inside spread of Time Magazine’s March 12, 2012 issue. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhass, April 24, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside; pg. xxix. Fig. 3. Sketch of Lillooet from Red Rock viewpoint (Node 3), author, 2019; pg. 1. Fig. 4. Photo of Mt. McLean from Fort Berens Estate Winery, author, 2020; pg. 4.

Fig. 14. Photograph of original work. “Title page of Henry D. Thoreau, Walden; or life in the woods, showing Thoreau’s hut at Walden Pond, Massachusetts,” Library of Congress, 1854. https://www.loc.gov/item/96517797/; p. 15.

Fig. 5. Ludwig Hilberseimer: High Rise City (1924), the urban condition. “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/academia/manifesto/; pg. 6.

Fig. 15. The Pre-Raphaelites depiction of perfect naturalism. Charles Allston Collins, “Convent Thoughts,” 1851, oil on canvas, 33 1/8 x 23 1/4 inches, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, England. http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/collins/ paintings/2.html; p. 18.

Fig. 6. A nomadic a-topic relationship to domesticity. “Domestic Boundaries: Towards new limits of living space,” Flavio Martella and Maria Vittoria Tesei, 2019. https://futurearchitectureplatform.org/projects/b5b05065-b55e-482fb8c5-849055137176/; p. 7.

Fig. 16. Neoclassical rendition of the purely absolute origins of architecture. Image source Courtauld Library, Courtauld Institute of Art, London. Chalres-Dominique Eisen, “2nd edition Frontpiece of Essai sur l’architecture by Marc-Antoine Laugier,” 1755, document, Paris, France. https://www. riha-journal.org/articles/2014/2014-jan-mar/special-issue-art-design-history/scott-persuasion; p. 18.

Fig. 7. Quinta Monroy Housing, 2004, Iquique, Chile. Photos by Cristobal Palma. Agency of residents. “Five Global Challenges Designers and Architects Can Solve in 2017,” Heather Corcoran, December 26, 2016. https://www.artsy.net/ article/artsy-editorial-five-global-challenges-designers-architects-can-solve-2017; p. 8.

Fig. 17. Inversive & transformative processes of ‘modern landscapes’. Selection of works from front & end papers. “Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas,” Denis Wood, mid-1980s. http://sigliopress.com/ira-glass-on-everythingsings-interview-with-denis-wood/; p. 19.

Fig. 8. The domestic digital “cloud.” “Domestic Boundaries: Towards new limits of living space,” Flavio Martella and Maria Vittoria Tesei, 2019; p. 8. Fig. 9. Abstracted ‘hard’ urban-rural fringes in modern times. Left to right: Paris/Province, NYC/Flyover Country, Chittagong - Bangladesh/Capistrano Beach - USA, Kamoto Mine - Congo/Zug - Switzerland, London/Countryside. “NIMBY I 2018,” no author, April 2018. https://www.atlasofplaces. com/research/nimby-i/; p. 9–10.

Fig. 18. The notion of the ‘meaningless’, Bolquère, France, in built representations of iconography. Photos source unknown. “The quest for authenticity 2019,” Atlas of Places, August 2019. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/research/ the-quest-for-authenticity/; p. 21.

Fig. 10. Pervasive nature of the contemporary rural-urban divide. Photo credit Chris Hadfield: Brussels (2013). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015. https://www. atlasofplaces.com/academia/manifesto/; p. 10.

Fig. 19. Installation view of the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, New York, 26 May to 11 September 1972. Original photo by George Cserna. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, November 28, 2013. https://www.disegnodaily.com/article/italy-the-new-domestic-landscape#slide-1; p. 22.

Fig. 11. Landscape identity physically sculpted through social structural systems. Photos credit Kacper Kowalski, Poland. “Kacper Kowalski Side Effects 2012,” October 2015. https:// www.atlasofplaces.com/photography/side-effects/; p. 11.

Fig. 20. A series of fiberglass “furniture” pieces by Gae Aulenti depict fragmentation & flexibility. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, 2013. https://www.disegnodaily. com/article/italy-the-new-domestic-landscape#slide-1; p. 23.

Fig. 12. Narrative/values dictates an inseparable link between modern American society and an adaptive landscape identity. “Joel Sternfeld American Prospects 1977–1988,” September 2017. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/photogra-

Fig. 21. Assembly axonomteric drawing illustrating an iterative

and temporal process to Gae Aulenti’s installation. “Gae Aulenti, House Environment, (1972),” Rudy/Godinez, August 2nd. https://rudygodinez.tumblr.com/post/57209630248/ gae-aulenti-house-environment; p. 24.

academia/manifesto/; p. 33. Fig. 31. B.C.’s Visual Quality Objectives determine the “naturalness” of a landscape starting from the most “unaltered,” author, 2020. Farwell Canyon, Eastern Face of Mt. McLean, Cache Creek’s “Rainbow Hills”, Skookumchuck Narrows Provincial Park, Airport Lands Lillooet. Please note these are not B.C.’s “official” accompanying images used to descrive the VQO’s; p. 35–36.

Fig. 22. Front cover of “The Struggle for Housing” by Gruppo Strum depicts a reformist approach to problem solving. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, 2013. https://www.disegnodaily.com/article/italy-the-new-domestic-landscape#slide-1; p. 25.

Fig. 32. Large scale depiction of the Visual Quality Objectives. Redrawn by author. “Established Visual Quality Objectives for British Columbia,” Ministry of Forests and Range, January 13, 2015. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/ farming-natural-resources-and-industry/forestry/visual-resource-mgmt/vli_evqo_poster_jan13_reduced.pdf; p. 37.

Fig. 23. Clean Air Pod (1970), performance with Andy Shapiro and Kelly Gloger at University of California, Berkeley. “Ant Farm Group – San Francisco, USA 1968–1978,” Spatial Agency. https://www.spatialagency.net/database/ant.farm; p. 26. Fig. 24. Exterior view of Ant Farm’s “House of the Century,” (1973), a technological narrative. “Ant Farm 1968–1978,” Chip Lord, 2015–2018. http://chiplord.net/antfarm; p. 26.

Fig. 33. Romanticization of Canada’s raw barren landscapes as a ‘Northern’ national identity. Lawren S. Harris, “Icebergs, Davis Strait,” 1930, oil on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm, courtesy of McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Vaughan, Canada. https://www.artoronto.ca/?p=35494; p. 39.

Fig. 25. Perspective/sectional drawing of Ant Farm’s “Dolphin Embassy,” an “artificial landscape” of humans and sea creatures. “Ant Farm 1968–1978,” Chip Lord, 2015–2018. http://chiplord.net/antfarm; p. 26.

Fig. 34. Culturally diverse approach depicting Canada’s mosaic-like collective identity. Daphne Odjig, “Medicine Man in the Shaking Tent,” 1974, drybrush acrylic on paper, 86 x 114.3 cm, courtesy of McMichael Canadian Art Collection, Vaughan, Canada. http://muskratmagazine.com/the-indigenous-group-of-seven/; p. 39.

Fig. 26. Participants gather around Paola Navone’s & Alessandro Mendini’s redefined archaic pyramid. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017. http://www.the-offbeats.com/articles/cavart-between-archaism-and-futurism/?utm_medium=website&utm_ source=archdaily.com; p. 27.

Fig. 35. Photo of Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery (Modena), author, 2018; p. 42.

Fig. 27. Franco Raggi’s “Tenda Rossa,” a modernized dialogue with the primitive hut. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017. http://www. the-offbeats.com/articles/cavart-between-archaism-and-futurism/?utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily. com; p. 28.

Fig. 36. Photograph of original work. Property of a West Coast Collector. “Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verité dans les sciences. Plus La dioptrique. Les météores. Et la géométrie. Qui sont des essais de cete méthode,” René Descartes, 1637. https://www.sothebys.com/ en/buy/auction/2019/fine-books-and-manuscripts-online/ descartes-rene-discours-de-la-methode-pour-bien; p. 43.

Fig. 28. Michele de Lucchi’s mobile “domestic” structure, “Portatina.” A participatory impromptu link w/ nature. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017. http://www.the-offbeats.com/articles/cavart-between-archaism-and-futurism/?utm_medium=website&utm_ source=archdaily.com; p. 28. Fig. 29. “Artificially constructed” forms of nature compose an anthropogenic countryside. Bing Maps: Fresno, CA, USA (2016). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/academia/manifesto/; p. 31–32.

Fig. 37. The Grid functioning as an activator of dynamism through a social platform. Plan of the Eixample development in Barcelona (1859), by Ildefons Cerdà. Archives of the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona-Ministerio de Cultura. Identical higher resolution copy obtained on WordPress. “Story of cities #13: Barcelona’s unloved planner invents science of ‘urbanisation’,” The Guardian, April 1, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/apr/01/story-cities-13-eixample-barcelona-ildefons-cerda-planner-urbanisation; p. 44.

Fig. 30. An abstracted version of reality serves as an “Open Work.” J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam and Speed–The Great Western Railway (1844). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/

Fig. 38. An easily multiplicative model of growth gave structure to North America’s vast territories and growing cities. “The Great American Grid,” Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.ca/ pin/302585668685833552/; p. 46.

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2020; p. 58.

Fig. 39. Graphic representation of Einstein’s Space-Time Continuum, an allusion to the first “power” of the grid. “General Relativity,” Penn State University, December 2, 2012. https:// sites.psu.edu/passionmalencia/2012/12/02/general-relativity/; p. 48.

Fig. 49. An early view of the sublime as seen through an introspective thought of “man vs. nature.” Caspar David Friedrich, “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” 1818, oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 cm, located in the Kunsthalle Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wanderer_above_the_Sea_of_Fog; p. 60.

Fig. 40. (Right). Mythical-like contradictory property of the grid, the second “power” of the grid. Photo of original work. Agnes Martin, “Morning,” 1965, acrylic and pencil on canvas, 182.7 x 182 cm, courtesy of the Tate Gallery, London, England. https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/martin-morning-t01866; p. 48.

Fig. 50. Infinity through repetition and “astonishment” induced by the “reductionisim” of the sublime. Photographic collage of the Alps by Maselli. “Artificial Infinite,” Fernando Maselli, 2014; p. 61-62.

Fig. 41. “Infinite structure” that comprises the overall framework of the grid, the third “power” of the grid. Piet Mondrian, “Tableau 2,” 1922, oil on canvas, 55.6 x 53.3 cm, courtesy of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA. https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3013; p. 49.

Fig. 51. The rural-urban population divide reveals an “undefined use” happening within the countryside. Redrawn by author. Map by Earth Observatory, NASA. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside; p. 64. Fig. 52. A diverse demographic emerges from this “mysterious” group of “unknown” workers scattered across the countryside. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/ lectures/countryside; p. 65.

Fig. 42. General framework and spatial-temporal attributes of Superstudio’s ‘Supersurface’ theory. The first coverage is a linear development, the last two are planimetric, author, 2021; p. 51.

Fig. 53. The Dutch countryside has evolved into an eclectic collection of contemporary, heritage, and traditional rural modes of living. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https:// oma.eu/lectures/countryside; p. 66.

Fig. 43. The grid acts as an enabler of freedom and nomadism. Please note this is a higher quality “reproduction” of Superstudio’s original image. “Superstudio, Supersurface,” Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/529102656194688117/; p. 52.

Fig. 54. Example of Germany’s rural-urban distribution related to economic production types. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/ countryside; p. 67.

Fig. 44. Superstudio’s vision depicted a social platform in constant flux; the act of living itself became the main focus. “superstudio supersurface 1,” R-Lab, May 1, 2016. https:// rlabarchitecturecitiesutopias.wordpress.com/r-lab-code-x/ superstudio-supersurface-1/; p. 53.

Fig. 55. As rural communities continue to grow in parallel with a “temporal escape” from cities, their yearly intensity of use decreases. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside; p. 68.

Fig. 45. Early typographic grid-based ‘DNA’ of Archizoom’s ‘NoStop City. Original diagram by Andrea Branzi. “Archizoom No-Stop City (1969),” Tumblr. https://avoidbuilding.tumblr. com/post/38885161745/paavo-archizoom-no-stop-city-1969the-plans; p. 54.

Fig. 56. Typical daily scene within an “archaic” vision of rural living in connection with a “holy” sense of duty and communalism. Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “The Harvesters,” 1565, oil on wood, 119 × 162 cm, located in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, USA. https://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/The_Harvesters_(painting); p. 69.

Fig. 46. (Right). Developed plan view of ‘No-Stop City’ as an infinite and repetitive catalyst of activity composed of planes and pillars. “No-Stop City,” WordPress, October 30, 2016. https://eli530blog.wordpress.com/2016/10/30/no-stop-city/; p. 54.

Fig. 57. Speculative contrast on a traditionally “physical” relationship with the land and an intangibility of the digital era. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside; p. 70.

Fig. 47. Group 9999’s allusion to the grid’s deconstructivism breaking “life” into its basic elements: air, water, & gardens (flora). “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Emilio Ambasz, 1972. https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1783?; p. 56.

Fig. 58. “Kilocalorie delivery ratio describes the proportion of agricultural output directly consumed by people; higher value zones feed more mouths. The overlay of this ratio and submarine cables illustrates the central contours of global capitalism. Most areas with the high delivery

Fig. 48. Photo of a heritage church near Ashcroft (B.C.), author,

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ratios are also proportionately less connected to global information flows.” Quoted p. 13. “Data Fix: Informational Imperialism & the Urban Enclosure of the Agrarian Knowledge Commons,” Benjamin Notkin and Timothy Ravis, May 9, 2019. http://www.urbantheorylab.net/projects/.; p. 71.

Fig. 67. Drone technology drapes the countryside in a coordinated grid of pixels and data points; an unprecedented level of control is introduced. Image by Robohub. Virtual fences digitize the “invisible” borders of rural areas; a metaphysical order readily adapts to dynamic environments. Image by Dave Forall. “New Ground II: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, February 28, 2018. https://archinect.com/features/article/150052196/new-ground-ii-countryside-2030; p. 82.

Fig. 59. A highly digitized rural setting like Koppert Cress represents a reversal of human capital with machinery; a vision of “post-human architecture.” “Why Rem Koolhaas Brought a Tractor to the Guggenheim,” Michael Kimmelman, February 27, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/ arts/design/rem-koolhaas-guggenheim.html; p. 72.

Fig. 68. An “urban-scale” vision of a reinvented rural condition: an iterative grid “stacks” users along the numerous hard and soft layers creating an autonomous place of communal living and pluralism. Image by authors of the project titled below. “Within The Frame: The Countryside as a City,” Nicolas MJ Lee and Carly Augustine, 2014. https://archinect. com/nicleedesign/project/within-the-frame-the-countryside-as-a-city; p. 83.

Fig. 60. Feedlots within the “tabula rasa” of the American countryside depicts a “hyper-Cartesian” structure. Mishka Henner, “Randall County Feedyard, Amarillo, Texas,” 2013, archival pigment print, 102 x 104 cm / 150 x 153 cm. https:// mishkahenner.com/Feedlots; p. 73. Fig. 61. Another example of American feedlots and mineral deposits nestled amongst the vastness of America’s countryside. Mishka Henner, “Tascosa Feedyard, Bushland, Texas,” 2013, archival pigment print, 102 x 129 cm / 150 x 190 cm. https://mishkahenner.com/Feedlots; p. 74.

Fig. 69. Core pillar of communalism to the Plateau Indigenous Peoples (Kuteni tribe pictured). Photo by J.R. White, c. 1907. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. “Kutenai people,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, June 7, 2019. https://www. britannica.com/topic/Kutenai; p. 85.

Fig. 62. Contradictory vision of “progression” in the countryside where advancements occur at the expense of rural identity. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012. https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside; p. 75.

Fig. 70. Nomadic structures (Yakima tepees) portray an “environmentally coexistent” approach to spatial reform. Photo by Edward S. Curtis, c. 1910. Edward S. Curtis Collection/ Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. “Plateau Indian people,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, November 11, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Plateau-Indian/Subsistence-and-material-culture; p. 85.

Fig. 63. Illustration depicting ‘The Stack’ as a system of elemental layers comprising an abstracted world. Diagram drawn by Metahaven. “A Design Brief for the Planet: Review of The Stack by Benjamin B. Bratton (MIT, 2016),” FSBRG. http:// fsbrg.net/a-design-brief-for-the-planet/; p. 78.

Fig. 71. Prescribed burning utilized as a “naturally occurring” symbiotic relationship between humans and nature. Photo by Bill Gabbert/Fotolia. “Prescribed fire,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, February 11, 2020. https://www.britannica.com/ science/prescribed-fire; p. 86.

Fig. 64. An autonomous engine of production impersonates ‘The Stack’ as an architectonic “superstructural” entity set within the vastness of the countryside. “New Ground II: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, February 28, 2018. https://archinect.com/features/article/150052196/new-ground-ii-countryside-2030; p. 79.

Fig. 72. Orchards in B.C.’s interior, i.e. Summerland, depicted arcadianism as refinement & prosperity. “Prominent Canadians once owned orchards in Summerland,” John Arendt, October 9, 2020. https://www.pentictonwesternnews. com/community/prominent-canadians-once-owned-orchards-in-summerland/; p. 87.

Fig. 65. Sheer scale of rural mega-structures redefine and reshape their external surroundings. Diagram by Clean Technica. “New Ground I: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, January 31, 2018. https://archinect. com/features/article/150047669/new-ground-i-advancingthe-countryside; p. 79

Fig. 73. Gridded logic of rural towns, (Yale Road, Chilliwack, early 20th century) developed around an agrarian model of production & integration. “Agriculture in British Columbia,” The UBC Okanagan Watershed, November 15, 2013. http:// blogs.ubc.ca/ubcowatershed/2013/11/15/agriculture-in-british-columbia/; p. 88.

Fig. 66. Self-operated machinery alter the socio-cultural identity of the countryside and our role within it. Image by John Deere. “New Ground I: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, January 31, 2018. https://archinect. com/features/article/150047669/new-ground-i-advancingthe-countryside; p. 82.

Fig. 74. Technological advancements, ex. steam powered tractors, defined rurality’s revival through the ‘Country

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Life Movement.’ “9.14 Rural Canada in an Urban Century,” Daniel Samson. https://opentextbc.ca/postconfederation/ chapter/9-14-rural-canada-in-an-urban-century/; p. 89.

John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed, 2012. https://www. researchgate.net/publication/315615319_Social_transformation_in_rural_Canada_Community_cultures_and_collective_action; p. 97.

Fig. 75. ‘A return to rural’ as a consequence of affordability, lifestyle, and newly emerging opportunities. “Counter-urbanization: has the exodus from cities begun?,” Nyman Media. https://www.nyman.media/podcast/counter-urbanization-has-the-exodus-from-the-cities-begun/; p. 90.

Fig. 85. ‘The Creative Ecosystem’ establishes a framework for emerging economies in rural areas. Redrawn by author. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities: Guidelines for Local Authorities,” INTELI, June 2011. https:// urbact.eu/sites/default/files/import/Projects/Creative_Clusters/documents_media/URBACTCreativeClusters_TAP_INTELI_Final_01.pdf; p. 99.

Fig. 76. B.C.’s counter-urbanization shifts towards the southern regions of the diverse territory. “Sustainability: Trends in B.C.’s Population Size & Distribution,” Gov. of B.C., March 2018. http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/soe/indicators/sustainability/bc-population.html; p. 91.

Fig. 86. The digital revolution across Canada unifies a territory within a “cloud” of data generation. Redrawn by author using icons from ‘The Noun Project.’ “Innovation Superclusters will Supercharge Canada’s Economy,” Innovate BC, February 19, 2019. https://innovatebc.ca/news/ innovation-superclusters-will-supercharge-canadas-economy/#:~:text=%24950%20million%20is%20being%20invested%20by%20the%20Government%20of%20Canada%20 under%20the%20Innovation&text=Superclusters%20 Initiative%2C%20an%20ambitious%20strategy%20to%20energize%20bc%20and%20Canada’s%20economy.; p. 100.

Fig. 77. ‘Vancouverites’ are migrating to B.C.’s countryside in search of a redefined live, work & play balance. “The Surprising Cities Canadians Are Leaving,” Daniel Tencer, January 3, 2017. https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/03/01/ canadians-leaving-major-cities_n_15080726.html; p. 91. Fig. 78. Kelowna’s “advanced rural-urban” status stems from its ideal climate and newly emerging economies. “Kelowna,” Value Plus 3% Real Estate Inc. https://www.vp3.ca/okanagan/kelowna/; p. 94.

Fig. 87. Metal Tech Alley brings digital technology and a new identity to the Kootenay’s region of B.C. Still from video. “Innovation in Metal Tech Alley,” Metal Tech Alley, June 25, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wvHXJcaqbE; p. 102.

Fig. 79. Squamish, a mid-sized rural town, struggles to systematically react to an influx of a “creative class.” “7 Reasons to Love Squamish,” Squamish Chamber of Commerce. https:// www.squamishchamber.com/why-squamish/7-reasons-tolove-squamish/; p. 94.

Fig. 88. Canal Flat’s new Columbia Lake Technology Centre repurposes the former sawmill into a hub of data storage. Still from video. “MegaPod,” Iris Energy, May 1, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR690T5hqL4&feature=emb_title; p. 102.

Fig. 80. Fernie, a “traditionally” small rural scenario engulfed by nature, attracts new occupants. “A Raveneye’s view of Fernie - A Seasonal Perspective,” Raven Eye Photography (Todd Weselake and Martina Halik). https://tourismfernie. com/blog/a-raveneyes-view-of-fernie; p. 94.

Fig. 89. Photo of a burning residence in Port Coquitlam (B.C.), author, 2020; p. 106.

Fig. 81. Contrasting traditional “primary resources” (Powell River paper mill) and modern “environmental tourism” based rural conditions (Gibsons Harbour), author, 2020; p. 95.

Fig. 90. Receding glaciers (Grinnell Glacier in 1938, 1981, 1998, and 2006) depict the devastating effects of climate change and rising seas levels. Photo credits in chronological order: 1938—T.J. Hileman/Glacier National Park Archives, 1981—Carl Key/USGS, 1998—Dan Fagre/USGS, 2006—Karen Holzer/USGS. “Climate change,” Stephen T. Jackson, January 28, 2021. https://www.britannica.com/science/ climate-change; p. 107.

Fig. 82. Downtown Valemount 1974; a rural identity devoid of progress amongst a changing context due to closures of sawmills. “Valemount,” Wikiwand. https://www.wikiwand. com/en/Valemount; p. 96. Fig. 83. Modern-day Valemount redefined as a tourist and holiday hotspot with a reconfigured downtown core. “Tourism Valemount Webcams,” Tourism Valemount. https://visitvalemount.ca/webcams/; p.96.

Fig. 91. Planet Earth’s destiny lies at the fate of an anthropogenic force steering the globe into the unknown of the future. Photo credits Bill Anders: Apollo 8, Earthrise (1968). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015. https:// www.atlasofplaces.com/academia/manifesto/; p. 108.

Fig. 84. Map of Canada’s rural-urban spread and increasingly complex rural identity. “Social Transformation in Rural Canada: Community, Cultures, and Collective Action,”

Fig. 92. Photos of “regulatory structures” alluding to an “utopic”

potential of harmony between nature and humanity. In order from top left to right: Lac de Migouélou, France, 2015 / Lønstrup, Denmark, 2013 / Sellajoch, Italy, 2014 / Tauernmoos, Austria, 2015 / Silvretta, Austria, 2014 / Oosterscheldekering, The Netherlands, 2014. “Claudius Schulze State of Nature 2013–2015,” Thomas Glade, April 2017. https://www.atlasofplaces.com/photography/state-ofnature/; p. 109.

Fig. 100. Arizona’s Santa Fe National Forest heavily altered by wildfires left an “emptiness” in the landscape. Photo by Nick Cote. “As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West,” John Schwartz, September 21, 2015. https://www. nytimes.com/2015/09/22/science/as-fires-grow-a-new-landscape-appears-in-the-west.html; p. 119. Fig. 101. The Martu homelands in Australia portray a symbiotic relationship between fire, humans, and non-humans. Text reformatted by author. “A Landscape Architecture of Fire: Cultural Emergence and Ecological Pyrodiversity in Australia’s Western Desert,” Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding, and Nyalangka Taylor, June 2016. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/685763?mobileUi=0#; p. 120.

Fig. 93. Intensified global wildfire potentialities projected to 2030–40 portray an increasingly “desert-like” planet. “Climate Change and Wildfires: Projecting Future Wildfire Potential,” Lindsay Ross, August 6, 2020. https://427mt. com/2020/08/06/projecting-future-wildfire-potential/; p. 111. Fig. 94. Wildfire stats pose an “anthropogenic centered” global crisis. “The Alarming Global Spread of Wildfires,” Martin Armstrong, August 28, 2020. https://www.statista.com/ chart/22743/global-wildfire-spread/; p. 111.

Fig. 102. Historic trends in wildfires (1981–2010) represent “normal” patterns of fire occurring in drier and hotter semi-arid regions. “Fire Weather Normals,” Natural Resources Canada. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/fwnormals?type=fwi&month=7; p. 122.

Fig. 95. Landsat 8 OLI of the 2017 Portuguese wildfires, specifically the Pinhal Interior Norte region, contrasts the severity of the burnt and unaffected areas. “Fires in Portugal,” ESA, 2017. https://earth.esa.int/web/earth-watching/imageof-the-week/content/-/article/fires-in-portugal; p. 113.

Fig. 103. Contemporary wildfire conditions worsen across multiple biogeoclimatic zones of Western Canada (July 25, 2018). “Fire Weather Normals,” Natural Resources Canada. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/maps/fw?type=fwi&year=2018&month=7&day=25; p. 122.

Fig. 96. Sensor-based image showcases the extensive scale of 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires re-transforming an entire biome. Photo by NASA Earth Observatory. “Inferno in the rainforest,” Katherine Unger Baillie, September 6, 2019. https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/inferno-rainforest; p. 114.

Fig. 104. As prescribed burning decrease across B.C.’s timeline, wildfires are fueled by excessive amounts of vegetation. Redrawn by author. “In wildfire-prone B.C. and California, urban sprawl and bad planning are fuelling future infernos. What can we do?” Tamsin McMahon, September 3, 2018. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-in-wildfire-prone-bc-and-california-urban-sprawl-and-bad-planning/; p. 123.

Fig. 97. Satellite captures the scale of the 2020 California wildfire’s smoke spreading across the Pacific. Photo by NASA Worldview, Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) on August 24, 2020. “NASA’s Terra Satellite Shows Smoky Pall Over Most of California,” Lynn Jenner, August 25, 2020. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/ goddard/2020/nasa-s-terra-satellite-shows-smoky-pall-overmost-of-california; p. 115.

Fig. 105. With the number of wildfires increasing across BC, evacuations occur more often, hence putting communities at risk. Redrawn by author (originally Figure 3 from source). “Wildland fire evacuations,” Government of Canada, July 15, 2020. https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/climate-change/ impacts-adaptations/climate-change-impacts-forests/ forest-change-indicators/wildland-fire-evacuations/17787; p. 123.

Fig. 98. A uniform post-wildfire landscape in Kangaroo Island, Australia completely alters rural reality. Photo by Luke Kelly/University of Melbourne. “Wildfires should be considered a top threat to survival of species,” Sonia Aronson. https://www.college.ucla.edu/2020/11/24/wildfires-shouldbe-considered-a-top-threat-to-survival-of-species/; p. 117.

Fig. 106. B.C. will drastically change over the course of the 21st century; the province is becoming more arid. “Can B.C.’s forests cope with climate change?,” David Jordan, July 9, 2015. https://www.bcbusiness.ca/can-bcs-forests-copewith-climate-change; p. 124.

Fig. 99. Sweden’s 2014 wildfires redefined a deeply rooted ‘northern heritage’ as a scarred rural identity. “Landscape identity, before and after a forest fire,” Andrew Butler, Ingrid Sarlöv-Herlin, Igor Knez, Elin Ångman, Åsa Ode Sang, and Ann Åkerskog, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2017 .1344205; p. 118.

Fig. 107. Growing arctic lighting strikes are proof that climate change is impacting global wildfires. Redrawn by author. “Is lightning striking the Arctic more than ever before?,” Alexandra Witze, December 17, 2020. https://www.nature.

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com/articles/d41586-020-03561-1; p. 124.

in_southeastern_British_Columbia; p. 132.

Fig. 108. B.C.’s wildfire threat analysis reveals a province with unimaginable fuel loads for future ‘megafires.’ Originally produced by dbrizan. Edited by author. “2019 Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis BC Wildfire Service,” Gov. of B.C., June 26, 2019. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/ wildfire-status/prevention/vegetation-and-fuel-management/fire-fuel-management/psta; p. 126.

Fig. 115. Succession of 80 years at Lick Creek (US) depicting an overly dense and homogeneous forest. Original photos by the Fore Effects Unit, Rocky Mountains Research Station, Missoula, Montana—for General Technical Report-RMRSGTR-23, March 1999. Photos used from a SlidePlayer presentation. “Modeling the effects of forest succession on fire behavior potential in southeastern British Columbia S.W. Taylor, G.J. Baxter and B.C. Hawkes Natural,” Lucinda McBride, 2017. https://slideplayer.com/slide/8318126/; p. 133-34.

Fig. 109. The 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire (magenta) forced an unprecedented evacuation from Kelowna (top bright green). Photo by NASA/GSFC/MITI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team, and the NASA Earth Observatory. “Okanagan Mountain Park Fire, 2 September 2003,” UVic, May 31, 2005. http://climate.uvic.ca/climate-lab/front_page_pics/bcfires/okanagan_ast_2003245_ lrg.jpg; p. 127.

Fig. 116. B.C.’s forests are gradually dying in plots of infected trees stands, affecting both the physical and ecological identity. Originally produced by the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations—Forest Analysis and Inventory Branch. Edited by author. “Projected Percentage of Pine Killed by 2024,” Gov. of B.C., 2016. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/forestry/ managing-our-forest-resources/forest-health/forest-pests/ bark-beetles/mountain-pine-beetle/mpb-projections; p. 135.

Fig. 110. Vast scale of the Williams Lake wildfires in 2017 illustrate the destructive powers of a record setting season. Photo by Canadian Forces Combat Camera. “MLAs unanimous on B.C. wildfire recovery,” Tom Fletcher, November 16, 2017. https://www.vicnews.com/news/mlas-unanimous-onb-c-wildfire-recovery/; p. 128.

Fig. 117. B.C.’s 1,500 year old inland temperate rainforests of cedars reaching 60 meters need “human and natural” forces to ensure survival. Photo by Taylor Roades / The Narwhal. “Amid forestry struggles, panel finds ‘surprising’ consensus on old-growth logging concerns in B.C.” Sarah Cox, 2020. https://thenarwhal.ca/amid-forestry-struggles-panel-findssurprising-consensus-on-old-growth-logging-concerns-inb-c/; p. 137.

Fig. 111. Huge smoke plumes released during B.C.’s largest wildfire season (2018) heavily disturbed global air pollution levels. Photo by Cape Breton Mesonet and NASA Earth Observatory on August 21, 2018. “Smoke From BC Forest Fires Reaching Cape Breton,” 2019. https://capebreton.lokol.me/ smoke-from-bc-forest-fires-reaching-cape-breton; p. 129.

Fig. 118. Lillooet’s central location within the vast rural network of B.C., especially on the “Sea-to-Sky Highway,” creates a chain of rural communities, author, 2021; p. 142.

Fig. 112. Cover page of B.C’s “FireSmart Manual” following the historic 2003 wildfire season sparked provincial wildfire prevention plans. “FireSmart Manual,” Gov. of B.C., 2003. http://www.thetisislandfire.ca/FireSmart-BC4.pdf; p. 130.

Fig. 119. An accelerating population in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District will drastically alter the area’s rural identity. Redrawn by author. “RGS Projections - Population, Employment and Dwelling Units,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, May 24, 2017. https://www.slrd.bc.ca/inside-slrd/ current-projects-initiatives/rgs-projections-population-employment-and-dwelling-units; p. 144.

Fig. 113. Periodic and contained fires lead to greatest levels of biodiversity. “Black dots in low-severity fire regimes are very old patches of large, old trees being killed by insects and decomposed by fire, and gray dots are emerging pole-size stands that have less defined edge.” Quoted p. 30, Northwest Science journal, volume 72. Redrawn. “The Landscape Ecology of Western Forest Fire Regimes,” James K. Agee, 1998. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/247923347_The_landscape_ecology_of_western_forest_fire_regimes_Northwest_Science_72; p. 132.

Fig. 120. Lillooet’s demographic shift, although smaller than the district’s, will be heavily dependent on external factors. Redrawn by author. “Report, District of Lillooet: Master Water Plan Update,” Associated Engineering, October 2017. https:// lillooet.civicweb.net/document/40986; p. 144.

Fig. 114. Forest homogeneity due to proposed wildfires in Ta Ta Creek leads to more susceptible conditions. “Modeling the effects of forest succession on Fire Behavior Potential in Southeastern British Columbia,” S.W. Taylor, G.J. Baxter, and B.C. Hawkes, November 16–20, 1998. https://www. researchgate.net/publication/274383843_Modeling_the_effects_of_forest_succession_on_fire_behavior_potential_

Fig. 121. The St’at’imc First Nations in the Lillooet area have greatly contributed to the town’s socio-cultural identity. Photo by Charles Gentile, c. 1865. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Canada. “Charles Gentile-Lillooet Indians,” Wikimedia Commons, October 5, 2020. https://commons. wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charles_Gentile-Lillooet_Indi-

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ans_(cropped).jpg; p. 145.

Fig. 130. Zoom of the proposed urban strategies in Lillooet, author, 2019; p. 156.

Fig. 122. Lillooet’s mining era of the Gold Rush housed a multicultural scene of native, Chinese, and European inhabitants. Photo by Charles Gentile, c. 1865. Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa, Canada. “Village of Lillooet,” Library and Archives Canada, May 27, 2020. https://www. bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/CollectionSearch/Pages/record.aspx?app=fonandcol&IdNumber=3307528; p. 145.

Fig. 131. District of Lillooet. Aerial collage of a complex rural identity, author, 2019. Composed using the SLRD Public Map at a 200m level of accuracy; p. 158. Fig. 132. Rural-Urban Interface. District of Lillooet zoning, sites, and connections, author, 2019; p. 160.

Fig. 123. Self-sufficient Japanese Canadians in Lillooet’s internment camps demonstrated resilience during hard times. Photo courtesy of Nikkei National Museum, 2014.14.2.4.183. “Vancouver Asahi: In conversation with Kaye Kaminishi,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, March 29, 2016. https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ vancouver-asahi-editorial#; p. 145.

Fig. 133. Urban Strategies. Short and long term initiatives, author, 2019; p. 160. Fig. 134. DOL Initiatives I. Agricultural strategies intermix technological systems, social identities, and ecological incentives to reanimate Lillooet’s economic scheme, author, 2019. (Top Left). “Great food streets: planning and design for urban magnetism in post-agricultural cities,” Janine de la Salle, 2019. https://link.springer.com/ article/10.1057/s41289-019-00094-6. (Bottom right). Original source RCSD 2008. “Drip Irrigation,” SSWM, 2020. https:// sswm.info/sswm-solutions-bop-markets/affordable-washservices-and-products/affordable-technologies-and/dripirrigation; p. 161.

Fig. 124. Lillooet’s main industries of retail, transportation, and health care provide an ideal foundation for a tourist platform. Redrawn by author. “Labour Force by Industry,” Townfolio, November 2017. https://townfolio.co/bc/lillooet/ labour-force; p. 148. Fig. 125. A large potential to convert underutilized “green spaces” into agricultural uses serves as a “rural makeover.” Redrawn by author. “Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B, District of Lillooet & St’at’imc Agricultural Plan,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, September 2014. https://www.slrd.bc.ca/sites/default/files/reports/SLRDB_ AgPlan_Pt1_FINAL_Sept%202014.pdf; p. 148.

Fig. 135. DOL Initiatives II. Residential strategies take into account local building techniques and materials as a means of creating affordable housing, a self-sustaining model, and a diverse set of amenities for future growth, author, 2019; p. 162. Fig. 136. Proposed Initiatives I. Future agricultural strategies “digitize” the landscape as a “stack” whilst preserving a collective integration amongst inhabitants and their various sets of “innovative disciplines,” author, 2019; p. 163.

Fig. 126. Geomorphological processes have sculpted the region into the main defining factor, i.e. the landscape, that attracts newcomers. Redrawn by author. “Lillooet Natural History: A geomorphic perspective,” Pierre Friele, May 5, 2017. https://6107682a-f4af-436a-9f44-e47537f30ba4.filesusr.com/ugd/3b2ff7_81c1c607836449dfaf4a423f690b1e7b. pdf; p. 149.

Fig. 137. Proposed Initiatives II. Future residential strategies are focused on an environmentally aware digital platform that incrementally adapts to its surroundings via flexible and dynamic forms of development, author, 2019. (Top left). “Community Land Trusts, Urban Land Reform, and the Commons,” Mike Lewis and Pat Conaty, July 07, 2015. http:// commonstransition.org/community-land-trusts-urbanland-reform-and-the-commons/. (Top right). “PassivHaus,” Mauro Casarin Architect, April 16, 2017. http://www.maurocasarin.it/en/news-detail.php?nid=2&name=Passive-House; p. 164.

Fig. 127. A semi-arid climate of milder temperatures and lower precipitation levels leads to ideal agricultural, yet also fire scenarios. Redrawn by author. “Climate Lillooet Ranges,” Meteoblue. https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/ historyclimate/climatemodelled/lillooet-ranges_canada_6053931; p. 150. Fig. 128. The 2009 Mt. McLean wildfire’s impact on Lillooet’s identity reformed the local’s environmental awareness. Photo by Darryl Dyck. “Images from a province ablaze,” The Globe and Mail, August 4, 2009. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/images-from-a-provinceablaze/article788603/; p. 151.

Fig. 139. Site of Architectural Interventions. The predominantly flat ‘Airport Lands’ provide a ‘tabula rasa’ with which to test out numerous coexisting residential and agricultural patterns of rural living, author, 2019. (Top left). “District of Lillooet: Official Community Plan,” Council of the District of Lillooet, February 2009, 30 (2–15). http://lillooet.ca/PDF/ Event-Posters/Official-Community-Plan-2009.aspx. (Top

Fig. 129. Sketch of Lillooet’s rural network portal (Node 1), author, 2019; p. 153–54.

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tion%20of%20this,become%20a%20fire%2Dresilient%20 community; p. 171.

right). “Landscaped Buffer Specifications,” Agricultral Land Commision, March 1993, 9 (A-1). https://www.alc.gov.bc.ca/ assets/alc/assets/library/land-use-planning/landscape_ buffer_specifications_1993.pdf. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (District of Lillooet and Council of the District of Lillooet); p. 168.

Fig. 143. Residential Master Plan. Modular housing meets standalone ‘community homes,’ author, 2019; p. 172. Fig. 144. Conceptual Framework. A gridded logic of indefinite iteration, limitless expansion, adaptability, and dynamism conduces an “occupant-run” mode of management, author, 2020; p. 173.

Fig. 140. ‘Firewise’ Community Planning. An analysis of fire behavior with respect to urban development provides a well-informed strategy for addressing high fire risks, author, 2019. (Top left and bottom). “FireSmart: Protecting Your Community from Wildfire,” Partners in Protection, July 2003, 13 (1–3), 24 (1–14). https://firesmartcanada. ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/FireSmart-Protecting-Your-Community.pdf. (Top right). “Planning the Wildland-Urban Interface,” Molly Mowery, Anna Read, Kelly Johnston, and Tareq Wafaie, April 2019, 39. https:// planning-org-uploaded-media.s3.amazonaws.com/publication/download_pdf/PAS-Report-594_r1.pdf. (Bottom right). “Spatial Planning Experiences for Vulnerability Reduction in the Wildland-Urban Interface in Mediterranean European Countries,” Luis Galiana-Martín, September 2017, 586. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320284412_Spatial_Planning_Experiences_for_Vulnerability_Reduction_ in_the_Wildland-Urban_Interface_in_Mediterranean_European_Countries; p. 169.

Fig. 145. Urban Details. A system of pedestrian-focused urban characteristics and ecologically oriented solutions for waste and pollution creates a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature, author, 2020. (Top left and bottom right). “Adaptive Streets: Strategies for Transforming the Urban Right-of-Way,” Green Futures Research and Design Lab, Gehl Architects, Schulze Grassov, and Scan Design Foundation, 14, 16, 18, 24, 34. https://issuu.com/ schwin/docs/14_04_26_adaptivestreets_final | “Henry Street Rain Gardens,” WE Design, 2013. https://wedesignnyc.com/portfolio/henry-street-rain-gardens/ | “On Site Wastewater Disposal Systems: Soil Considerations,” John Freeland, November 24, 2013. https://blogs.agu.org/ terracentral/2013/11/24/on-site-wastewater-disposalsystems-soil-considerations/. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (Integrated Roadways, PlasticRoad BV, Rubberway Inc., PurePave, and CORE Landscape Products); p. 174.

Fig. 141. Fire Risk Factors. An abundant source of diverse fuel types, wind patterns dispersing potential embers from intense fires, and edge relationships between surface types all contribute to a ‘fire-prone community,’ author, 2019. (Top left). “FireSmart: Protecting Your Community from Wildfire,” Partners in Protection, July 2003, 27 (1–17), 32 (2–4) | “Planning the Wildland-Urban Interface,” Molly Mowery, Anna Read, Kelly Johnston, and Tareq Wafaie, April 2019, 55. (Bottom left). “FireSmart Wildfire Exposure Assessment: A planning tool for identifying values at risk and prioritizing mitigation effort,” University of Alberta, Alberta Wildfire Management Branch, and FireSmart Canada, September 2018, 12. https://firesmartbc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/FS_ExposureAssessment_Sept2018.pdf. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (Lillooet Regional Invasive Species Society and Splitrock Environmental Sekw’el’was LP); p. 170.

Fig. 146. Unit Details. A mosaic of spatial typologies exploring numerous thresholds between privacy and openness follow a “succession” model of urban growth through a modular design logic, author, 2020. (Top right). “Dwellings by Bedroom, Housing Prices,” Townfolio, October 2017.” https://townfolio.co/bc/lillooet/housing. Original source Statistics Canada, 2016 Census; p. 175. Fig. 147. Wildfire Prevention. Readily available local fire resistant materials and assembly methods, in addition to distanced spatial arrangements between structures and vegetation ensure a low risk wildland-urban interface, author, 2020. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (Partners in Protection); p. 176.

Fig. 142. A ‘Firescape’ — Steep slopes enveloping the plot of land coupled with increasingly dry and hot climate patterns add to the overall risk of the ‘Airport Lands’ from being susceptible to future wildfires, author, 2019. (Left). “Community Wildfire Protection Plan: District of Lillooet,” Landscape Consulting Corporation, September 23, 2016, 58. https://lillooet. civicweb.net/document/34000#:~:text=The%20purpose%20 of%20the%20Community,lands%20and%20adjacent%20 crown%20lands.&text=Through%20the%20implementa-

Fig. 148. The Pit House. The agricultural researchers, author, 2019; p. 177–78. Fig. 149. Theoretical Context. Pre-exisiting construction typologies and tight-knit community profile frames a “customized” rural identity of social interaction within a ‘creative hub,’ author, 2019; p. 179. Fig. 150. Ground Floor. Semi-private flex space, author, 2019; p.

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179.

overall forest health, author, 2019. “Community Wildfire Protection Plan: District of Lillooet,” Landscape Consulting Corporation, September 23, 2016, 36, 35 | “Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008 Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008,” Caslys Consulting Ltd. and Ministry of Forests and Range, February 18, 2010” | “Post-wildfire Natural Hazards Risk Analysis in British Columbia,” Graeme Hope, Peter Jordan, Rita Winkler, Tim Giles, Mike Curran, Ken Soneff, and Bill Chapman,” 2015, 40; p. 189.

Fig. 151. Details of Function. A cyclical mode of “upgrading” future rural scenarios, use of local labour forces, and site-focused rationales with respect to the “ground relationship” contributes to a “low imprint” design, author, 2019; p. 180. Fig. 152. First Floor. Private work-live enclave, author, 2019; p. 180. Fig. 153. A Centralized ‘Firescape.’ Xeriscape landscaping and a ‘firewise’ exterior, auhor, 2020; p. 181–82.

Fig. 159. Post-Wildfire Identity. A heavily burned mountainous terrain manifests itself as a juxtaposing system of patched spatial patterns portraying a greater narrative of the region’s evolving rural identity, author, 2019. “Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008 Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008,” Caslys Consulting Ltd. and Ministry of Forests and Range, February 18, 2010” | “Post-wildfire Natural Hazards Risk Analysis in British Columbia,” Graeme Hope, Peter Jordan, Rita Winkler, Tim Giles, Mike Curran, Ken Soneff, and Bill Chapman,” 2015, 40; p. 190.

Fig. 154. Modular vs. Handcrafted. An interwoven yet contrasting structural logic between “imprecise” methods of construction such as stuccoing and “precise” prefabricated components creates a historical dialogue, author, 2020; p. 183. Fig. 155. Connections. “Passive-based” assemblies of earth, timber, metal, rock, and glass fuse together “organic” and “inorganic” materials to create a redefined rural identity connoting an “artificially natural” dwelling, author, 2020; p. 184.

Fig. 160. Forest Health Factors. Parasitic levels of mountain pine beetle infestation have created increasingly dead forest stands that further fuel the wildfire threat and homogeneity of future woodlands, author, 2019. “Community Wildfire Protection Plan: District of Lillooet,” Landscape Consulting Corporation, September 23, 2016, 20 | “Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008 Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008,” Caslys Consulting Ltd. and Ministry of Forests and Range, February 18, 2010” | “Post-wildfire Natural Hazards Risk Analysis in British Columbia,” Graeme Hope, Peter Jordan, Rita Winkler, Tim Giles, Mike Curran, Ken Soneff, and Bill Chapman,” 2015, 40. Please note a complete set of data mapped within the chosen frame was unavailable for reference; p. 191.

Fig. 156. Zoom of the vision for a summit path master plan, author, 2019; p. 186. Fig. 157. High Fuel Load. Previous wildfire events, notably Mt. McLean’s 2004 and 2009 wildfires, have established ripe conditions for future burns due to dried out dead vegetation and a younger less fire resistant pine cover, author, 2019. “Community Wildfire Protection Plan: District of Lillooet,” Landscape Consulting Corporation, September 23, 2016, 58. https://lillooet.civicweb.net/document/34000#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20the%20 Community,lands%20and%20adjacent%20crown%20 lands.&text=Through%20the%20implementation%20 of%20this,become%20a%20fire%2Dresilient%20community | “Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities Lillooet TSA 2008 Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008,” Caslys Consulting Ltd. and Ministry of Forests and Range, February 18, 2010.” https:// www.for.gov.bc.ca/ftp/hts/external/!publish/mpb_impact/ plots/2008/lillooet/Lillooet_Reforest_Silviculture_Opportunities_Poster_2008_Feb18_2010.pdf | “Post-wildfire Natural Hazards Risk Analysis in British Columbia,” Graeme Hope, Peter Jordan, Rita Winkler, Tim Giles, Mike Curran, Ken Soneff, and Bill Chapman,” 2015, 40. https://www.for.gov. bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/lmh/lmh69.pdf. Please note a complete set of data mapped within the chosen frame was unavailable for reference; p. 188.

Fig. 161. Summit Path Master Plan. A sensorial journey through 10 nodes, author, 2019. “Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008 Potential Reforestation & Silviculture Opportunities - Lillooet TSA 2008,” Caslys Consulting Ltd. and Ministry of Forests and Range, February 18, 2010” | “Post-wildfire Natural Hazards Risk Analysis in British Columbia,” Graeme Hope, Peter Jordan, Rita Winkler, Tim Giles, Mike Curran, Ken Soneff, and Bill Chapman,” 2015, 40; p. 192. Fig. 162. Conceptual Framework. A constantly evolving and shifting landscape due to the effects of climate change and anthropogenic measures defines the greater “territorial” identity of B.C.’s future countryside, author, 2020. Reference made to Fernando Maselli’s photographic work; p. 193.

Fig. 158. Proposed Incentives. The vast acres of unmaintained and burnt woodland entices local forestry officials in preventing future large scale wildfire events whilst ensuring

Fig. 163. Main Path Details. A “staggered” trail design with key “guiding elements” repeated throughout the diverse landscape offers a comprehensive perspective on the many properties that compose Mt. McLean’s identity, author, 2020. (Top left). “Naismith’s rule,” Wikipedia, December 18, 2020.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naismith%27s_rule. (Top right). “Road and Trail Treatments,” New Mexico State Forestry and Contributers. https://afterwildfirenm.org/ post-fire-treatments/treatment-descriptions/road-and-trailtreatments | “Chapter 10: Recreation Trail Management,” British Columbia Ministry of Forests, January 2001. https:// www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfp/publications/00201/chap10/chap10. htm#s10.5 | “Rolling Dips,” United States Forest Service. https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/atv_trails_site/build/keepingwater-off-the-trail/rolling-dips.html. | “Trail Construction and Maintenance Notebook,” United States Forest Service.” https://www.fs.fed.us/t-d/pubs/htmlpubs/htm07232806/ page12.htm. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (Andean Summit Adventure); p. 194.

200. Fig. 170. Nodes 2 to 5. Small scale structures mold into the local site conditions as a means of placing the emphasis on the site itself, author, 2020; p. 201. Fig. 171. Nodes 6 to 9. Intermediate scale structures act as landmarks throughout the latter more expansive portion of the trek further juxtaposing the interchangeable threshold between the natural and artificial, author, 2020; p. 202. Fig. 172. Node 10 — Immerse. The 360º pavilion, author, 2020; p. 203–4. Fig. 173. ‘Lighthouse’ Community. Four nearby weather stations revolve around the central outlook, author, 2020; p. 205. Fig. 174. The Compass. B.C.’s Coast Mountains territory reveal itself in the form of peaks and settlements, author, 2020; p. 206.

Fig. 164. Nodes Details. Thematic interrelationships within a “digital” fabric of data points and coordinates are formally conceived as spatially, materially, and “symbolically” minimal interventions along the main path, author, 2020, p. 195.

Fig. 175. Pavilion Studies. A contextually based immersive experience is formed through extreme contrasts between light and darkness, open and closed, small and extra large; author, 2020; p. 207. Fig. 176. Pavilion Details. A vertically phased structure connoting a “miners shed aesthetic” transitions upwards from a “dark public realm” to a light filled “private space” in dialogue with B.C.’s Coast Mountains, author, 2020; p. 208.

Fig. 165. Wildfire Prevention. A “marriage” between remote controlled wildfire mitigation techniques and a more “hands-on” approach to managing forest cover leads to a low impact probability in the event of a wildfire. All other references are solely consulted for data as opposed to replicating direct graphics (Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, National Geographic Society, Partners in Protection, New Mexico State Forestry and Contributers, and Wildfire Today); p. 196.

Fig. 177. Zoom of the CNC process for the contextual model, author, 2019; p. 210. Fig. 178. Architectural Visions. The pit house, author, 2020; p. 211.

Fig. 166. A Personal Scale. A salvaged wood clad entrance begins with a scaled down introspective experience reflecting and encapsulating the landscape’s attributes back towards the viewer via an internal 360º mirror, author, 2020; p. 197.

Fig. 179. Landscape Identities. The compass, author, 2020; p. 212. Fig. 180. Three Scenarios of Intervention. Medium density fibreboard, wax, and copper, author, 2019; p. 213.

Fig. 167. A Fragmented Scale. Interruptions in viewpoints due to natural and artificial obstructions reveal bits of the mountain and surrounding valley in an unpredictable manner, author, 2020; p. 198.

Fig. 181. Site Model Zooms. Lakes, valleys, rivers, and a path, author, 2020; p. 214.

Fig. 168. A Social Scale. Meeting points in the mid-range portion of the main path offers an interactively scaled experience through informative and self-reflective themes, author, 2020; p. 199.

Fig. 182. The Pit House Experience. A material study; author, 2019; p. 214. Fig. 183. “Isola delle Rose,” envisioned by Giorgio Rosa in 1967, redefined how we may interact with and shape our surroundings. Photo courtesy of Davide Minghini’s archive, May ‘68 to February ‘69. “Speciale Isola delle Rose,” Biblioteca Civica Gambalunga. https://www.bibliotecagambalunga. it/archivio-fotografico/speciale-isola-delle-rose; p. 218.

Fig. 169. A Contextual Scale. Large openings in the heavily affected burn areas of Mt McLean, along with an altitudedependent change in vegetation types introduces the vast geomorphological processes of the site, author, 2020; p.

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Foreword Following a devastating successive 2018 wildfire season in British Columbia, the alarming effects of climate change became evermore apparent in the Pacific Northwest where I grew up. The once crystal clear blue skies that marked B.C.’s pristine and virgin identity turned to a haunting grey. The thick smog enveloped everything within a kilometre of sight leaving a sticky sensation on one’s skin, the smoky flavour encroaching deep within the esophagus and blanketing the eyes with a murky film. Was this going to be the norm from now on? Will the crisp, fresh, and rich atmosphere I was once accustomed to become history? What will this mean for the under-serviced, often forgotten rural communities that inhabit this wildland-urban interface as they battle to preserve and reinvent the root of B.C.’s identity stemming from the relationship between a vast untamed natural landscape and a society built off the pillars of mother nature? How will the relationship between native, settler, and temporary (traveller) populations evolve in order to adapt to a new way of interacting with and establishing a harmonious self-sustaining ecosystem for generations to come as new ways of living juxtapose an equally modified territory? All these questions sparked my curiosity in exploring a thesis topic that attempts to offer an architectural, urban, and landscape proposal to an ever-increasing natural global phenomenon that is affecting millions of lives in a socio-cultural, political, financial, and ecological means. Despite this strong ‘utilitarian’ framework to my topic, I discerned an underlying knowledge gap that lacked an opposite theoretical core which would balance the complexity of the argument and resulting discourse about the future of B.C.’s rural identity. Upon speaking with my advising professor, Matteo Poli, he redirected my attention to a peculiar and relevant undergoing study on the evolving condition of the countryside proposed by Rem Koolhaas’ think tank, AMO. An interesting reversal back to the countryside is beginning to happen throughout the world, especially within the ‘Western Hemisphere’ where the former agrarian identity of the countryside/rural regions begins to take on an ‘artificially

nostalgic’ metamorphosis between country living and urban programming. This immensely sparked my interest and concern for the future of B.C.’s rural regions as this new pattern is just beginning to be felt across the province’s countryside, however it has yet to be tangibly manifested and examined within such a vastly untamed landscaped. Furthermore, the need for addressing the rising concerns for a rural community’s wildland-urban interface becomes furthermore relevant as these towns will be expecting a significant population surge in the years to come, as I will outline later in the book. Thus, a perfect marriage between an empirical climate-based core and theoretical rural backbone leads to a unified and cohesive outlook on a pressing contemporary issue. I would like to thank my advising professor, Matteo Poli, for his unmistakable interest, belief, patience, and critique with respect to the resulting clarity and complexity of this argument, along with his broad knowledge of context-based design and contemporary global patterns. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Fire Chief of Lillooet for providing critical topographical and urban CAD/GIS data for the case study site of my thesis’ design proposal. A special thanks to OpenDot Fab Lab in Milan for guiding and helping me realize the seemingly impossible task of converting an accurate scaled representation of Lillooet’s surrounding territory into reality. Another special thanks to Desiree Ferrari and Giulia Carini in the equally heart wrenching process of transporting the model materials from Milan to Piacenza. A final big thanks to all of my fellow colleagues, Urta Halili, Kastriot Mavraj, and Zana Bokshi that took the precious time out of their own busy schedules, day in day out, to assemble whilst offering useful advice throughout the building process; I will forever be in you gratitude. None of this would have been possible without the relentless help and guidance from all the aforementioned friends, colleagues, professors, and kind strangers. Above all, a huge shout out to my family for their relentless support and belief in my dreams and potential. Thank you.

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Introduction A Rural Manifesto

Koolhaas speculates, “are we really heading to an absurd outcome where the vast majority of mankind lives in only 2 percent of the earth’s “overpopulated” surface—and the remaining 98 percent would be inhabited by only one-fifth of humanity, staying there to service them?”5 In tangent with the growing concern over our overpopulated cities and their respective irreversible ecological impacts accounting for 80 percent of global pollution levels, rural regions are beginning to experience an alarming shift in climatological and geological patterns.6 One shift in particular is creating a ‘domino effect’ feedback loop, where due to the increasing CO2 levels within the atmosphere mainly attributed to our urban centres, a former naturally occurring ‘controlled’ and ‘manageable’ successional process has begun to occur at unprecedented levels further increasing CO2 levels: wildfires. As Karl Mathiesen points out, “boreal forests are one of the world’s great carbon sinks. But scientists predict that climate change will cause them to burn more often and with greater intensity, unlocking the carbon stored in the wood and soil. Already they are burning more than at any point in the past 10,000 years.”7 Furthermore, as our over-exhausted urban cores begin to reach their safe carrying capacities, densification will no longer be a viable solution in some regions as living standards, prices, and geographical limitations begin to take precedence. Thus, urban infrastructure will initiate to spread into woodland areas further increasing the wildland-urban interface, whilst some city dwellers will flock to rural towns for a more affordable and higher standard of living where the risk of wildfires remains a growing issue. According to Nate Berg, a journalist specialized in cities, design, and technology, “for the informal city to attain the same level of fire safety as the formal city, or for the exurban dwellers of the wildland-urban interface to be as safe as those in the central city, better policies and smarter land management is needed to control what gets built where, how it’s built, and when the line between city and wilderness should be drawn firm.”8 Henceforth, this thesis project attempts to explore the interconnected and dialectical relationship

The world is changing at an unprecedented pace. As the global population total continues to climb over the 7 billion mark, our habitable surfaces begin to encroach on territories formerly deemed uninhabitable. Technological advancements have drastically altered our core values, behaviours, and approaches towards our shared and individual understanding of what it means to be a human being, along with what our purpose is here on Earth. We are no longer at the mercy of external forces acting upon us. Our undeniable impact on the many factors that have kept our planet in balance for millennia have begun to permanently alter the course of our daily experiences. According to “Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize winning atmospheric chemist who first popularized the term Anthropocene…“it’s no longer us against ‘Nature.’ Instead, it’s we who decide what nature is and what it will be.”’3 Despite the growing concern with respect to the well-being and trajectory of rural areas across the globe, “the countryside is largely off (our) radar, an ignored realm…[where] the past two decades— or maybe the entire period since 1991—has been characterized by a complacent expectation that one kind of civilization —metropolitan, capital-oriented, agonistic, western—would remain the template for global development, possibly forever.”4 A global phenomena and theory that began to take effect in the 1980s, globalism, has since developed into a worldwide psyche and ‘lifestyle choice’ where a unified “urban dream” has mesmerized the attention of the world population to chase a misadvertised notion of success and prosperity. In turn—despite significant efforts to protect both the existence of disappearing cultures, forgotten landscapes, and human rights— countless traditions, languages, species, and individual modes of thinking (which historically have been forged within the countryside) are beginning to slowly disappear, leaving us with an unsustainable model of complete uniformity devoid of diversity and reminiscent of a dystopian Orwellian future. Is it a coincidence that nearly all remaining unique modes of living and endangered species inhabit the shrinking rural territories of the world? As Rem xxv

between two emerging forces: the evolving identity of rural areas as an ‘intangibly theoretical’ foundation and the diversely widespread effects of wildfires serving as a ‘tangibly empirical’ pressing issue. As previously mentioned, the Province of British Columbia, more specifically the District of Lillooet (of which the logic shall be more specifically elaborated later on in this book), is utilized as the focus to conduct a possible set of interventions and strategies due to its unique rural condition where existing literature and architectural studies have seemingly overlooked. Accordingly, the following overarching thesis question is examined and speculated upon through the two opposing yet symbiotic pillars mentioned above: How can the relationship between wildfires and intra-provincial migration to rural regions in British Columbia become a tool for understanding the changing landscape and identity of B.C.’s rural communities?

management approach: predict, detect, protect, suppress, and prevent. Consequently, the desired outcome aims to sustain rural communities within the wildland-urban interface, reduce the risk of high intensity wildfires, and bridge any existing social gaps with respect to wildfire susceptibility between native and non-native groups. In addition, an increasing awareness with respect to the important role native communities have in defining rural B.C.’s cultural and physical identity is crucial in envisioning a future model forged from the past and present. In order to ensure these aforementioned objectives are thoroughly considered, a general “philosophy” and approach is necessary in providing a consistent strategic logic throughout the research and design process. Each thematic topic of the research phase is split within two separate yet complementary categories: a global context and a local (B.C.) context. As a result, this ascertains an over-encompassing balance between the breadth and depth of knowledge acquired, whilst approaching the complex relationship between wildfires and rurality from an abundant set of viewpoint and angles. Furthermore, this speculative research approach ties together with a context-based contingent design/intervention scheme that acts as a jig/foundation upon which similar scenes can be replicated elsewhere using a different set of tools in solving a common issue. Hence, the reader is placed in a position where one has the freedom to interpret a clear, tangible, and contextual vision. More importantly perhaps, this thesis serves as a template aiming to survey a vision where British Columbians are able to reimagine a sustainable connection with nature whilst maintaining a dialogue with the rural identity of Canada and its socio-cultural, economic, and ecological significance.

A Dualistic Attitude Furthermore, in order to holistically and accurately conduct an in-depth study across a wide range of parameters, a set of unifying goals are imperative in guiding the general research and intervention stage of the thesis project. Overall, this project aims to investigate a set of ‘rebranding’ or ‘reinvention’ strategies via which rural communities, in particular rural towns within the “untamed/virgin” Northern Hemisphere context of British Columbia, are able to adapt their current identities in order to attract migrants and visitors from urban centres to live, work, and play in the countryside. In turn, this revitalization of rural communities aims to create a complex network in-between smaller communities (i.e. Lillooet) and larger semi-urban centres (i.e. Kamloops) within the rural fabric of British Columbia as a means of supporting and sustaining the future of these small towns, some of which risk the chance of becoming ghost towns. Parallel to this theoretical core, the detrimental effects of wildfires is explored with a ‘glocal’ perspective where the several factors that contribute to wildfires is analyzed following a cyclical wildfire

Thematic Guiding Principles Although a broad guiding rationale has been defined, a more specific and focused sub-rationale is critical in establishing a comprehensive and thorough set of findings which are clearly distinguishable. Notably, a set of tools/topics that can be easily replicatxxvi

ed throughout a diverse range of scenarios govern the focus and scope of this project: scale, time, and place. Three distinct set of “scales” are utilized on a thematic level, as opposed to the design-oriented sense of the term which is outlined later on. A macro-territorial scale encompasses a major “host” urban centre (such as Kamloops) and its accompanying chain of smaller rural towns, an interurban scale describes the connection between smaller towns to one another as a unit, and lastly, an individual scale composed of a set of urban, architectural, and landscape initiatives within a single community’s district boundary (the design focus of this thesis project in the District of Lillooet). The question of time on an overarching level reappearing throughout the entire project’s timeline focuses on the relationship between the past, present, and future through short and long term occurrences. Finally, the metaphorical yet literal sense of the term place is examined with the intention of discovering the countryside’s shifting identity in a historical, social, cultural, geophysical, and ecological sense, thus further emphasizing the importance of context within this thesis project. A set of keywords are also key in defining the scope, direction, and focus of this thesis project: transformation, identity, landscape, territory, memory, community, integration, “timescape,” and risk mitigation. In an analytical sense, various types of research materials ranging from charts, diagrams, maps, drawings, philosophy, statistics, primary sources, literary commentary, images, and formulas are utilized in achieving a broad range of media with which to depict the many forces and factors at play in this interconnected relationship between rural areas and wildfires. Likewise, as previously touched on, paired with an equally diversified rhetoric scrutinizing the thin line between the freedom of interpretation and a readily digestible tangible representation, the reader is in turn able to visualize a peculiar paradoxical correlation between a “preserved pristine territory/immersive way of life” with that of an “innovative digitized landscape/forward-thinking lifestyle.” However, it is important to note the various limitations that have arisen throughout this lengthy process so that the reader may become better aware

of the reasons for the primarily digital choice of information collected. In view of this observation, due to the fact that this thesis project was mainly conducted during the months prior to the final thesis presentation in Italy, a limited amount of relevant literature on the Canadian/British Columbian rural identity in print was obtainable to consult, and coupled with COVID-19, upon returning to B.C., rich literary sources such as the UBC library were closed to the public and former alumni. Furthermore, due to the fairly little research done to date on the importance of the countryside within the greater discourse of design, a finite amount of sources were accessible (apart from Koolhaas’ contributions). Lastly, with respect to the remote and fairly disconnected nature of Lillooet, a relatively sparse amount of data and information was made available to the general public, hence at certain decision crossroads an educated assumption was necessary for the thesis project to continue progressing forward.

Re-envisioning a Symbiotic Relationship In view of the previously mentioned goals, strategies, parameters, and background research elements, the reader is left to ponder on the project’s significance within the greater discourse of urban, architectural, and landscape design, along with its relevance with respect to contemporary global issues and future trends. With that in mind, this thesis argument attempts to provide the reader with a new outlook on a historically prominent duality that has governed our species since the first civilizations began to take place: the city and the land that lies beyond—servicing, sustaining, and often times acting as the space in which we carry out our daily lives. From the beginning of time, the countryside was a place where the majority of the world population lived, and although the prominence of the “dense city” has become centre stage over the past century, the countryside remains the vast majority of the earth’s solid surface. As Rem Koolhaas cleverly discerns, “in 2020, two blatant tasks stand out… the inevitability of Total Urbanization must be questioned, and the countryside must be rediscovered as

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a place to resettle, to stay alive; enthusiastic human presence must reanimate it with new imagination.”9 Coupled with the escalating scarring via wildfires, deforestation, and invasive species that are slowly eliminating the world’s largest carbon sink covering much of our boundless rural areas, in addition to a gradual increase in local populations shifting to the countryside from nearby cities as our overpopulated urban nodes become unliveable, the gravity of this symbiotic relationship becomes further emphasized as it effects both the developed and underdeveloped economies, informal and formal settlers, temporary and permanent residents, flora and fauna. Additionally however, this thesis project aims to make an original contribution to the currently existing discourse on the future of the countryside by altering the global context in which this current shift is beginning to take place: the vast, wild, and pristine virgin territories of the Northern Hemisphere’s boreal forests. Currently, existing case studies have been conducted within the historically cultivated/domesticated rural regions of Europe and Eastern Asia, such as the diverse set of “urban-type” businesses appearing throughout the densely organized Dutch countryside or the expansive social agricultural models underway in China. Furthermore, by coupling it with a key natural phenomenon that is growingly altering the physical identity of the countryside (wildfires), a distinctly diversified metamorphosis between natural and theoretical phenomena begin to reveal a new set of truths and attributes associated with the countryside. In doing so, this rural anecdote attempts to expand the current literature into the often overlooked, isolated, and vast territories, that as time and the global population begins to take its toll, will no longer maintain their current “untouched” status in the coming decades. In Bryan Walsh’s insightful stance on the evolving status of nature, he concludes with the following:

it ever existed. For environmentalists, that will mean changing strategies, finding methods of conservation that are more people-friendly and that allow wildlife to coexist with human development. It means, if not embracing the human influence on the planet, at least accepting it.10 Nature as we know it will inherently begin to adapt to the rapidly evolving situation across the globe. The irreversibly profound effects of humanity’s chase for “advancing” or “progressing” our ways of life will take centre stage in a world where human capital will be the primary acting force. In light of this undeniable observation, this thesis project aims to propose a clear and corporeal vision of a future where nature and humanity is able to live harmoniously, side-by-side, and symbiotically benefiting from one another.

The reality is that in the Anthropocene, there may simply be no room for nature, at least not nature as we’ve known and celebrated it—something separate from human beings—something pristine. There’s no getting back to the Garden, assuming

3. Bryan Walsh, “9. Nature Is Over,” TIME Magazine, March 12, 2012, 1, http://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,2108014-1,00.html. 4. Koolhaas, “Ignored Realm,” 2. 5. Koolhaas, 3. 6. Rem Koolhaas, “Countryside,” (presentation, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands, April 24, 2012), https://oma.eu/lectures/countryside. 7. Karl Mathiesen, “Northern fires caused almost a quarter of global forest loss, study shows,” The Guardian, published April 2, 2015, https://www.theguardian. com/environment/2015/apr/02/northern-fires-causedalmost-quarter-global-forest-loss-study-shows. 8. Nate Berg, “After Fort McMurray: where are the world’s most fire-prone cities?” The Guardian, published May 16, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/16/fort-mcmurray-alberta-canada-worldsmost-fire-prone-cities. 9. Koolhaas, “Ignored Realm,” 3. 10. Walsh, “9. Nature Is Over,” 2.

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^Fig. 2. “9. Nature is Over,” inside spread of Time Magazine’s March 12, 2012 issue. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhass, April 24, 2012.

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Part I Contextual Framework

Rural and Urban Identities

Global Context The Urban Condition and Future Living Scenarios Urban Fringe Landscape Identity Henry Thoreau: Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854) Iconography of the Landscape Radical Narratives Artificiality and Abstraction

Local Context B.C.’s Landscape Identity Iconography of the Canadian Landscape 4

“...taking “space” to be the encompassing volumetric void in which things (including human beings) are positioned and “place” to be the immediate environment of my lived body—an arena of action that is at once physical and historical, social and cultural.”11 — Edward S. Casey

The Urban Condition and Future Living Scenarios

es, we have perpetually reciprocated this attitude back towards the built environment itself, further “separating” ourselves from one another through an enveloping digital cloud that has in turn shaped the built environment. “The mad rush to house the people of America’s cities created settings that both undermined traditional ways of living and worked against the kind of cooperative culture that people most needed to survive in the new situation. “We have become strangers sharing the largest collective habitats in human history…the physical environments we have been building in our cities for the past twenty-five years actually… discourage the pursuit of a collective action.”’14 As Oscar Newman cleverly stated, the vast majority of our urban environments in their current status, despite emerging urban incentives such as tactical urbanism, urban farming, and numerous other interventions, have negatively contributed to a global mindset that separates ourselves from one another and our very own self-created dying cultures, in addition to the rest of the world’s natural environments that define the rural fabric. The future of our shared and private living spaces are being drastically shaped by the increasingly

In order to holistically comprehend the increasingly compelling and complex nature of the evolving rural situation worldwide, rurality’s counterpart, urbanism, must be briefly taken into account as a means of contextually exploring the themes and theories present within this inseparable dualistic relationship. In an even broader sense, the mode in which one interacts with his/her’s immediate surroundings may have an undeniable consequence in relation to our relationship with both the “built and natural” environment. Within the greater discourse of environmental determinism, Alex Cummings points out how “scholars, whether explicitly or implicitly, embrace an idea called “possibilism,” which suggests that the environment does not dictate the countours of human experience but provides a certain range of possibilities within which people choose what they will be and do.”12 As opposed to environmental determinism that strictly implies our proximate surroundings—such as the increasingly populated homogenous urban centres we impulsively flock to—solely shape our current identities and states being, possibilism implies an act of free will upon which people consciously choose to adopt certain behaviours and modes of thinking. Perhaps even more so, “the natural and built environments interact with people—as residents, farmers, workers, policemen, legislators and policymakers, each contributing in their own way, with varying degrees of power, to shape an environment that, in turn, shapes those who are subject to it.”13 It becomes apparent thus how the 20th century “globalized mass-produced” city model has begun to amend the everyday societal values and modes of interaction within the overcrowded concrete playgrounds we currently live, work, and play in. As a “global” trend has continued to advertise an individualistic attitude towards our shared living spac-

<<<Fig. 3. Sketch of Lillooet from Red Rock viewpoint (Node 3), author, 2019. <<Fig. 4. Photo of Mt. McLean from Fort Berens Estate Winery, author, 2020.

^Fig. 5. Ludwig Hilberseimer: High Rise City (1924), the urban condition. “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015.

11. Edward S. Casey, “Between Geography and Philosophy: What Does It Mean to Be in the Place-World?” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 91, no.4 (December 2001): 683, http://www.jstor.org/ stable/3651229.

complex yet “invisible” structure of the digital realm that is slowly governing and changing the concept of space, time, and our notion of place as previously stressed in this project’s preface. Digitization of the ways in which we communicate with one another and our settings are beginning to render everything around us temporary, constantly shifting its form, composition and meaning:

global phenomenon of immediacy, uniformity and invisible forces have begun to render every material and immaterial notion in constant flux, always bouncing off one another as it pulls and pushes like a “cause-effect” type relationship. According to Jeremy Németh’s and Joern Langhorst’s study on the temporal opportunities present within vacant land, temporality and the user’s agency becomes central to this theory:

In the contemporary era, changes in family structure, work organization, technology, gender, communities and communication are reflected in a new revolution that blends the domestic space with that of the city. The dualities of public and private, of exterior and interior, of architecture of the home and architecture of the city are now broken. This revolution is affecting and involving every aspect of daily life, from body to architecture, sociology to psychology, productivity to reproductivity, isolation to community…the inhabitant of the contemporary city lives in the condition that Verschaffel has called “a-topia”, i.e. where the person becomes a nomadic subject freed from the concept of belonging and therefore is in a state of perennial transit. With this new figure the perception of domestic and urban space passes from being permanent to nomadic. The house tends to the city, and the city turns into a home.15

A temporary use model might just serve as an instrument to encourage more realistic, pragmatic, and incremental approaches to urban transformation, moving outside (or even in parallel) to our institutional tendency to master plan larger inflexible projects based in idealized models of urban systems…in this regard, urban vacant land may render visible the role of the neighborhood resident as co-author of the spaces and places they inhabit and as empowered participants in urban development processes. The temporary use model has the potential to re-center urban vacant land as a critical element of the processes that create urbanity and urban life.16 A large part of the equation that drives this temporal and participant/user-based reality that will continue to govern the structure of our cities, and perhaps begin to introduce themselves slowly in the countryside, is the notion of the “cloud.” As was mentioned earlier, the “digital nomad” will transform the ways in which we perceive and interact within a global system of rural and urban landscapes. The future of our living spaces will increasingly become at the mercy of our own diverse codes of agency, slowly overpowering the top-down model of city planning, each in tune with one another as global tendencies and various types of information are instantly shared and understood.

Our daily lives no longer become clearly distinguishable between formerly classic divides such as outside/inside and private/public—the contemporary

The omnipresence of communication technologies is causing radical changes in the form of interacting, working and living. As a consequence, the material space chang7

es, being often also incorporated into this new phagocyte entity: the cloud. Its constant presence ensures that even production is [po]tentially omnipresent, as well as domesticity…with [its] appearance, the domestic space is altered, and assumes even more its contemporary multidimensional condition. The space is dissolved in favor of time. New gods are shaping new routines.17

people could interact with an environment unmediated by culture.”18 Whereas urban centres have underlying social-cultural and political forces which have shaped them into their current form, a rural region’s clean slate that has been much less constructed and regulated by the human hand, regardless to what extent, proves much more vulnerable to the substantial transformative nature of humanity’s actions. As a result, it becomes an ever-increasing region upon which our focus needs to redirected in order to create a non-parasitic link between our rural and urban domains. One such beneficial scenario is that of the “vacant urban lot” dwelling on the peripheries of concentrated urban cores: “This concept of ‘‘landscape as infrastructure’’ has numerous benefits in terms of ecological processes…individual lots can provide infrastructural functions, such as storm water infiltration, but their efficiency increases exponentially if they are engaged as a system of vacant lots, taking advantage of their capacity to form productive and performative networks within urban fabrics.”19 This desolate “no-man’s land” blurs the boundary between rurality and urbanity, where the denotations and connotations associated with the two opposing territories begin to reveal another factor to this delineation: a gradient. In the anthropocentric age in which we live in, as mentioned earlier, the option of a pristine nature complete unaltered by humanity and urbanity’s

Urbanism’s undeniably key presence and influence upon the countryside has paved the path for reappropriating well-analyzed, documented, and tested urban theories that in turn may provide useful in redefining the gradient from rurality to urbanity, the inorganic to the organic, density to openness, frantic dynamism to successional systems.

Urban Fringe The threshold between urbanity and rurality defines the interconnected yet contrastingly complex relationship between the two realms that support and sustain our lifestyles. Although “a housing project or a suburb could be viewed as an interaction between people and two variables, a layer of culture resting over the basic physical setting…the vast plainness of the prairie might be seen as a tabula rasa upon which <Fig. 6. A nomadic a-topic relationship to domesticity. “Domestic Boundaries: Towards new limits of living space,” Flavio Martella and Maria Vittoria Tesei, 2019.

^Fig. 7. Quinta Monroy Housing, 2004, Iquique, Chile. Photos by Cristobal Palma. Agency of residents. “Five Global Challenges Designers and Architects Can Solve in 2017,” Heather Corcoran, 2016.

^ Fig. 8. The domestic digital “cloud.” “Domestic Boundaries: Towards new limits of living space,” Flavio Martella and Maria Vittoria Tesei, 2019.

ideological forces has become nearly obsolete. The distinction between the urban and rural has always portrayed a progressively quantitative correlation with the spatial and temporal nature of the gradient that governs this malleable threshold. As the notion of a city or civilization turned into the abstraction of modernity, this threshold begun to take new ambiguous meanings. According to Professor Harry Grugger’s study on the relationship between urbanism and architecture, the distinction between the rural and urban has evolved from a hard to soft boundary:

As Grugger argues, any intervention made within a spatial context by a human hand generates a resulting boundary between “nature” and “humanity.” During a historical time frame where the global population was incrementally increasing via the millions, as opposed to the exponentially escalating population in the billions of the modern age, the threshold between ‘unaltered/undiscovered’ nature was a hard line—the notion of a virgin landscape still existed due to the limitations of transportation and communication technologies at the time. As global population levels began to surge, the desperate need to house, feed, and employ an overwhelming amount of people in an increasingly complex spatial-time frame begun to take precedence. Thus, the notion of uniformity, abstraction, and a homogenization of programs and space took full effect in the ideological and physical planning of our cities and social constructs. In turn, the very identity of the landscape and rurality’s purpose with respect to our everyday ideals has transmuted into a human-led form of expressivity.

Ultimately, all architecture colonizes space for human appropriation, defining a boundary of domination set against a background of wilderness and chaos – in other words, nature (the excluded leftover of the architectural inside). The classical city, one could argue, did the same thing on a communal scale: it contained the agglomeration of civilized inner public spaces segregated from the outer (extramural) countryside…the industrial (modern) city blurred and irreparably damaged this once-stable opposition. Social polis merged with bucolic arcadia in infinite, site-specific combinations and bred a succession of “transgenic landscapes” that we now generally refer to as “the urban.” The territory lost friction and changed in more or less awkward ways to the point at which “the urban” itself became a kind of all-pervading (mostly chaotic) cultural background – one might say, a kind of nature.20

Landscape Identity The ‘DNA’ of a rural territory has always been debated and speculated upon within the numerous disciplines and literary circles that define our socio-cultural and geophysical understanding of the countryside. The notion of the ‘landscape’ has appropriated many diverse and paradoxical meanings since the early emergence of the world’s first civilizations. Upon first glance, in the most utilitarian sense, the definition of “landscape” was based upon its physi-

cal characteristics that separated it from the city and other forms of ‘nature.’ A more inclusively complete definition of landscape identity has prioritized the influence of the observer on the underlying tones and properties associated with what constitutes and differentiates one landscape from another. The notable weight with which social-cultural factors influence the complex discourse surrounding landscape identity is clearly outlined by Alex Cummings: “I refer to the flexibility of both culture and environment in the dialectic because the arrangement of space can yield more or less to human actions and intentions, but

the social arrangement in which people meet matter also bears on the range of possible results.”21 Further expanding upon this theory, as William Cronon states, “when we describe human activities within an ecosystem, we seem always to tell stories about them…like all historians, we configure the events of the past to give them new meanings…in so doing, we move well beyond nature into the intensely human realm of value.”22 Evidently, the identity of the landscape has a predominately human realm aside from the blatantly indisputable spatial nature of the countryside—perchance the role of the rural in 21st

century befalls to the actions and fate of our collective and individual psyches. The definition of landscape identity may be further broken down into four distinct categories according to Derek Jan Stobbelaar’s and Bas Pedroli’s analysis on the “Landscape Identity Circle” as illustrated in figure 13:

the landscape by everyone, such as spatial composition, land use, wildlife, vegetation and minerals, the colours, forms and patterns, and the use of building materials, etc. Basic landscape classifications in many countries serve this purpose. Personal–Spatial Landscape Identity. The personal–spatial identity of landscape (quadrant IV in Figure [13]) refers to the features and parts of the landscape that are important for an individual concerning the recognisability of an area and his means of orientation within it. This type of identity is related to features that can be perceived by everyone, but which are not of equal importance to everybody.23

The Personal-Existential Landscape Identity. Places can be special to certain people because their biography is linked to these places. Every human being has his/her own life-world, composed of sites with a personal meaning; this is what we call the personal existential identity of a landscape (quadrant I in Figure [13]). The personal significance of a landscape lies in the associations and memories attached to sites within it.

In sum, it becomes apparent that the definition of ‘landscape identity’ has many cross-referential qualities between space (in terms of scale and physical properties), time, and the notion of place that relates to human narrative and socio-cultural codes. Stobbelarr and Pedroli further encapsulate this unique yet broad perspective of landscape identity by concluding that “landscape identity is the unique psycho-sociological perception of a place defined in a spatial– cultural space.”24 Consequently, the implications of landscape identity evoke a dichotomy where the possible outcomes associated with a rural region’s future state of being and function within society follow two opposing binaries:

The Cultural–Existential Landscape Identity. Social processes may cause a location to acquire special significance for a group of people. A place can help individuals to sense the ‘we’ that mutually connects them by means of envisaged images of a collective future. This is called the cultural–existential identity of a landscape (quadrant II in Figure [13]). For example, significant events linked to a certain place invest the embracing landscape with certain perceptible undertones that are felt by many and regarded as important to their group identity.

One of the most important aspects of the notion of landscape identity is that it gives insight into the subtle balance between aggregation and segregation. It can unite people in a feeling of attachment to their region. This can lead to concern for and involvement in the preservation and further

The Cultural–Spatial Landscape Identity. Cultural–spatial landscape identity (quadrant III in Figure [13]) can be characterised by those features that distinguish one region from another. The focus is on features that can principally be perceived in

<<<Fig. 9. Abstracted ‘hard’ urban-rural fringes in modern times (see list of figures for more details). “NIMBY I 2018,” no author, April 2018.

<<<Fig. 10. Pervasive nature of the contemporary rural-urban divide. Photo credit Chris Hadfield: Brussels (2013). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015.

<<Fig. 11. Landscape identity physically sculpted through social structural systems. Photos credit Kacper Kowalski, Poland. “Kacper Kowalski Side Effects 2012,” October 2015.

development of both the spatial and existential characteristics of the landscape. It can also divide people with different views on a particular landscape’s identity. A holistic or transdisciplinary understanding of these processes could help to create a common ‘flag’ and to pursue common goals.25

ness, the fate of the increasingly shrinking rural regions across the globe is brought to the forefront of international relations, where in most cases, the origins of an ethnic group’s morals, values, traditions, and cultural backbones stem from the life supporting yet perpetually evolving countryside. A balance between segregation and aggregation, as Stobbelarr and Pedroli mentioned above, is the critical link in ensuring the continual progression of rurality’s self-sustaining mode of existence.

In the continual battle for preserving national identity whilst embracing a global model of conscious-

<<Fig. 12. Narrative/values dictates an inseparable link between modern American society and an adaptive landscape identity. “Joel Sternfeld American Prospects 1977–1988,” September 2017.

^Fig. 13. “The Landscape Identity Circle: landscape identity laid out on two axes of spatial–existential landscape identity on the one hand and personal–cultural landscape identity on the other. Scientific disciplines involved in landscape studies are placed around (outer sphere).” Quoted p. 325. Redrawn. “Perspectives on Landscape Identity: A Conceptual Challenge,” Derek Jan Stobbelaar and Bas Pedroli, June 2011.

Henry Thoreau: Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854)

viewed not only as a philosophical treatise on labour, leisure, self-reliance, and individualism but also as an influential piece of nature writing…[Thoreau] built a small cabin on land owned by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson and was almost totally self-sufficient, growing his own vegetables and doing odd jobs. It was his intention at Walden Pond to live simply and have time to contemplate, walk in the woods, write, and commune with nature.27

Prior to exploring the multiple layers and theories associated with ‘the rural,’ a brief introduction to a historic piece of literature, Walden; or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau—part memoir, ecological commentary, psychological speculation, fiction, and non-fiction—will provide the reader with a frame of reference upon which the future and current manifestations within the countryside can be throughly acknowledged along a continual narrative. As mentioned beforehand, Rem Koolhaas’ introductory lecture on the countryside revealed how “architects have focused particularly in the last century on the city and there are actually very few manifest[os] for the countryside or about what the countryside could be…I have only found Thoreau’s Walden from 1854 as a significant voice.”26 Given the highly influential nature of this literary exploration on humanity’s relationship with nature and rurality, Walden will aid in situating our current understanding of ‘nature’ through a primarily ‘North American settler’ point of view (alongside an in-depth awareness of local native belief/cultural systems that of which are to explored later on) with the aim of appropriately visualizing a redefined British Columbian landscape both theoretically and physically. In short, Cathy Lowne summarizes the primary intentions and details associated with Thoreau’s piece: Walden, in full Walden; or, Life in the Woods, [is a] series of 18 essays by Henry David Thoreau, published in 1854. An important contribution to New England Transcendentalism, the book was a record of Thoreau’s experiment in simple living on the northern shore of Walden Pond in eastern Massachusetts (1845–47). Walden is >Fig. 14. Photograph of original work. “Title page of Henry D. Thoreau, Walden; or life in the woods, showing Thoreau’s hut at Walden Pond, Massachusetts,” Library of Congress, 1854.

A noteworthy duality that persists throughout the work is that of the human versus the non-human, “Man versus Nature”; the limitlessly adaptive qualities of nature are seen as an overpowering force juxtaposed to the ultimately limited and constrained abilities of humanity to precisely steer, control, and predict the future of rural areas and the countryside’s function within a newly industrialized world. Overly descriptive texts paradoxically describe nature’s simplest processes, such as the freeze-thaw effect and the early morning mist over Walden Pond that occurs due to differences in surface and air temperatures in the chapter “Spring.” Despite Thoreau’s ability to build a cabin and make his “mark” on the ancient territory of New England’s vast temperate broadleaf and mixed forests, he finds himself at the mercy of the eternal cyclical processes that have governed the region’s ecosystem in balance since many millennia long ago. In light of this foundational introspective into the early philosophy that pronounces current day ‘socio-cultural environmental policies,’ Claiton Marcio da Silva and Leandro Gomes Moreira Cruz deduce that “although Thoreau was [a] descendent of European settlers, his text moves beyond the idea of Europeans Americans as colonizers, attempting to understand nonhuman agency and human/nonhuman interactions in that specific habitat…by temporarily abandoning the nascent industrial civilization in favor of primitivism, Thoreau indirectly fosters the emergence of several movements alternative to industrial and capitalist society.”28 This intricate relationship between humanity and nature is further highlighted in Silva’s and Cruz’s analysis of Thoreau’s stance on the irrefutable self-healing powers of nature despite the increasingly transformative effects of industrialization: “By empirically observing the interaction between nonhumans and humans, Thoreau provided an integrated idea of the world, in which human and nonhuman forms lived in an interactive way…Thoreau maintained that “nature has left nothing to the mercy of man,” interpreting it as a being endowed with genius, an active force that exercises power in relation to the “material world.”’29 With this optimistic view on the generally perceived fragility of nature

with respect to humanity’s detrimental effects, the reader is left to contemplate on the role of nature itself within this “victimized” relationship where nature is seen at the mercy of our actions. Therefore, although the rural regions of our globe are changing at an unprecedented pace, perhaps nature’s “subconscious” agency in this duality is just as relevant as its former anthropogenic force. Silva and Cruz further explore this notion of “bio-power” by summarizing the transmutable and enveloping properties of nature that encompass the entire biosphere as a unified entity in which “humans and non-humans,” the inorganic and the organic, cohabit that same space: By maintaining that “there is nothing inorganic,” Thoreau maintains that nature is constituted by a multiplicity of human and nonhuman agents engaged in constant relation and motion, whether cooperating or disputing…reading Walden as a manifesto addressing the relationship between humans and nonhumans could potentially allow one to reconsider the notion of biopolitics as a relevant critical tool for the environmental humanities, looking at the active power of nonhuman subjects, an increasingly essential epistemological and political tool in the age of the Anthropocene. As argued by Thoreau, humans should consider themselves “as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society”…thus, a “natural [hu]man” should build his ‘institutions’ and his ‘right’ by aligning them according to natural life but always compromising with the plurality of humans and nonhuman beings.30 In this regard, further emphasizing the notion of nature as a co-inhabitant that will increasingly begin to blur the lines between the rural and urban (previously described in TIME Magazine’s “Nature is Over” article), future environmental polices and personal incentives will need to align with this ideal rather than attempting to separate humans from the natu16

ral and viewing the issue as a question of “us versus it.” As Henry David Thoreau declared in Walden, we must integrate alongside with nature rather than against or around it in order to “enlighten” ourselves in the role we play on this shared planet:

scape park is more palpable but no more real, nor less imaginary, than a landscape painting or poem. Indeed the meanings of verbal, visual and built landscapes have a complex interwoven history. To understand a built landscape…it is usually necessary to understand written and verbal representations of it, not as ‘illustrations’, images outside it, but as constituent images of its meaning or meanings.32

I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify God and enjoy him forever.”31

As stressed before, the cultural significance embed within nature, ‘the landscape,’ and rurality as a whole maintains a predominant factor in determining our interpretation of a landscape; within a 21st century context, the growing ‘culturally driven’ impact we have on even the vast territories we deem untouched/unaltered by anthropogenic measures is beginning to alter the tangibly biological and spatial characteristics of these ‘controlled virgin territories.’ Our unified global ecosystem has begun to materialize our need for associating an easily digestible sense of meaning to our external environments; the metaphorical and symbolic subconscious is beginning to be manifested directly in the ‘evolutionary ladder’ of Mother Nature herself. As Cosgrove and Daniels state, “iconographic study sought to probe meaning in a work of art by setting it in its historical context and, in particular, to analyze the ideas implicated in its imagery…the iconographic approach sought to conceptualize pictures as encoded texts to be deciphered by those cognizant of the culture as a whole in which they were produced.”33 A noteworthy example of a classical outlook on the primordial underpinnings correlated to iconography was Ruskin’s analysis of Charles Collin’s Convent Thoughts painted in 1851, where Cosgrove and Daniels argued that “the Pre-Raphaelites were true to nature: through their heightened perception of it they revealed God. Perfect naturalism and revelation of divine, or spiritual truth were thus one and the same thing…[Ruskin] wrote of the water-lily growing in the pond of Collin’s painting…to have drawn the leaf so well was not just to have revealed its associations with purity, maidenhood, and divinity, but, as Ruskin argued elsewhere, to show how it con-

The Iconography of the Landscape With a better understanding on what defines the notion of ‘landscape identity,’ in addition to our collective and individual roles within the plethora of rural landscapes which we indirectly and directly interact with on a daily basis, the modes in which rurality is visually depicted, interpreted, and symbolically valued furnishes a greater appreciation towards the manner in which we value and perceive the landscape, both in a metaphysical and aesthetic point of view. Denis Cosgrove’s and Stephen Daniels’ description of the highly disputed term landscape in The Iconography of the Landscape highlights the multilayered and synthesized properties associated with the word: A landscape is a cultural image, a pictorial way of representing, structuring or symbolising surroundings. This is not to say that landscapes are immaterial…a land17

formed to one of the greatest formal ‘types’ through which God structured this world.”34 Reminiscent to Charles-Dominique Eisen’s frontispiece for the second edition of Marc-Antoine Laugier’s Essay on Architecture (1755)—an architectural counterpart to the historical significance of iconography—Convent Thoughts displayed the “pure, pristine, and absolute” version of nature’s significance and “place” within our perceived existential reality and deeply rooted morals/belief systems we (more specifically in a Western context) abide by. The buildings blocks, so to speak, of our interconnection with the built and natural environment followed a deeply analyzed and precisely defined means of placing meaning and value to our surroundings.

Under those inherent historical circumstances, a redefined construction of iconography rendered the landscapes of our digitized ‘post-modern’ world to a level of interminable interchangeability and intangibility: The post-modern apprehension of the world emphasises the inherent instability of meaning, our ability to invert signs and symbols, to recycle them in a different

^Fig. 15. (Left). The Pre-Raphaelites depiction of perfect naturalism. “Convent Thoughts,” Charles Allston Collins, 1851.

^Fig. 16. (Right). Neoclassical rendition of the purely absolute origins of architecture. “2nd edition Frontpiece of Essai sur l’architecture,” Chalres-Dominique Eisen, 1755.

context and thus transform their reference…the liberation of meaning in modern society…emphasizes surface rather than depth…from such a post-modern perspective landscape seems less like a palimpsest whose ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ meanings can somehow be recovered with the correct techniques, theories or ideologies, than a flickering text displayed on a word-processor screen whose meaning can be created, extended, altered, elaborated and finally obliterated by the merest touch of a button.35

increasingly manifesting themselves in an infinite amount of permutations and combinations across a wide spectrum of disciplines and spatial confines. Of interesting correlation to this notion of instability and inversion is the notion of how one may choose to map the surroundings, such as the contemporary work of psychogeographer Denis Wood, more particularly his extensive study in the mid-1980s with a group of landscape architecture students from the School of Design at North Carolina State University on the numerous modes of depicting Boylan Heights. As Denis Wood states, “our idea was this: the neighborhood is a process, a process-place or a process-thing that transforms anywhere into here, and here into everywhere, the city into the space of our lives, the citizen into the individual, and vice versa.”36 Places and spaces, by in large, fully materializing during the onset of globalization in the 1980s, transcended into a deeply interconnected chaotic system of constant change, repetition, re-evaluation, and rebirth; their former identities no longer occupied a rigid set of essences generally accepted by a distinct group, yet insistently remodelled themselves, at the rate it takes to send a text message, in line with the overwhelmingly amount of stimuli coming from every direction and from every ‘walk of life’ acting on them. Ira Glass insightfully critiqued and gave a synopsis on Denis Wood’s maps of Boylan Heights in the introduc-

This “unstable landscape” is becoming further susceptible to the outside pressures of urbanity, invisible electromagnetic forces, industrial by-products, and the accelerated immediacy at which processes at various scales and forms take place. The “pure, clean-slated” version of nature has become an artefact of that past: we are no longer a group of peripheral “individually structured spectators” placing our humble ideological boundaries on the spaces we inhabit; we are active agents and actors within a compounded ecological fabric interweaving the spontaneous with the orchestrated, the controllable with the uncontrollable, the alterable with the unalterable. These inversions of meaning and composition as Cosgrove and Daniels emphasize have been

tion to Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas: “When I encountered these maps of Boylan Heights years ago, what I first loved was how impractical they were. Most maps are entirely about doing a job…these maps are completely unnecessary. The world didn’t ask for them. They aid no navigation or civic-minded purpose…though, of course, the world is fragile. And fleeting. And so Denis Wood’s maps are a far more accurate depiction of Boylan Heights than any normal map could ever hope to be.”37 Interestingly enough, Cosgrove and Daniels allude to a final sense to the multi-versed identity of iconography: “Perhaps nature would turn out to be actually meaningless, simply mindless matter, shaped not by God, but by the blind vicissitudes of chance…Bateson went on to argue that, if we wanted to survive, we needed an ‘ecology of the mind’, or a recognition of that fact that if nature is not itself the product of the mind, then ‘mind’ is immanent in the total evolutionary ‘structure,’ and indeed is objectively discernible outside of ourselves.”38 Hence, the very suppositions we make upon venturing to place moral and logical correctness on the means by which a landscape should be depicted, built, situated, or inhabited supersede our ability to take such a stance on an undefinable existence that lies beyond our criticisms and manifestations of thought. Everything we deem to be natural or unnatural occurs solely by chance through a metaphysical strata lying within our minds and all else that surrounds us. This perplexing theory of “meaninglessness” can be appropriately alluded to through a collection of photographs (unknown author) depicting a nonsensical and “artificially” superimposed network of “reassembled and recycled” landscape and architectural interventions within an eerily empty alpine environment in Bolquère, France, occupied solely during the peak winter season; a metaphorically tangible representation of an iconographic style that lies beyond our generally understood and accepted conclusions across the greater span of history reveals itself in built form:

up everywhere in the past decade in this mountainous region of the Pyrénées-Orientales, are representative of an Alpine style that has no historical context here…the wood, transported from all around Europe, is then reassembled into makeshift villages which are occupied a couple of weeks per year. Devoid of any link with the past, with no public space, and far too expensive for local inhabitants, they are left as symbols of what a “mountain village” should be, a profitable resort for rural tales.39 Notwithstanding, possibly the most comprehensive understanding of our relationship with how we make sense of and coexist in our rural and urban environments ties to the unifying strength of storytelling and narrative, despite the fallacies we may conduct whilst attempting to holistically and validly reach a respectable amount of breadth and depth associated with the rural and urban. Alex Cummings leaves the reader with the following conclusion on our relationship with the spaces that surround us: People do choose how they will work with their physical givens, but the outcome of culture and environment’s interaction depends largely on how susceptible the structure, whether “natural” or explicitly manmade, is to the innovations and strategies of humankind. How we pick apart this complex relationship and make sense out of walls and doors matters a good deal, for, as William Cronon wrote, “A powerful narrative reconstructs common sense to make the contingent seem determined and the artificial seem natural.”40

<Fig. 17. Inversive & transformative processes of ‘modern landscapes’. Selection of works from front & end papers. “Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas,” Denis Wood, mid-1980s.

This photographic series tries to showcase the ambiguity of man’s quest for authenticity. These log chalets, who have popped 20

Radical Narratives

The second, or reformist, attitude is motivated by a profound concern for the designer’s role in a society that fosters consumption as one means of inducing individual happiness, thereby insuring social stability…convinced that there can be no renovation of design until structural changes have occurred in society, but not attempting to bring these about themselves, they do not invent substantially new forms; instead, they engage in a rhetorical operation of redesigning conventional objects with new, ironic, and sometimes self-deprecatory sociocultural and aesthetic references.41

Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, New York, 1972. A strong narrative, as highlighted above, has the capacity to alter both the socio-cultural order and innate physical composition of our environments, along with the ways in which we relate to and identify ourselves within this greater “spatial hierarchy.” Following the end of an incredibly transformative and “rule-bending” decade marked by the 1960s that challenged our preconceived notions of life as a whole and its constituent parts within a rapidly evolving modern society, an eye-opening exhibition held by the Museum of Modern Art in New York City showcased and redefined the ways in which we relate to our daily domestic environments—both on a generally speculative level that challenged the accepted norms of the “everyday” and in the literal “psychologically didactic” sense—where the very methods by which we learn or view a new concept (in this case an exhibition) become forever turned upside down, further immersing the viewer so that the “contingent seem determined and the artificial seem natural” as William Cronon stated previously (see note 40). The exhibition on the current theories and speculations of the post avant-garde Italian design movement were split in two thematic categories within the “Environments” section: a conformist (pro-design) and reformist (counter-cultural) approach. As Emilio Ambasz explains, By the first, or conformist, approach, we refer to the attitude of certain designers who conceive of their work as an autonomous activity responsible only to itself; they do not question the sociocultural context in which they work, but instead continue to refine already established forms and functions.

<Fig. 18. The notion of the ‘meaningless’, Bolquère, France, in built representations of iconography. “The quest for authenticity 2019,” Atlas of Places, August 2019.

Through a paradoxical commentary on the need for “eliminating design itself” in order to isolate and better highlight the issues of modern society, versus a “tactile manifestation” on the new modes of living and improving our dynamic condition that may arise from their inherent problematic counterparts, a unique “psycho-interactive” approach to understanding design immersed the public via the body

^Fig. 19. Installation view of the exhibition Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, MoMA, New York, 26 May to 11 September 1972. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, 2013.

and mind. An ethereal line blurring the distribution between working outside the status quo and acting within it paved the way for imagining and responding to the increasingly abstracted version of our collective realities and the future of our over-stimulated yet flexible surroundings. In a conformist sense, Gae Aulenti’s installation explored the concepts of temporality, flexibility, and fragmentation through her clever appropriation of form as a series of interchangeable furniture configurations that would occupy various functions and ways of interacting within her created environment. Pete Collard describes the thematic inspiration for the installation: “Milanese architect Gae Aulenti responded to the words of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges for her project, a series of fibreglass architectural furniture typologies; “nothing is built on stone, all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand is stone”, declaring in her accompanying manifesto that “architecture is made beyond the strife of governments, wars and famine.’”42 In Gae Aulenti’s description of her project’s theoretical significance within the context of spatial identity, she stresses the following:

Architecture is concrete space, a positive thing that has as its substance the city, in which both private and collective factors join to transform nature through the exercise of reason and memory…a domestic environment should be designed in its general form, for its positive qualities can reside only in the sum of the conditions in accordance with which its spatial elements and attribution of meanings approach a synthesis, which is possible only by using and testing all the criteria applied to defining a city. Our concern, then, is to make things appear in all their complexity and density, even if the result can represent only a limited part of the whole field, a utilization of fragments only.43 Through Aulenti’s fragmentary strategy towards portraying a collection of parts as a hybridization between our collective and individual personas, our inherently “fixed” built environments become altered through a spatially altering narrative that bases its “theological roots” in memory and reason as opposed to an unalterable absolute truth that governs our decision making process. The inhabitant of Aulenti’s created environment acts as precursor to the notion of our contemporary “flex-spaces”; a collection of infinite possibilities become understood as a sum of its transposable parts, with the parts physically manifesting themselves as the core of this limitlessly shifting environment. Aluenti goes on to describe the programmatic and formal properties of her conceptual intervention: The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone’s experiences with the serenity of an effortless development, determined by an independent critical faculty. The predominant object of the design is made up of elements so composed as always to make their original purpose evident, while at the same time remaining open to a determination of their future pur23

poses. Use has been made of arrangements of concave and convex spaces, the integration of different types of space; its validity can be checked by comparison with other kinds of values, by the rules for its use, and the areas that it can complement.44

ety’s current state of being is accommodated and further eased rather than completely challenged at a sociological level, as the next group of designers attempted to showcase. In a reformist sense, Gruppo Strum’s participation in the exhibition followed the form of a social-cultural and political commentary on the current socio-economic inequalities and infrastructural inadequacies in Italy at the time through a series of pamphlets illustrating the dilemmas via the eyes of various actors within the general public. Pete Collard articulates this rebellious counter-cultural proposition to the exhibition’s theme of domestic environments by citing that “several of the invited designers decided not to produce conventional physical installations as requested and instead used the institutional platform that MoMA offered to present alternative manifestos. This was most graphically demonstrated by the three fotoromanzi produced by the Turin-based Gruppo Strum for the exhibition and distributed free to museum visitors.”45 The manifesto was organized in three distinct categories portraying fundamental topics that question the policy making and ideological templates of an increasingly alienating mode of living, both in and out of the city. The three sections of the exhibition, titled “The Struggle for Housing,” “Utopia,” and “The Mediatory City” are explained in further detailed by Gruppo Strum:

A systematic approach integrating the various connections proposed via a juxtaposition or similitude of contradictory and alike shapes/sizes, oriented to one another and the external setting in a variety of combinations, allows the viewer to conceive a personal experience within the space amongst a communal group of visitors; the “modern condition” of a consumer-based society is cleverly alluded to through the notion of accommodating unique desires via a common outlet/sociological pattern. Hence, soci-

The struggle for housing (white paper): Many people in Italy do not have a decent home to live in, and others have no home at all. If they are not given one (and for the time being, no one is likely to give it to them), they must get homes for themselves by organizing themselves into a political movement capable of overturning the trend of the current system, of which their fringe existence and exploitation are functions.

<Fig. 20. A series of fiberglass “furniture” pieces by Gae Aulenti depict fragmentation & flexibility. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, 2013.

^Fig. 21. Assembly axonomteric drawing illustrating an iterative and temporal process to Gae Aulenti’s installation. “Gae Aulenti, House Environment, (1972),” Rudy/Godinez, August 2nd.

tonomous values (the fruits of a neutral conception of science) to these alternative models, we are concerned with rediscovering UTOPIA as an act of provocation, and as a negation of the objectivity of the present-day system of production. The mediatory city (red paper): The city becomes a complex set of old and new tools for use, places to be conquered, and objects to be altered; a great storehouse available to proletarian creativity, enabling those who have rejected the capitalist city, and who are struggling to destroy it, to survive. These are mediatory actions that take place in a continuous process, and they form a mediatory city every day.46 In Gruppo Strum’s manifesto, questions of power balance, ethics, morality, disparities amongst the social classes, capitalism’s influential role in dictating an unbreakable cyclical response towards a herded group of consumerists, and the lack of personalized infrastructure in a growingly complex “urban arena” have all questioning the role of a toxic narrative that is slowly indoctrinating the public with a false sense of autonomy and free will; a “revolutionary call” alluding to a redefined reversal of power paves the path towards a “bottom-up” model where the narrative is rewritten by those who inhabit and bring life to the city and countryside. The means by which such a manifestation may take place—either in a “hyper-technological/imaginary” manner, or perhaps through a dialogue with the past redefining the vernacular of the countryside as the “new ideal”—can be well envisioned through a short review on the influential role of the San Fransisco-based group, Ant Farm, as described by the former, and the short lived Italian group, Cavart, in parallel with the latter.

Utopia (green paper): Imagining a heavy development of technology (or a return to country life), one can predict flexible, adaptable, mobile, provisional urban settlements, controlled by computers, with extremely high levels of communications, information, etc… refusing to attribute au-

^Fig. 22. Front cover of “The Struggle for Housing” by Gruppo Strum depicts a reformist approach to problem solving. “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Pete Collard, 2013.

>Fig. 23. (Top left). Clean Air Pod (1970), performance with Andy Shapiro and Kelly Gloger at University of California, Berkeley. “Ant Farm Group – San Francisco, USA 1968–1978,” Spatial Agency.

>Fig. 24. (Bottom left). Exterior view of Ant Farm’s “House of the Century,” (1973), a technological narrative. “Ant Farm 1968–1978,” Chip Lord, 2015–2018.

Their early work was a reaction to the heaviness and fixity of the Brutalist movement in contrast to which they proposed an inflatable architecture that was cheap, easy to transport and quick to assemble. This type of architecture fitted well with their rhetoric of nomadic, communal lifestyles in opposition to what they saw as the rampant consumerism of 1970s USA…the inflatables thus constituted a type of participatory architecture that allowed the users to take control of their environment.48 By virtue of an acceptance and embrace with respect Ant Farm. A counter-cultural group, Ant Farm challenged the expanding built narrative of our spaces and “mass-produced” psyches. Generally speaking, “Ant Farm was established within the counter-cultural milieu of 1968 San Francisco by two architects, Chip Lord and Doug Michels, later joined by Curtis Schreier. Their work dealt with the intersection of architecture, design, and media art, critiquing the North American culture of mass media and consumerism.”47 The previously mentioned concepts of temporality, flexibility, and a focus on the participant’s input within the social sphere were the centre of their work, partially taking shape as inflatable structures that could be assembled and configured according to the mutating needs of citizens within a new age of spatial freedom: to the role that technology has within our society, Ant Farm proposal resembled a “working and middle class” utopia where with the aid of artificiality and abstraction, humanity is able to rid itself of any previous barriers, connotations, and systematically imposed building blocks with the aim of creating a new start devoid of any limits—a limitless architecture so

^Fig. 25. (Middle). Perspective/sectional drawing of Ant Farm’s “Dolphin Embassy,” an “artificial landscape” of humans and sea creatures. “Ant Farm 1968–1978,” Chip Lord, 2015–2018.

to speak. This architectural language devoid of any typological references or programmatic impositions are apparent in their highly imaginative structures, such as “‘House of Century’ whose form was reminiscent of the inflatables but made from ferrocement,” and ‘Dolphin Embassy,’ an aquatic system of tunnels resting above the water where dolphins became the primary users and “we” the visitors in a reversed dialogue.49 Thus, a forward looking attitude, rejecting past principles in exchange for a futurist view on our built landscapes and cities, captivated the imagination of the global population towards a radically different mode of conducting and orchestrating our relationship with our “greater narrative” and the other “non-humans” we share this collective space with. Cavart. Another instrumental force within the larger radical discourse was Cavart, a group focused on a reimagined narrative between the past and the future, between nature and “the constructed.” In short, “founded in 1973 near Florence (Italy) by a group of young architecture students, Cavart was a reactionary initiative…promoting participation in design and deeply inspired by the natural environment and its metamorphoses…that tirelessly pushed back architecture’s boundaries through a series of temporary and provocative events…to which non-professionals were invited to participate as well.”50 Contrary to Ant Farm, Cavart was interested in a “purified rendition” to the vernacular and absolute origins of the “primitive hut” as depicted by Charles Eisen’s 1755 frontispiece for L’Essai sur l’Architecture; however, they removed the separation between the absolute truth held by divinity and our flawed humane existence by placing the average human at the forefront of the equation, thus placing the power in the hands of those who will inhabit and construct their surroundings (theorized by Ant Farm as well). Furthermore, despite their “archaic nature,” in parallel with Ant Farm, a reformed use and meaning of these spaces were apparent in their inherent temporal, flexible, and iterative characteristics. A key example in depicting this relationship between humanity, nature, and its relevance within an artificially constructed reality of the late 21st

century was a workshop organized by the group representing contenders across a wide spectrum of disciplines: Hidden by the spontaneous vegetation that had taken over the abandoned quarry of Monte Ricco near Padua, in July 1975 Cavart settled for a weeklong architectural workshop called “Culturally Impossible Architecture”…in the course of only five days, “a curious temporary town of plain architecture” was built, both playful, “archaic and futuristic,” from the hay pyramid designed by Alessandro Mendini and Paola Navone, and the Tenda Rossa installation by Franco Raggi…the visionary structures—“kind of hypothesis of a natural life for the technological man of 2000 AD”— questioned the bourgeois architectural 27

codes and shapes and oscillated between fragility and stability, ephemerality and durability.51 Notwithstanding the “outdated” connotations associated with a formally evident dialogue between typological forms and traditional building materials, the workshop’s open-ended approach to constructing inhabitable and interactive structures—given the limitations of the site and local material palettes— brought to merit a socio-culturally and ecologically sustainable approach towards re-envisioning our relationship with nature, the countryside, and a new mode of living within the fringes of modern urban society. A radical commentary on the demoralizing and subconsciously hypnotic condition of urbanism, a departure from technological advancements in the literal sense of the term, brought to fruition a “socially advanced” society living in harmony with its constantly evolving surroundings. Another workshop, Cavart’s last piece, explored similar topics of accessibility, interactiveness, temporality, and flexibility through a more refined and focused design brief: With a similar intention, Homo Trahens— Cavart’s last performance—took place on the 29th June 1976 on the Monte Morello near Florence…the concept—literally meaning trailing human—aimed at redefining what the collective referred to as an “architectonic behavior” and to set off new creative stimuli by using unconventional yet simple materials and techniques accessible to all…participants were asked to realise “residential objects” or structures that were both livable, transportable and light enough to be carried to the top of the hill using only human’s force. From a pair of stilts and a truck’s wheel to De Luc-

<Fig. 26. Participants gather around Paola Navone’s & Alessandro Mendini’s redefined archaic pyramid. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017.

chi’s proposal Portantina—a transportable wooden “living cell” inspired by a sedan chair which required two lifters—each improbable structure was a call for getting back to basics.52

^Fig. 27. (Top). Franco Raggi’s “Tenda Rossa,” a modernized dialogue with the primitive hut. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017.

^Fig. 28. (Bottom). Michele de Lucchi’s mobile “domestic” structure, “Portatina.” A participatory impromptu link w/ nature. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, January 12, 2017.

In tangent with their work, the designers did not shy away from the highly disputed and undesired connotations associated with a classically archaic iconographic representation, yet visualized a new mode of living that would free itself from the soulless toxicity of the modern city whilst preserving the city’s highly adaptive and metamorphic prosperities. In some regard, the pioneering work of Cavart can be considered to be the initial precursor—following a theoretical base from Thoreau’s Walden—to current physical reforms and interventions on a larger scale that have begun to spring up in a variety of ways across a gradient of rural areas throughout the globe.

Nature in the sense of something non-artificial, unaltered by human activity, hardly exists any more. Even those places we call nature reserves…are paradoxically unnatural, since the act of conservation itself can only ever result in something man-made. Human design (biotech agriculture, plastic surgery, beach resorts, rural tourism, greenhouse tomatoes, hypoallergenic cats) makes so-called nature take on an artificial authenticity. Preserved/protected nature is always a sanitized, tamed and overall more human-friendly version of the real thing—a domesticated, hyper-natural version that is little other than culture in disguise. Ironically, the more we learn to control nature, the less nature we have, and the more we change nature, the more complex, strange and unknowable it appears.54

Artificiality and Abstraction Now that a thorough understanding of the complexities across a broader timespan involved in defining the individual and correlative traits associated with the rural-urban divide have been made, two comprehensive concepts arise in summarizing this greater discourse: artificiality and abstraction. The future of the countryside, and the foundation upon which this thesis’ theoretical core is built on, stems from this inseparable correlation with the “abstract” and “artificial.” Prior to reaching the particularities of this relationship, however, the likes of which are to be developed later on, a contextual knowledge and background synopsis of the supporting theories to the thesis’ rural focus aids in linking the project’s storyline together. Granted that, the term artificiality shall be considered first. As Harry Gugger explains, “this idea of “artificiality” has its root in the Latin word artificium, which means “art, craft, or skill” and eventually also acquired the meaning of “inauthenticity,” thereby coming to encompass the common associations of “truth” with nature and “deceit” with culture.”53 This historically rooted definition of nature associated with the “pure absolute truth” (as described previously in the “Iconography of the Landscape” section) and culture alluding to a “distorted” version of reality brings forth another thought-provoking realization:

This newly defined understanding of the increasingly ambiguous meaning of nature has begun to reverse the epistemological code of humanity due to an inescapable realization that we are no longer an unintegrated “superior” species separate from the rest of this immense vastness surrounding us, yet we are steadily adopting an active role in the processes and larger changes that are occurring at an unprecedented rate. As Alex Cummings noted, “in order to speak of a purely nonhuman world at all one must usually reach back very far into the past and, even then, one might misunderstand or misrepresent the place of humans within the development of life.”55 Another key takeaway from Gugger’s examination on the convolutedness of artificiality is the notion that in the 21st century our predetermined understandings associated with nature as a tabula rasa—still deeply rooted in our trans-generational psyches since the neoclassical era—are slowly beginning to take on a new meaning: what was previously conceived to be “completely natural,” such as a nature reserve or national park, are actually one of the most indirectly altered forms of nature, where through “invisible borders,” we are attempting to separate the natural from the artificiality, i.e. urbanity. Furthermore, as Gugger observed, the irreversible global blanket of 29

human interventions on nature have reached such a level that it has become “unfeasible” to not alter or construct nature; the more we try to control or separate nature from ourselves, the more detrimental the effects become. Reversely, the more we try to resist the temptation to control and begin to accommodate change, the future of the countryside may continue to “evolve” in “complex, strange, and unknowable” ways we are just beginning to see. Gugger wraps up the argument on artificiality’s role in the urban-rural binary with the following theory:

somewhat indeterminate and incomplete, and thus admits a myriad of contingent interpretations…without fear of adulteration. Abstraction produces forms with flexible, indeterminate content.57 To an extent, and viewed through an optimistic lens, the “abstract world” has inched itself closer to the “absolute truth” and “tabula rasa” objective of the former neoclassical era; by erasing all symbolisms, meanings, and limitations on our perception of the world, we are able to create a myriad of simultaneous truths along universally acknowledged platforms. In a world where global matters, including the demanding condition of the countryside, are becoming increasingly convoluted and nebulous, perhaps the solution is to utlize abstraction as a tool; an abstract problem calls for abstract solutions. However, despite this interpretation of the abstract, a uniformly “massed-produced” solution to a diverse conglomeration of global issues based on contradictory pillars of thought, ecological characteristics, topological reliefs, and historical occurrences may further perpetuate our society into an ill-informed set of decisions. Although we have been given full reign to “start over,” this does not eliminate the possibility of constructing a destructive path based on ill-conceived notions of prosperity. Gugger continues his discussion on abstraction by elaborating that “abstraction is a result of the loss of referentials after the disappearance of the city/countryside dichotomy, the artificial-versus-natural world order. Abstraction is a by-product of the end of nature and the total pervasiveness of the urban. It is a symptom of artificiality.”58 With abstraction, there is no longer a “black/white” view on our environment, yet a “greyed” perspective on the endless possibilities that may arise out of any given instance. The entire world becomes “urbanized,” i.e. we enter the Anthropocene era governed by humanity. The possible routes with which our abstracted world may succumb to manifest themselves as two opposing trains of thought:

In the light of such ambiguity, one might propose replacing the culture/nature binary with that of the controllable versus the autonomous, whereby culture would be that which we can control and nature all that we cannot. According to this new classification, greenhouse tomatoes and nature reserves would belong to the cultural category, while computer viruses, traffic jams and “the urban” (in all its all-pervasive autonomous anarchy) would be considered natural.56 Abstraction, a symptom of artificiality as Gugger suggests, has shaped the course of our built and unbuilt spaces over the past century, beginning with the early speculations on modernity ranging from the early introductory work of Le Corbusier to Adolf Loos. Gugger defines abstraction as such: “To abstract” comes from the Latin abstrahere, literally “to draw away from,” which means to uproot something essential out of its totality in order to define generic frameworks rather than specific (concrete) solutions. Abstraction was, in fact, the grand project of modernity—to detach thinking from tradition and myth and to seek a universal rationale that is both generic and all-inclusive…it shies away from the representation of ideology and/or the subjective pathos of the author, becoming what Umberto Eco has called an “Open Work,” that is, a piece of art whose meaning is 30

From a pessimistic viewpoint, it encourages a removal of the sense of place and its specific meaning, memory or message. But viewed positively, its indeterminacy can suggest a sense of openness and flexibility that allows other non-human points of view to be acknowledged. When perceived as an “open work,” abstraction can be the device that turns architecture into the background, causing it to switch places with “nature” and thereby reveal the non-human world. In other words, abstraction can be the aesthetic that causes domesticated design objects to abdicate their role as significant anthropocentric landmarks or symbols of human colonization in order to become minimalist background sculptures that enhance and interact with the geological designs of mountains, glaciers, fjords,

lava fields and other such earthly things.59 Abstraction has the potential to destroy or heal. If utilized wisely, the health and vitality of our “non-human” landscapes, the “rural,” may at once reappear in the foreground within the greater scheme of the world’s narrative. The key lies in the term “Open Work” as Gugger mentioned: our approach towards abstraction must be abstract itself; the decisions we make must be neither black nor white, yet borrowing elements from each other in order to create a set of differentiated homogenized-like solutions to common resemblances—the opposing forces that keep our world under constant balance must yield resemblance to the physical manifestation of the “Yin and Yang,” where the notion of inversion as Denis Wood proclaimed, may be the tool to gaining a better appreciation for the many actors and forces at play.

B.C.’s Landscape Identity

made up the land and its ecosystem;

The notion of landscape identity within a British Columbian context relies upon the extent to which nature’s characteristics are susceptible to anthropogenic measures, particularly in tangent with the collective visual aspect of B.C.’s extensive forested areas as a result of the numerous primary industries acting on them. According to the Visual Landscape Design Training Manual published by the Ministry of Forests, Recreation Branch of B.C., “the common basic dictionary definition of ‘landscape’ refers to a ‘prospect of inland scenery such as can be taken in at a glance from one point of ‘view’. Scenery is defined as ‘the general appearance of a place and its natural features from a picturesque point of view’. These definitions imply that the man’s observation is a vital aspect and that landscape is more than an area of land with its individual arrangement of features; it is also our vision of that area.”60 Similar to the definition of a landscape (and landscape identity) as described within the global context of the term, the perceiver is at the forefront of the equation; our interpretation of a specific “frame” within a spatial-cultural network of rurality and urbanism determines the numerous meanings, values, and codes that compose a landscape’s physical and theoretical significance. The term vision is also critical in describing the “landscape” as not only an immediate tangible materialization of our eye’s image rendering process, yet also as an intangible “metaphysical” presence within our deeper psyche tied to what the countryside could be if we mentally and concretely shape it otherwise. This brings forth the role of the human in shaping our individual and collective associations with a landscape that can be broken down in three parts:

Human influences; the management and alteration of vegetation and landforms, creation of buildings and structures; Aesthetic qualities; concerned with the reaction of the mind to what the eyes sees; the patterns presented in terms of, for example, shape, colour, textures and scale. While we may influence the landscape, it also influences us in return…by the deeper spirit of that place, its Genius Loci…the contrast of the wild, natural qualities with the built, man-dominated urban landscape is highly valued.61 This three part definition of a landscape can be seen as a synthesis where the first two components—natural and human influences—are layered and morphed together to create a synthesis that results in the aesthetics of a particular landscape; the three parts together, seen as a whole and individual components, are what form the landscape identity of a place. Prior to including the “observer” as an influencing factor upon this definition, a landscape is just mere space that exists outside of our collective understanding with respect to our surroundings. Accordingly, “the number of people who accept the utilitarian landscapes produced by, for example, logging decreases as the number who use the forests, lakes and mountains for recreation or vacation increases…naturalness and an absence of human influence are consistently highly regarded, the more so as such areas become more rare.”62 In a British Columbian point of view, the degree to which our surroundings become altered or entirely constructed from their “original” wild and untouched state dictates the desirability and attractiveness of a par-

Natural; that is the landform, rocks, vegetation, water, wildlife which originally <<Fig. 29. “Artificially constructed” forms of nature compose an anthropogenic countryside. Bing Maps: Fresno, CA, USA (2016). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015.

<Fig. 30. An abstracted version of reality serves as an “Open Work.” J.M.W. Turner: Rain, Steam and Speed–The Great Western Railway (1844). “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, 2015.

ticular landscape. Although an entirely “virgin” identity of a landscape is becoming increasingly improbable and detrimental to our changing interaction with the environment (as mentioned throughout this book), due to the sheer vastness of wilderness, magnitude of nature’s cultural significance throughout the colonial and indigenous historical timeline, and the fairly recent widespread industrialization of primarily Canada’s border to the US, a nostalgic yet justified look upon nature still governs the vast majority of Canadian’s mindset when it comes to the future of their rural areas. With respect to this appreciation of “naturalness” in B.C.’s landscape identity, “the first step in managing B.C.’s scenery is to determine [the] most visible and sensitive landscapes…[the] most sensitive landscapes are usually steep, forested slopes exposed to many viewers. The least sensitive landscapes are usually low in relief, with few viewers or viewing opportunities.”63 Once again the determining factor in assessing greater value to a landscape—which results in certain restrictions and specific “allocations” associated with a specific “type” of landscape—is the role of the observer within the landscape, hence keeping in line with the overlying theory of our increasing involvement in shaping our rural areas, yet paradoxically also reinforcing a “pull” back towards the notion of an “absolute nature.” Further developing this relationship with landscape identity, the B.C.’s Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations outlines a final guideline in categorizing the diverse rural areas of British Columbia:

assessed, a Visual Quality Objective (VQO) is established to guide forest management activities. VQOs describe levels of visual alteration appropriate for landscapes based on their visual sensitivity. Preservation: Alteration, when assessed from a significant public viewpoint, is very small in scale, and not easily distinguished from the pre-harvest landscape. Retention: Alteration, when assessed from a significant public viewpoint, is: (i) difficult to see, (ii) small in scale, and (iii) natural in appearance. Partial Retention: Alteration, when assessed from a significant public viewpoint, is (i) easy to see, (ii) small to medium in scale, and (iii) natural and not rectilinear or geometric in shape. Modification: Alteration, when assessed from a significant public viewpoint, (i) is very easy to see, and (ii) is (A) large in scale and natural in its appearance, or (B) small to medium in scale but with some angular characteristics. Maximum Modification: Alteration, when assessed from a significant public viewpoint, (i) is very easy to see, and (ii) is (A) very large in Visually sensitive scale, (B) rectilinear and geometric in shape, or (C) both.64

Once the sensitivity of a landscape has been

The Visual Quality Objectives of B.C.’s landscape identity project provide a comprehensive outlook on the precariousness of a relationship based on conflicting values placed on an expansive territory between numerous actors at play: nature tourism, primary resources extraction, and wildlife prosperity. Although it may become highly impractical for B.C. (or Canada as whole) to adopt a “surgically accurate” and detailed redefinition in regards to the hundreds of thousands of square kilometres comprising the rural territories spreading from ocean to ocean—an acceptance, and even high regard of the undeniable and increasingly critical role that humans play in not only damaging, yet saving a newly “anthropogenic planet”—may aid in better managing and accommodating the conflicting needs of the many “forces and participants” at play. As Simon Bell emphasizes, “visual landscape design is essentially a creative process, working with the patterns and forces of nature to guide the evolving landscape in a way that meets the needs of society in both a material and spiritual way.”65 The importance of a holistic design process becomes evidently apparent in determining a healthy relationship with our ever-changing natural surroundings and society value systems. Bell elaborates by implying that “the aesthetic of naturalness could be viewed as a superficial mimicking of nature that ignores the actual geological functioning of the landscape in preference for an artificial surrogate. We must avoid this and instead base the visual results of design on a deeper understanding and appreciation of the patterns in the natural landscape. These are a visual manifestation of the processes of climate and ecology at work on the landform.”66 The need to “dig deep” is ever-critical in an artificial

world where information and data may no longer be entirely tangible and easily digestible, yet living in a cocooning-like state that wraps itself over our daily lives—a “digital cloud” if you will. Thus, the need for abstraction in rendering our surroundings to their most basic elemental form and building blocks may hold the key in slowly absorbing the limitless instruments at play that are rapidly altering our formerly rigid utilitarian approach to problem solving. Creativity and a profound understanding of our surroundings is of upmost importance.

Iconography of the Canadian Landscape Historically, the imagery and symbolism tied to the representation of Canada’s landscape identity faced many conflicting ideals of aesthetics and subject matter; the strong “colonial” presence in the early 19th century conflicted with a more diversified outlook on the harmony between humanity and nature prevalent throughout the numerous native groups across Canada. Likewise, a glorification of the “raw” wilderness juxtaposed a Western aspiration of industrialization and the sophisticated grandiosity of Europe’s “domesticated” landscapes and cities. As Cosgrove and Daniels point out, “the romanticization of such essential Canadian verities of snow, ice and frontier life could not be allowed to obstruct the objectives of Canada’s boosters…the environment in its raw, alien, undisciplined state was an embarrassment, an unacceptable image in an improving world and running counter to the metropolitan aspirations and boosterism so typical of the late nineteenth-century Canada.”67 This early objective of Canada’s im-

age based on a “progressive” European model soon gave way to a more distinct marriage between a traditionalist view on the landscape as a Commonwealth power and a more directed “ecologically minded” view on creating a unique and highly distinct identity of Canada as an influential country of the ‘North.’ One such example is Lawren Harris’ Icebergs, Davis Strait, painted in 1930 emerging from a revival of Canada’s identity as a separate entity from the British Crown following the end of WWI where Canada began to question its imperial roots. The painting depicts a raw, northern climate dominated by towering, imposing, and grandiose icebergs—the majestic and sculptural “cathedrals” of Canada’s newly “true north strong and free” mentality. Despite this separatist attitude towards creating a personalized vision of Canada’s national identity, it excluded the innumerable social and cultural groups that steadily began to populate in greater numbers from coast to coast, hence giving birth to the contemporary “mosaic” branding of the country’s collective identity as opposed to the “melting pot” mentality of their American counterparts south of the border. Cosgrove and Daniels recognize that “the symbolist polar landscapes of Harris’ far north were inappropriate symbols for all of Canada. For some Canadians they only represented a replacement of one set of foreign images by another equally removed…while the metaphor of the ‘North’ suited Harris’ Theosophist formulations, it could not comprehend Canada’s continental scope.”68 This exclusivist mentality sparked a cultural art phenomenon across Canada where a broad spectrum of artists contributed in reforming Canada’s extensive and socio-cultural identity via multiple mediums and art forms tackling a wide range of individual and communal belief systems. One of the most influential and representative art groups that aimed to depict a multicultural outlook on the Canadian landscape was the Indian Group of Seven:

<<Fig. 31. (Left to right). B.C.’s Visual Quality Objectives determine the “naturalness” of a landscape starting from the most “unaltered,” author, 2020.

Even in art Canadian diversity is cultural as much as it is environmental…nowhere is the expression of cultural rather than environmental identity stronger than in the work of the so-called ‘Indian Group of Seven…founded in the early 1970s, and much influenced by the work of Norval Morrisseau, their work combines western art techniques with indigenous iconography. Indeed, it has been argued that this art constitutes ‘a revival of traditional art forms as well as a redefinition of “Indianness” in the context of contemporary and multi-cultural Canadian society’.69 Through a clever use of abstracted paint strokes and a fusion of multiple subjects composing a single image, such as Daphne Odjig’s Medicine Man In The Shaking Tent, the sheer immensity of Canada’s scale and cultural complexities become broken down into elemental forms that comprise a newly reformed young nation paradoxically set within an ancient indigenous timeline; an amalgamation of morals, perspectives, aesthetic differences, and visual properties that define Canada’s emerging and rapidly evolving national identity interweaved together with the aim of creating a flexible and uniform truth that covers the mosaic of natural and built environments comprising Canada and a Canadian spirit as a whole.

<Fig. 32. Large scale depiction of the Visual Quality Objectives. Redrawn by author. “Established Visual Quality Objectives for British Columbia,” Ministry of Forests and Range, January 13, 2015.

12. Alex S. Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways: The Problem of Environmental Determinism in Architecture & History,” Tropics of Meta, published January 7, 2016, https://tropicsofmeta.com/2016/01/07/ plains-projects-and-alleyways-the-problem-of-environmental-determinism-in-architecture-history/#_ftn2. 13. Cummings. 14. Oscar Newman, Defensible Space (New York: Macmillan, 1972), 1–2, quoted in Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways.” 15. Flavio Martella and Maria Vittoria Tesei, “Domestic Boundaries: Towards new limits of living space,” Future Architecture Platform, published 2019, https://futurearchitectureplatform.org/projects/b5b05065-b55e-482fb8c5-849055137176/. 16. Jeremy Németh and Joern Langhorst, “Rethinking urban transformation: Temporary uses for vacant land,” Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning 40, Part B (October 2014): 149, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.cities.2013.04.007. 17. Martella and Tesei, “Domestic Boundaries.” 18. Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways.” 19. Németh and Langhorst, “Rethinking urban transformation,” 149. 20. Harry Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016,” EPFL, published September 2015, https://www.atlasofplaces. com/academia/manifesto/. 21. Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways.” 22. William Cronon, “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative,” Journal of American History 78, no. 4 (March 1992): 1349, https://www.jstor.org/ stable/2079346. 23. Derk Jan Stobbelaar and Bas Pedroli, “Perspectives on Landscape Identity: A Conceptual Challenge,” Landscape Research 36, no. 3 (June 2011): 326–31, http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/01426397.2011.564860. 24. Stobbelaar and Perdoli, “Perspectives on Landscape Identity,” 334. 25. Stobbelaar and Perdoli, 334. 26. Koolhaas, “Countryside,” presentation.

of Nature in Henry David Thoreau’s Walden,” JAm It!, no. 3 (June 2020): 52-53, https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/341833049_BIOPOLITICS_AND_THE_ANTHROPOCENE_ERA_IDEAS_OF_NATURE_IN_THOREAU’S_WALDEN.

44. Ambasz, 152–53. 45. Collard, “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape.” 46. Ambasz, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 254–55.

29. Marcio da Silva and Moreira Cruz, “Biopolitics and the Anthropocene Era,” 61.

47. “Ant Farm Group – San Francisco, USA 1968–1978,” Spatial Agency, accessed December 15, 2019, https:// www.spatialagency.net/database/ant.farm.

30. Marcio da Silva and Moreira Cruz, 61–64.

48. “Ant Farm Group,” Spatial Agency.

31. Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods (Walden Pond: Internet Bookmobile, July 8, 2004), 69, https://azeitao.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/walden.pdf.

49. “Ant Farm Group.”

32. Denis Cosgrove and Stephen Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, Design and Use of Past Environments (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 1, https://books.google. it/books?id=iUKrP2dXqDoC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false, Google Books. 33. Cosgrove and Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape, 2.

50. “Pioneers. Cavart: Back to the quarry,” The Offbeats, published January 12, 2017, http://www.the-offbeats. com/articles/cavart-between-archaism-and-futurism/?utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily. com. 51. “Pioneers. Cavart,” The Offbeats. 52. “Pioneers. Cavart.” 53. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.” 54. Gugger.

34. Cosgrove and Daniels, 18–19.

55. Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways.”

35. Cosgrove and Daniels, 7–8.

56. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.”

36. Denis Wood, “Mapping Deeply,” Humanities 2015, no. 4 (August 6, 2015): 312, https://www.researchgate. net/publication/281612060_Mapping_Deeply.

57. Gugger.

37. Ira Glass, introduction to Everything Sings: Maps for a Narrative Atlas, 2nd ed. Denis Wood (Catskill: Siglio Press, 2013), 6–7, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/ sites/default/files/Everything_Sings_Excerpt_and_Intro.pdf. 38. Cosgrove and Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape, 21–25. 39. “The quest for authenticity 2019,” Atlas of Places, published August 2019, https://www.atlasofplaces.com/ research/the-quest-for-authenticity/. 40. Cummings, “Plains, Projects, and Alleyways.” 41. Emilio Ambasz, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape. Achievements and Problems of Italian Design (New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1972), 19, https://www. moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1783?, PDF.

58. Gugger. 59. Gugger. 60. Simon Bell, Visual Landscape Design Training Manual (British Columbia: Recreation Branch, 1994), 2, https:// www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/docs/mr/Rec023.htm, PDF. 61. Bell, Visual Landscape Design, 3. 62. Bell, 4. 63. “Managing change on British Columbia’s scenic landscapes” (British Columbia: Forest Practices Branch, 2013), 2, https://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hfd/pubs/Docs/Mr/ Rec043.htm, PDF. 64. “Managing change on British Columbia’s scenic landscapes,” Forest Practices Branch, 2. 65. Bell, Visual Landscape Design, 7. 66. Bell, 7.

27. Cathy Lowne, “Walden,” Encyclopædia Britannica, published October 18, 2018, https://www.britannica. com/topic/Walden.

42. Pete Collard, “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Disegno, published November 28, 2013, https://www. disegnodaily.com/article/italy-the-new-domestic-landscape#slide-1.

67. Cosgrove and Daniels, The Iconography of Landscape, 166.

28. Claiton Marcio da Silva and Leandro Gomes Moreira Cruz, “Biopolitics and the Anthropocene Era: Ideas

43. Ambasz, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 152.

69. Cosgrove and Daniels, 173.

<Fig. 33. (Top). Romanticization of Canada’s raw barren landscapes as a ‘Northern’ national identity. “Icebergs, Davis Strait,” Lawren Harris, 1930.

<Fig. 34. (Bottom). Culturally diverse approach depicting Canada’s mosaic-like collective identity. “Medicine Man In The Shaking Tent,” Daphne Odjig, 1974.

68. Cosgrove and Daniels, 173.

The Grid and Supersurface

The Grid History Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Three Powers of the Grid’ Superstudio’s ‘Supersurface’ Theory A Similar Approach: Archizoom and Group 9999

The Grid History

for an embrace of complexity: curved lines that could be described by mathematical formulas, and thereby were not a sign of chaos but an expression of the divine mathematical order assumed to be underlying nature. Seeing the world through a grid produced an immensely fruitful reductionism that released the power of calculation over space.70

Now that a theoretical and localized exploration of the larger thematic similarities and differences pertaining to the rural/urban divide have been made, a condensed analysis on the spatial and psychological particularities of ‘The Grid’ places the reader within a fundamental ‘typological’ framework associated with a key influencing factor on the physical and conceptual layout of the thesis’ three scenarios at the intervention/design stage. In turn, this brief analysis completes the “background knowledge” to the core of the project’s research phase revolving around the shifting rural condition and significance of wildfires. ‘The Grid’ has governed the physical and behavioural fabric of our lives since the earliest signs of “city planning” and spatial structuring. Often viewed as a rigid system at first glance, partly due to its linear and utilitarian properties, the grid has the potential to act as a “soft” immaterial tissue that may spread or shrink in a mitosis-like mode depending on the external forces acting upon it. Historically speaking, the grid’s early logistical uses served as a hierarchical model for structuring space and time through a mathematical approach: the Cartesian grid. In Descarte’s Discourse de la Méthode published in 1637, the overlying significance of the grid acting as a cornerstone in future land management and measuring procedures, stemmed from a highly mechanized and productive industrial society. In Clemens Driessen’s study on Descarte’s influence in redefining our ordering of space, the underlying principles of the Cartesian system are clearly recapitulated:

The key theme of complexity is central to the abstractive effects that the grid has on dissecting a space into its constituent parts as a means of rendering a plot of land to its simplest form, thus enabling designers to better allocate meaning and expression upon it—a place is born out of this ‘reductionist’ ap-

The key innovation of Descartes was not the grid itself, which had been around since antiquity, but how (through applying algebra to geometry) the grid allowed <Fig. 35. Photo of Aldo Rossi’s San Cataldo Cemetery (Modena), author, 2018.

^Fig. 36. Photograph of original work. Property of a West Coast Collector. “Discours de la méthode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verité dans les sciences,” René Descartes, 1637.

proach. Furthermore, as society became evermore complex and unpredictable with the introduction of industrialization that altered the magnitude and scale at which both time and space occurred, the grid aided in ensuring that our increasingly chaotic environments were sufficiently managed, surveyed, and understood. Driessen further develops the topic surrounding Cartesianism by suggesting that ‘“Cartesian” space emerged in a particular space and time: not just a universal/timeless idea projected onto the world by a sole genius, but emerging from a culture and topography that were being ordered to reflect a certain mechanical mode of knowing and governing space, plants, and people.”71 In addition to society and space being dictated by the grid, so too did our “natural” counterpart, slowly reversing the

global ecological cycle to revolve around humanity rather than former undisturbed natural processes. One of the earliest precursors to our current understanding of the grid formulating the general layout of our global cities is Ildefonso Cerdá’s theorizations on urbanism which he most notably exemplified through a redefinition of Barcelona’s Eixample district adopted in 1860. Barry Bergdoll outlines that “by the time Barcelona’s walls were razed in 1858, not only had the Mediterranean port achieved the greatest population density of any European city, but the urban crisis had inspired Ildefonso Cerdá (1815-76)… to devote his life and personal fortune to formulating a general theory of ‘urbanization’.72 Accordingly, Bergdoll elaborates Cerdá’s vision of urbanization by mentioning that “Cerdá imagined the city as an

^Fig. 37. The Grid functioning as an activator of dynamism through a social platform. Plan of the Eixample development in Barcelona (1859), by Ildefons Cerdà. Archives of the Kingdom of Aragon, Barcelona-Ministerio de Cultura. “Story of cities #13: Barcelona’s unloved planner invents science of ‘urbanisation’,” The Guardian, April 1, 2016.

organism whose dynamic growth must be mastered rather than as an ideal form to be composed…Cerdá introduced his General Theory of Urbanization with a promise: ‘more than materiality, I want to speak of the organism, the life, I should say, which animates the material city’s material parts.’”73 The city as a flexible and dynamic “organism” challenged the prevailing underpinnings of city life and its strictly rational “architectonic” presence that took a building’s functional, symbolic, and structural properties a priority over the evolving and diversified needs of its inhabitants. It was specifically this “communal” and “social” aspect to city planning that called for a reformed archetypal model upon which the rapidly expanding cities of the world’s leading economic centres began basing their reformative procedures upon. Formally speaking, “for Cerdá, the plan with its superimposition of a great diagonal cross-axis establishing a regional scale for a reputable pattern of city blocks with distinctive chamfered corners, embodied his notion that it was possible to channel the forces of nineteenth-century speculative development towards a higher communitarian ideal…with all blocks chamfered, the intersections of streets in Barcelona’s plans provide places of assembly which Cerdá imagined as the community squares of the modern large city.”74 Hence, the grid’s highly simplistic and abstractive tendencies brought to centre stage the inhabitants and their daily rituals above a glorification of concrete, steel, and glass meant to showcase the industrial and economic progress of developed Western nations. Artificiality and abstraction, as cited before, slowly allowed city planning and building design to break free of a hierarchical model based on symbolism, and in turn began to adopt an open-ended and integrative logic with the user at its core, further departing from the notion of a rigid superimposition of the “designer’s” own ideals and scopes on ‘developable space.’ Within a North American context, the Jefferson Grid enabled land surveyors and planners to “control” and manage the vast untamed wilderness of the United States (with Canada following a similar model/logic), thus forming the current day spatial logic of the ‘new great frontier.’ Tamara Thornton describes how the Cartesian system of Descartes

governed the sheer “emptiness” of the United States and allowed for an incrementally expanding model to develop large nucleic-like urban centres: A good deal of the [United States] is laid out in a Cartesian grid. For this geometric landscape we have the Ordinance of 1785 to thank. In that year Congress enacted a law “for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the Western territory.” The West in those days was a good deal closer to the Atlantic than the Pacific, so it was Ohio that was first laid out according to the new legislation: in townships six by six miles square, each divided into 36 onesquare-mile sections of 640 acres apiece, the boundaries aligned with meridians of longitude and parallels of latitude. Laying out a country in squares proved a quick and easy way to settle it. Even the most ignorant of surveyors could mark off boundaries, and buying and selling land became a matter of trading just so many geometric abstractions.75 An interesting detail outlined in the Ordinance of 1785 is the fact ‘the West’—later adopting the infamous ‘Wild West’ title during the Gold Rush of the 19th century—was developed first according to this new model; a barren landscape—an abstract tabula rasa—untouched by the regulative and deconstructive rationales of colonialism set the perfect spatial conditions to which the grid was able to reign free, expanding with the push and pull of migratory patterns and industrial needs. The sheer straightforwardness of the grid allowed expansive territories to be easily understood and programmed according to the needs of local and federal officials. In turn, inhabitants were able to experience an unprecedented sense of freedom on a lattice work that stretched to the limits of one’s imagination; an incalculable amount of solutions and modes of living paved way for a multicultural landscape that no longer pertained to a single group, yet accommodated the multifaceted needs of multiple social groups. On the contrary, however, the grid has the capacity— 45

when viewed as a rigid system confined to the exact “tracks” of interesting lines forced upon a plot of land by an ‘external’ rather than ‘internal’ force—to rid any pre-existing cultural boundaries and sense of place tied to millenniums of interaction with the ‘natural world’; First Nations groups seemed to have been forgotten and marginalized in this new vision of the United States’ (and Canada’s) physical landscape. As Clemens Driessen warns the reader, this reductionist approach to ordering space reduced

“land as abstract resource to measure and rearrange at will, life as mechanical, animals and plants as objects to be rendered productive in a supercharged colonial capitalism…the Cartesian grid…spread over the globe, rendering space measurable and governable, without bothering about places and particularities, allowing for land to be sold before anyone had ever seen it.”76 Despite this destructive approach to applying the grid on a specific confine, without any consideration for those inhabiting that space, the 46

untapped potential of the grid’s malleable and adaptive user-based capabilities becomes evident as one dives deeper into its complexities that completely reverse our collective understanding of a formally rational gesture into one of whimsical playfulness and undiscovered potentialities.

art, yet easily transferable within the discipline of architecture and design) by stating “it is safe to say that no form within the whole of modern aesthetic production has sustained itself so relentlessly while at the same time being so impervious to change… development is precisely what the grid resists.”78 It is precisely this dual-sided and inversive aspect to the grid’s contrasting persona that enables it to be one of the most fervent enablers of abstraction and infinite interpretability. In turn, this “contradictory complex” gives rise to the first “power dynamic” of the grid: temporality and spatiality. Rosalind Krauss explains this first “power” in the following manner:

Rosalind Krauss’ ‘Three Powers of the Grid’ The grid’s versatility and ‘infinite interpretability’ translates into a systematic lattice that can paradoxically limit yet open up a territory’s spatial and social potentialities—it can hinder or promote diversification—perhaps most appropriately, it provides both the users and designers that act upon and within the grid an array of choices depending on a set of specific circumstances. Leslie Martin describes the dialectical nature to this notion of the grid’s versatility by arguing that “the grid of streets and plots from which a city is composed, is like a net placed or thrown upon the ground. This might be called the framework of urbanisation. That framework remains the controlling factor of the way we build whether it is artificial, regular and preconceived, or organic and distorted by historical accident or accretion. And the way we build may either limit or open up new possibilities in the way in which we choose to live.”77 As such, the grid’s inherent contradictory apparent rigidity paired with a theoretically flexible ideology rids the possibility of labeling the grid with any fixed set of attributes and truths: the grid acts as a “generator,” as Martin calls it, opening up an endless network of interconnected outcomes and forms that seem to adopt different sets of perceived actualities as one shifts the point of view from one direction and mode of interpretation to another. In tangent with this notion of a “multipurpose generator,” Rosalind Krauss begins her investigation on the grid’s “powers” (specifically relating to

In the spatial sense, the grid states the autonomy of the realm of art. Flattened, geometricized, ordered, it is antinatural, antimimetic, antireal…Insofar as its order is that of pure relationship, the grid is a way of abrogating the claims of natural objects to have an order particular to themselves; the relationships in the aesthetic field are shown by the grid to be in a world apart and, with respect to natural objects, to be both prior and final. The grid declares the space of art to be at once autonomous and autotelic. In the temporal dimension, the grid is an emblem of modernity by being just that: the form that is ubiquitous in the art of our century, while appearing nowhere, nowhere at all, in the art of the last one… indeed, if it maps anything, it maps the surface of the painting itself. It is a transfer in which nothing changes place. The physical qualities of the surface, we could say, are mapped onto the aesthetic dimensions of the same surface. And those two planes— the physical and the aesthetic—are demon-

<Fig. 38. An easily multiplicative model of growth gave structure to North America’s vast territories and growing cities. “The Great American Grid,” Pinterest.

strated to be the same plane: coextensive, and, through the abscissas and ordinates of the grid, coordinate.79

pattern of intersecting parallel lines that seem to both defy and support logic. Seemingly consisting of an intertwined correlation between ‘hard’ sciences and ‘soft’ arts—a direct link to the two forces at play in the field of architecture—the grid is paradoxically empirical as much as it is metaphysical: In the cultist space of modern art, the grid serves not only as emblem but also as myth. For like all myths, it deals with paradox or contradiction not by dissolving the paradox or resolving the contradiction, but by covering them over so that they seem (but only seem) to go away. The grid’s mythic power is that it makes us able to think we are dealing with materialism (or sometimes science, or logic) while at the same time it provides us with a release into belief (or illusion, or fiction). The work of Reinhardt or Agnes Martin would be instances of this power.80

In other words, the grid occupies a neutral stance in a spatial and temporal field; if viewed in the most deconstructionist manner, the grid is merely a plane suspended in ‘space-time’—famously termed and theorized by Albert Einstein—where the two constituent components that dictate the basic properties of matter act like a net upon which everything may take place and simply exist. Devoid of any former connotations, symbols, metaphors, and preconceived ideas of reality, the grid behaves in a self-sustaining pattern separate from its external surroundings—‘the grid’ may exist without the presence of its surroundings, however, if viewed in a purely spatial-temporal lens, our surroundings would not exist in the way we perceive them to be without the grid. Radically, one may then assume that the ‘the grid governs all.’ The second power of the grid is what Krauss calls the ‘the myth’ of the grid. Not to be mistaken for the popular definition of the word in a “folkloric” sense, however alluding to the grid’s ability to occupy a ‘cloudy’ and ‘indeterminable’ personification of what we believe to be both possible and impossible. It dives deep into our subconscious, almost in a hypnotic way, once we become enveloped in the endless

^Fig. 39. (Left). Graphic representation of Einstein’s Space-Time Continuum, an allusion to the first “power” of the grid. “General Relativity,” Penn State University, December 2, 2012.

^Fig. 40. (Right). Mythical-like contradictory property of the grid, the second “power” of the grid. Photo of original work. “Morning,” Agnes Martin, 1965.

In an architectural context, the “myth” of a conceptual foundation to the systematic approach of realizing an inhabitable space keeps the viewer in a constant state of surprise and ‘tension’ whilst attempting to view the intervention as both a purely functional necessity for shelter or activity, whilst also activating the senses so to spark a sense of emotion, feeling, and narrative in our individual and shared experiences. It is this “mythical” aspect of the grid that creates the ideal conditions for creating a vision—as will be portrayed in the intervention stage of this project—upon which a designer may reign free to assume a new mode of living in an “unexplored” realm that requires a partial ‘restart’ with respect to previous modes of thinking and working. At last, the third power of the grid is its capacity to act as an “infinite structure” where one is enabled to use as it as reference point for conceiving a specific aim that in turn has the ability to be molded, altered, and reimagined according to shifting needs and tendencies. According to Krauss’ analysis, she deduces the resulting aspects of the grid’s characteristics as a structure without any set boundaries:

As such, the grid’s inherent web-like structural properties renders it as an appropriate missing puzzle within the complex systems comprising architecture and the structural frameworks upon which it is built. In addition, the utter ease of use and comprehensibility of a literal ‘structure with no beginning or end’ provides for a complete set of properties necessary to create an archetypal proposal for the ordering and managing of space. In effect, the users are able to paint their own stories—despite the inherent lack of storytelling present solely within the framework of the grid—on a blank and infinite canvas where anything can occur, at any time, any where and any how; in sum, the grid occupies an abstract realm of limitlessness. To conclude, the grid’s attributes of limitlessness, autonomy, and ‘mythical-like’ contradictions serve as an artificially abstracted empty space-time reference plane where the user or designer has the “power” to create any form of logic devoid of any inherent pre-accepted flows of information. This overlying implication of freedom within the context of city planning is well outlined in Leslie Martin’s stance on the grid’s overall significance: “The choice of the grid allows different patterns of living to develop and different choices to be elaborated. The grid, unlike the fixed visual image, can accept and

Therefore, although the grid is certainly not a story, it is a structure, and one, moreover, that allows a contradiction between the values of science and those of spiritualism to maintain themselves within the consciousness of modernism, or rather its unconscious, as something repressed… Logically speaking, the grid extends, in all directions, to infinity…The grid is, in relation to this reading a re-presentation of everything that separates the work of art from the world, from ambient space and from other objects. The grid is an introjection of the boundaries of the world into the interior of the work; it is a mapping of the space inside the frame onto itself. It is a mode of repetition, the content of which is the conventional nature of art itself. The work of Mondrian, taken together with its various and conflicting readings, is a perfect example of this dispute.81

respond to growth and change. It can be developed unimaginatively and monotonously or with great freedom.”82 Hence, it is this core of the grid’s importance surrounding the notion of freedom that has mesmerized the attention of city planners, designers, scientists, artists, and philosophers since the earliest signs of “advanced human life.” As Krauss puts it, “as we have a more and more extended experience of the grid, we have discovered that one of the most modernist things about it is its capacity to serve as a paradigm or model for the antidevelopmental, the antinarrative, the antihistorical.”83 Likewise, it is this ‘rebellious’ or ‘radical’ appropriation of this grid’s inherent “symbolism of freedom” that became of quintessential significance during the radical architectural and socio-cultural movements of the 1960s through to the 1970s that sparked an ‘otherworldly’ approach to thinking about the spacetime link and how it may affect the way we go about living and interpreting our daily lives, or even redefining our sense of ‘purpose’ in an increasingly amounting of “purposelessness” amongst the commercialized masses.

given that the grid’s “power” was accessible to those who are using the system, rather than an imposed stratification of an externally controlled mode of ‘operation.’ A central force that lead this fascination with the grid’s conflicted aurora of spiritualism and utilitarianism was the Italian group of Superstudio founded by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia in Florence (1966), where through their refusal to contribute to the increasingly excessive consumerist society of the 1960s and 70s, depicted a set of visions with the aid of multiple mediums in an ‘anti-architectural’ manner devoid of any complete proposed structures. As Stephen Wallis states, “Italy’s legendary radical design group Superstudio never actually finished a building, and yet its hallucinogenic visions are still making waves…the fact that they never actually finished a building is, arguably, the point. Rather, they created “anti-architecture”: psychedelic renderings, collages and films depicting their dreams—and nightmares.”84 One of the most recognizable manifestos of anti-architecture that Superstudio proposed unravelled the ethereality and technicality of the grid through a decentralized cross-disciplinary approach where the users of this ‘Supersurface’ become both participants and creators of a “game” devoid of any limitations and restrictions; an impermanent “communal field of energy” is the only element that consists the basis of this grid and ‘life itself’ becomes the only focus or goal. As Superstudio described in their theoretical approach pertaining to the explanation of the ‘Supersurface’ for MoMA’s Italy: The New Domestic Landscape exhibition in 1972, “design should be considered as a ‘cross-discipline,’ for it no longer has the function of rendering our requirements more complex through creating a new artificial panorama between man and environment…we can imagine a network of energy and information extending to every properly inhabitable area. Life without work and a new ‘potentialized’ humanity are made possible by

Superstudio’s ‘Supersurface’ Theory Continuing with the same discussion on radical narratives as briefly outlined in the first section, the forward-thinking and socio-culturally orientated mindset of the radical movement—stemming from a dissatisfaction with the mass production and monotony of a restrictive capitalist mode—lead to numerous avant-garde groups in search of a redefined formal framework upon which a new catalyst of reformability, freedom, and dynamism can be based upon. Accordingly, many radical groups took refuge in the grid’s seductively simplistic yet highly transcendental presence; the grid acted as a blank canvas upon which any possible outcome was possible

<Fig. 41. “Infinite structure” that comprises the overall framework of the grid, the third “power” of the grid. “Tableau 2,” Piet Mondrian, 1922.

such a network.”85 This cross-disciplinary attitude, as Superstudio mentioned, reinforced the versatility with which the grid is able to carry out a myriad of “operations” and “scenarios” dependant on forces acting within and upon the network of “invisible” reference lines, points, and regions: In the model, this network is represented by a Cartesian ‘squared’ surface, which is of course to be understood not only in the physical sense, but as a visual-verbal metaphor for an ordered and rational distribution of resources. The network of energy can assume different forms. The first is a linear development. The others include different planimetrical developments, with the possibility of covering different, and gradually increasing, parts of the habitable areas. The configuration (typology) of the environment depends solely on the percentage of area covered, analogous to the way in which we distinguish a street from a town, a town from a city. Some of the types: 10 percent covered: The network is developed like a continuous ribbon extending over the territory. 50 percent covered: The network is developed like a checkerboard, with areas measuring one square kilometer alternating with squares of open land. 100 percent covered: The network is transformed into a continuous development, the natural confines of which are formed by mountains, coasts, rivers.86 In a spatial-temporal sense, the grid’s unlimited combinations of formal composition, permeability, orientation, and scale creates an ‘utopic’ version of society where occurrences seem spontaneously constructed, decisions can be made at any time according to any set of values or belief systems, and the 51

very notion of the past, present, and future seems to dissolve in a “matrix” of possibilities, “free will,” and unbounded energy. Within the modern context of city life as we know it, this vision of ‘Cartesian freedom’ seems allusive and improbable, despite the city’s profound ability to act as a generator for space and form (as theorized by Leslie Martin and Koolhaas in Delirious New York); in turn, the vast unused and “empty” aspect of the countryside, as illustrated throughout the imaginative landscapes of Superstudio’s “grid of energy,” may hold the key to re-imagining a more harmonized relationship with our planet and one another. The grid is not solely a generator of space, time, and form, yet may also act as a social platform—reproducible throughout the large numbers of uninhabited regions across the world—where we may be better able to reconnect with a deeper sense of purpose and vitality which subconsciously governs our everyday lives and psychological pattens. Superstudio develops this more transcendental mode of existence by encouraging the ‘Supersurface’ to act as a temporal model of continual growth, movement, and flexibility where the inhabitants are in constant flux with their environment, with themselves, and with one another:

three-dimensional structures. Free gathering and dispersal, permanent nomadism, the choice of interpersonal relationships beyond any preestablished hierarchy, are characteristics that become increasingly evident in a work-free society. The types of movement can be considered as the manifestations of the intellectual processes: the logical structure of thought continually compared (or contrasted) to our unconscious motivations.87

In this reimagined world of free choice, absolute freedom of speech, and unpredictability, there is no longer a linear approach to living where one obtains one specific aim, then proceeds to move on to the next—where the user is trapped in a predefined path set forth by a capitalist superpower devoid of any sense with regards to a “journey”—however, the approach becomes immeasurable, unprecedented, and non-linear; the grid fragments the space-time continuum and scatters its residual components randomly across a checkerboard of irregular patterns. The act of living becomes the sole purpose of the ‘Supersurface’ grid within a growingly chaotic, twisted, and complex mode of existence in the “feeding frenzy” of the urbanism. The Superstudio collective speculates that “the journey from A to B can be long or short,

Nomadism becomes the permanent condition: the movements of individuals interact, thereby creating continual currents. The movements and migrations of the individual can be considered as regulated by precise norms…In substance, the rejection of production and consumption, the rejection of work, are visualized as an aphysical metaphor: the whole city as a network of energy and communications…the tendency to the spontaneous gathering and dispersing of large crowds becomes more and more detached from the existence of

<Fig. 42. General framework and spatial-temporal attributes of Superstudio’s ‘Supersurface’ theory. The first coverage is a linear development, the last two are planimetric, author, 2021.

^Fig. 43. The grid acts as an enabler of freedom and nomadism. “Superstudio, Supersurface,” Pinterest.

A Similar Approach: Archizoom and Group 9999

in any case it will be a constant migration, with the actions of living at every point along the ideal line between A (departure) and B (arrival). It won’t, you see, be just the transportation of matter…life will be the only environmental art.”88

Emerging within the same avant-garde impulse that emanated outside the nucleic core of Italy’s critique on consumerism and capitalism, Archizoom Associati, founded in 1966 by Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello, and Massimo Morozzi (later to be joined by Dario and Luca Bartolini), depicted similarly mysterious and compelling explorations into the implications of “anti-architecture,” along with the grid’s role in rendering space-time as a platform free of any structural and “social” limitations. Most notably, Archizoom’s ‘No-Stop City,’ spanning a timeline of three years from 1969-72, materialized Superstudio’s vision of a dynamic socio-cultural “grid of energy” that could expand infinitely in any direction—with the aid of a few basic architectural components reminiscent of Le Corbusier’s ‘Dom-Ino House,’ the extensive network of vertical and horizontal planes created a stratified three-dimensional “matrix” of inconsistencies, cyclical processes, indeterminable occurrences, and perpetual randomizations. In the early stages of the project’s conceptualization, “Andrea Branzi produces a series of diagrams with a typewriter in which the paper is patterned with a grid of exes and dots representing, respectively, the bearing structure and the dimensional grid of a continuous space without clear limits. Sometimes, calligraphic signs, forming clouds, colonize areas of this space overlapping the isotropic grid.”90 This “typographic” personality to the project’s early formulation conduced to a skeletal framework composed of coordinates and a dimensionality without any clear borders, thresholds, or constructive forms of reference; the grid freed the project from any fixed idea of reality. Diving more deeply into a more detailed evolution of ‘No-Stop City’s’ logistics, the elemental formulation of “beams” and “plates”—the primary

Speaking within the realm of design and the “tangible world,” the ‘Supersurface’ challenges the very parameters and stubborn palimpsests by which we base our rigid out-dated modes of thinking on a rapidly evolving global situation; a sense of nostalgia is necessary to understand how to proceed forward, however, the primary task at hand is precisely the very action of moving forward without neglecting the past. Perhaps, as with any new beginning, the removal of unnecessary “junkspace” is the first step in imaging an interconnected network of people and matter where we become better in touch with ourselves and our surroundings. Superstudio concludes with the idea that “designing coincides more and more with existence: no longer existence under the protection of design objects, but existence as a design. The times being over when utensils generated ideas, and when ideas generated utensils, now ideas are utensils. It is with these new utensils that life forms freely in a cosmic consciousness.”89

^Fig. 44. Superstudio’s vision depicted a social platform in constant flux; the act of living itself became the main focus. “superstudio supersurface 1,” R-Lab, May 1, 2016.

>Fig. 45. (Left). Early typographic gridbased ‘DNA’ of Archizoom’s ‘No-Stop City. Original diagram by Andrea Branzi. “Archizoom No-Stop City (1969),” Tumblr.

>Fig. 46. (Right). Developed plan view of ‘No-Stop City’ as an infinite and repetitive catalyst of activity composed of planes and pillars. “No-Stop City,” WordPress, October 30, 2016.

nuity is interrupted, either by landscape elements that occasionally emerge (rivers, rocks), or by straight and curved free standing walls or divisions between rectangular and pedestrian areas…this is not, therefore, a conventional project but a generic habitat that has no precise function, location or form…the entire iconographic load is transferred to the consumption objects that populate it, causing the almost total semantic emptying and absolute blankness of the built. The system of objects absorbs, therefore, functions that traditionally have been in charge of architecture but escaping from its control and getting rid of its values.91 Formerly accepted constructs of architecture as a “stable,” “fixed,” and “static” assembly of ‘permanent’ conditions for housing a predetermined programmatic agenda seem to dissolve in an artificially formulated playing ground for humanity through an abstraction of a column’s and floor plate’s role in defining a structure. In turn, ‘No-Stop City’ rediscovers the impromptu tendencies of early humankind to seek shelter and gather the solely strict material possessions and “objects of consumption” with which one needs to sustain life itself—everything else becomes a symptom of the excessive hysteria fuelled by our desire to seek that which we believe will answer our common goal of self-discovery. The

building blocks of architecture—were introduced as a means to provide the immaterial city with a tangible understanding of how a space may be composed given our current understanding of creating space in built form. Architecturally speaking, the project manifests itself through a volumetric system of voids and solids interacting with one another and their respective tendencies to ‘behave’ in a manner which suits their occupant’s needs: The project shows already most of the items that will make it recognizable: an homogeneous structure of pillars, elevators and floor slabs with undefined facades and number of floors. Sometimes it is depicted as a series of massive prisms in the landscape, while other times it seems that only the orography or the coast may contain its spread. Indoors, the horizontal conti54

main focus lies in providing occupants with a condition of living devoid of any impositions, controls, and social constructs. Pablo Martínez Capdevilla, followed by Archizoom’s remarks, further emphasizes this “condition” of flexibility by mentioning that “this is a catalog of different situations in which the project shows its absolute flexibility of both implementation and use…“we refuse to design an object, and prefer to design its use instead. [...] In this sense, there is no formal difference between a productive structure, a supermarket, a residence, a university, or an industrialized agriculture sector.”’92 Finally, in correlation with the pre-described aspect of “limitlessness” and “infinity,” the grid’s ability to repeat itself through an endless set of iterative versions proceeding from a previously defunct state, along with the grid’s very multifaceted character and successional quality, allows it to depend on its own inherent attributes for adapting to the changing needs of its inhabitant as opposed to relying heavily on often alienating forms of unnecessary technological advancements. Its schematic nature and integrative outreach towards the user’s demands contains all the ingredients it needs to sustain itself and those acting upon it. As Martínez Capdevilla states, “the environment technification, taken to its extreme consequences, allows the most remarkable and transcendent decision of the project and to which, in fact, owes its name: to establish an unlimited constructed depth, a potentially endless building… forcing technology and pushing it to its limits is not necessary in order to put forward an innovative and provocative proposal: it would be enough to extend the established technology without quantitative limits.”93 Correspondingly, although manifested in a slightly less “fragmented architectonic” fashion using generally “accepted” forms of architectural representation, Group 999, formed by Giorgio Birelli, Carlo Caldini, Fabrizio Fiumi, and Paolo Galli in 1968 (Florence), reformulated the way in which we relate to design/architecture through a primary use of film and collage; hence, Group 9999 acted as a socio-cultural manifesto in dialogue with the contemporary issues facing the alienation of humankind away from “speculative” modes of thought, along with a

more “balanced” relationship with our natural and built environment. As Mario Pretti mentioned in an interview for the exhibition Rivoluzione 9999, “[Group 9999] thought the act of filming was the closest one to becoming architecture.”94 Summarizing the group’s idealogical framework and subtexts in accordance with its elusively suggestive name, Elettra Fiumi announces that “the extraordinary body 9999 is in trembling expectation of the prophetic moment of the arrival of zero zero zero zero in the window of the digital counter. It is as the same time, the start of the countdown which just began one second with four zeros. 9999 is in motion. Naturally the movement is always composed of the two directional components (time and space), contradictory to each other, good is to bad, sweet is to sour, yes is to no, love is to hate.”95 Although the group did not directly imply a utilization of the grid throughout their work’s theoretical base, their mindset with respect to the flexibility, “purity,” and “blankness” of the grid’s space-time condition (as Fiumi alluded to in her description) suggested a fascination with the resulting scenarios that can occur in a matrix of “energy” and “limitlessness.” One example of Group 9999’s subconscious utilization of the grid’s logic can be seen in their winning proposal for Italy: The New Domestic Landscape (hosted by MoMA in 1972): through a reduction of life’s necessities into its basis elemental components—water, air, and flora/fauna—and in conversation with the importance of nature’s role in a modern society increasingly ignorant to the significance of its rural roots, Group 9999 utilizes the grid’s neutrality in both graphically displaying their vision and utilizing the grid’s ‘fractal-like’ properties as a means of achieving an “ecologically self-sustaining” method to binding technology and nature together. Group 9999’s brief for their theoretical manifesto of “pure living” declares that “[the project] seeks to offer a solution based on new cyclical relations among man, nature, and technology…it is an eco-survival device to be reproduced on a global scale. It is itself a habitable and consumable place in accordance with the principles of the recycling of resources. Intentionally, it makes use of...very simple elements: a garden, water, and an air bed.”96 By 55

breaking down matter until it reaches its foundational atomic state—like a grid fragments our perceived notion of reality into a space-time continuum of infinite growth—the “inhabitant” of Group 9999’s seemingly ‘ether of existence’ acts as a “moral code” which we may have the capacity of basing our own daily rituals on—perceived in a non-literal and uncritical point of view, Group 9999’s “Garden of Eden” is a manifesto for a more integral, balanced, virtuous, and transcendental mode of perceiving our role within the greater collective of the global community and the numerous species we share it with (all the while accommodating or taking advantage of modern day advancements).

70. Clemens Driessen, “Descartes Was Here,” in Countryside, A Report (Cologne: TASCHEN, 2020), 283–4. 71. Driessen, “Decartes was Here,” 286. 72. Barry Bergdoll, European Architecture 1750–1890 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 261. 73. Bergdoll, European Architecture, 263. 74. Bergdoll, 261–3. 75. Tamara Thornton, “The Great American Grid: Living in, and with, the universal Midwestern latticework,” American Heritage 39, no. 3 (April 1988): 1, https://www. americanheritage.com/great-american-grid#2. 76. Driessen, “Decartes was Here,” 286. 77. Leslie Martin, “The Grid as Generator,” in Urban Space and Structures, ed. Lionel March and Leslie Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), 72, http://www.urbanisztika.bme.hu/wp-content/ uploads/2014/05/Martin-Leslie_1972_The-grid-as-generator.pdf. 78. Rosalind Krauss, “Grids,” October 9 (Summer 1979): 50, https://www.jstor.org/stable/778321. 79. Krauss, “Grids,” 50–52. 80. Krauss, 54. 81. Krauss, 55–61. 82. Martin, “The Grid as Generator,” 75. 83. Krauss, “Grids,” 64. 84. Stephen Wallis, “A ’60s Architecture Collective That Made History (but No Buildings),” The New York Times Style Magazine, published April 13, 2016, https://www. nytimes.com/2016/04/04/t-magazine/design/superstudio-design-architecture-group-italy.html. 85. Ambasz, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 242. 86. Ambasz, 242–3. 87. Ambasz, 244. 88. Ambasz, 247–8. 89. Ambasz, 250. 90. Pablo Martínez Capdevila, “The Interior City. Infinity and Concavity in the No-Stop City (1970–1971),” Cuadernos de Proyectos Arquitectónicos, no. 4 (March 2013): 130, https://researchportal.port.ac.uk/portal/en/ publications/the-interior-city(b15bd6ae-edca-4523-9e27840b8300ff3e).html. 91. Martínez Capdevila, “The Interior City,” 130–1. 92. Martínez Capdevila, 130. 93. Martínez Capdevila, 130. 94. Elettra Fiumi, Gruppo 9999, curated by Emanuele Piccardo and Marco Ornella, produced by Fiumi Studios, December 20, 2017, video, 09:48, https:// www.domusweb.it/en/architecture/2017/12/20/rivoluzione-9999-la-mostra-che-celebra-la-pratica-manuale. html. 95. Fiumi, Gruppo 9999. 96. Ambasz, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape, 277.

^Fig. 47. Group 9999’s allusion to the grid’s deconstructivism breaking “life” into its basic elements: air, water, & gardens (flora). “Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,” Emilio Ambasz, 1972.

Reconstructed Rural Agendas

Global Context The Sublime Countryside Rem Koolhaas’ ‘Countryside Theory’ Benjamin Bratton’s ‘The Stack’ and Rural Prototypes

Local Context B.C.’s Agricultural History Urban-Rural Migration Patterns B.C.’s Rural Social Transformation Emerging Local Economies

The Sublime Countryside

grid may be seen as a sublime entity), repetition, and iteration invokes a feeling of abstraction with which the viewer may “day-dream” and erase any restrictions or compartmentalized thoughts fixed into place by previously indoctrinated modes of thought. In short, the sublime acts as a tabula rasa with which we are able to reform and reconstruct both our immediate environments and rationalization processes. In the early “stages” of the sublime, the term took on much more of a “self-centred” approach where the “divisive” relationship between man—a fallible creature in need of purification—and nature—the absolute foundation of harmony—took precedence over a more “abstract” interpretation of the sublime’s capacity to reorient, rescale, and reconfigure our idea of the “truth.” Historically speaking, “nature is a mystified anthropocentric ideal, one evoked well by Caspar David Friedrich’s 1818 painting of a man poised on the edge of the abyss, contemplating its vastness and projecting onto it an extension of his own inner grandiosity. Man, the conscious cultural being, sets himself against the world of natural things: civilized artificiality versus original wilderness.”99 This clear split between man and nature seems to dissolve through a recomposition of both time and space in Fernando Maselli’s photographic collection Artificial Infinite (2014). According to the brief of the project, “Maselli offers steep mountain ranges whose semi-darkness, profusion, depth and height come together as the visual achievement of what we may call “the terrifying sublime…”’100 Compositionally speaking, “Maselli, in this photographic project, appropriates some of these concepts to develop his own investigation into the sublime; such elements like the vastness, the darkness, the hugeness, but especially an attribute that Burke called artificial infinite, which...is the succession and uniformity of the fractions; in other words, an element that is repeated many times in a constant and uninterrupt-

Following an in-depth exploration into the supporting topics and speculations setting the scene as a frame of reference for the focus of the thesis’ primary intentions, a resolution to the contextual framework—i.e. research-based part—of the thesis’ overall narrative provides the reader with a complete field of vision concerning the primary themes that reappear in the intervention stage of the project’s formulation. Thus, a localized and global look into the rural realties, in addition to the growlingly substantive presence of wildfires—as will be discussed in the following two sections—is necessary in order to tie the many theories and elusive interdependencies at play in this thesis’ development. Prior to delving into the reconfigurations occurring throughout rural regions, the importance of the sublime—explored within a greater narrative from its inception into literary thought until a contemporary interpretation of its ‘hypnotic’ qualities—aids in recapitulating the countryside’s role as an instigator of a “heightened” level of sensorial stimulation and “existentialist” tendencies tied to identity and belief systems. Consequently, Barry Bergdoll states, “the literary concept of the sublime…was offered by Edmund Burke in his 1757 A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful. For Burke, attributes of the sublime—obscurity, power, privation, vastness and infinity—could readily be experienced in nature.”97 As Edmund Burke declared in his work on the sublime, ‘“the passion caused by the great and sublime in nature, when those causes operate most powerfully, is astonishment; and astonishment is that state of the soul in which all its motions are suspended, with some degree of horror.”’98 The sublime releases one’s sensory repertoire as a means to induce a feeling of awe, contemplation, and introspection; hence, a “sublime environment” of stark contrasts, limitlessness (the <Fig. 48. Photo of a heritage church near Ashcroft (B.C.), author, 2020.

>Fig. 49. An early view of the sublime as seen through an introspective thought of “man vs. nature.” “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog,” Caspar David Friedrich, 1818.

ed configuration generates in the viewer a sense of infinity.”101 Within a contemporary context, the sublime no longer becomes a concept that lies within the consciousness of the viewer “external” to the “untouched pureness,” yet occupies a deconstructed version of reality where each element within a “sublime landscape,” including the viewer, are parts to an infinite realm of shapes, colours, textures, and patterns; the sublime behaves like a “blanket”—similar to the grid’s malleable “cocooning” envelop—that separates matter into its sub-state and transposes it out into “space-time” for our eyes to view. The sublime, therefore, exists not as a collective definition of a “type of nature,” however as a dissected network of separate conditions—this is precisely what creates the feeling of “astonishment” as proclaimed by Burke; we find ourselves an infinitesimal fraction part of an infinite realm of existence that replicates itself in an infinite amount of ways. As Fernando Pessoa speculated in his Poemas de Alberto Caeiro (1957), “I saw that there was no Nature; that Nature does not exist; that there are mountains, valleys, plains; that there are trees, flowers, grasses; that there are streams and stones; but that there’s not a whole to which this belongs. That a real and true ensemble is a disease of our ideas. Nature is parts without a whole. This perhaps is that mystery they speak of.”102

this “green space”—perhaps a virgin form of the “rural condition”—has on reformulating and redefining the ways in which we live, work, and play, in addition to refocusing our attention on a plot of land that in many ways is the sustaining “fuel” and “source” of our current daily lives in the homogeneously overpopulated urban centres of the globe. As previously touched upon in the introduction, the rural areas of the world cover 98% of the Earth’s total land mass, roughly 50% of the world’s population lives there (2012 statistics, now it is roughly 56.2% in 2020 according to the World Economic Forum), and it accounts for roughly 20% of the global pollution output within our atmosphere.103 The contrary urbanist situation, therefore, seems quite alarming where we are currently living on solely 2% of the Earth’s total land mass yet contributing to 80% of the total population levels. This extremely unbalanced relationship between our current (also foreshadowed) usage and ordering of inhabitable land has led to one of the most peculiar phenomena to occur within the countryside: the mythical “limitlessness” and “blankness” of the countryside—despite our extensive surveying system and resource extraction activities—has succumbed these rural regions as a sort of terra incognita, where due to its inherently depopulated characteristic, the countryside’s “emptiness” behaves like a blank canvas, a uniform mosaic-like “grid” of multiple ecological states and complex interrelationships.104 Of even greater peculiarity, the programmatic mystery occurring within the countryside leaves one to reconsider the traditional persona and identity generally accepted as a “stabilized” agrarian-based mode of living to one of modernity, flexibility, and incessant dynamism without a predictable pattern of growth or modification. Statistically speaking, in 2012 with a total global population of 7.05 billion, under the given pretext that approximately 50% of the world population lives in the city, thus roughly accounting

Rem Koolhaas’ ‘Countryside Theory’ A theory that sparked the theoretical core of this thesis’ formulation, Rem Koolhaas’ curiosities and speculations on the “mysteriously vast” open space that constitutes the world’s rural areas—the countryside—have begun to slowly shift the general over-scrutinization of prevalent architectural, landscape architectural, and urban design discourses on the urban condition towards the untapped potential <Fig. 50. Infinity through repetition and “astonishment” induced by the “reductionisim” of the sublime. Photographic collage of the Alps by Maselli. “Artificial Infinite,” Fernando Maselli, 2014.

^Fig. 51. The rural-urban population divide reveals an “undefined use” happening within the countryside. Redrawn by author. Map from NASA. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

for 3.7 billion urban employees, and the other 50% occupying the countryside, that leaves a remaining total of 3.35 billion people residing in the countryside of which 1.3 billion currently occupy the “agricultural/farm-based” sector of work—the question is, what are the other 2.05 billion people currently doing in the countryside?105 The answer lies in a radical reprogramming of the countryside. As the ‘Global North’ is experiencing an ageing population, and cities are reaching their carrying capacity, people are beginning to flock to the countryside as either a retirement des-

tination, vacation hotspot, or simply a place where the processes of daily life seem to slow down, hence replenishing our need for spirituality and sensorial stimulation. As Adam Sutherland questions, “how might this now even more complex notion of the rural evolve, where there is an old guard dedicated to function and to food production as a business, almost hidden from the public gaze, and a new rural that is recreation, well-being and retirement orientated?”106 This paradoxical relationship between the countryside as recreation and production parallels that of the urban where cities become focal points of

^Fig. 52. A diverse demographic emerges from this “mysterious” group of “unknown” workers scattered across the countryside. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

both capitalist consumerism and spontaneous activity. Adam Sutherland suggests that “the current shift is to transplant urban rural sensibility to the countryside and rural communities, a kind of rational, simplified country style for the country, a clearer vision of what the country should be like and would be better off as.”107 This “city-like” personification of the countryside introduces the same fundamental principles of the city’s dynamism, malleability, unpredictability, and successionally evolving attributes into the countryside’s shifting DNA. Within a European context of the ‘Global North’, a key example

of this radically reformative mindset surrounding “the countryside as city” can be seen in the dialectical diversification and fragmentation of the Netherland’s rural identity—it no longer portrays the classical traditional fields of windmills, cows, and large spanning flower beds, yet a myriad of recruitment offices, tax consultants, farmers, relaxation centres, heritage sites, and yoga studios to name a few of the newly formulated programmatic apparitions.108 In Germany, a comparison between the share of employment by broad industry group (2007 stats) in the urban centres and rural areas surprisingly

^Fig. 53. The Dutch countryside has evolved into an eclectic collection of contemporary, heritage, and traditional rural modes of living. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

showcased a large overlap—in other words, rural Germany is as volatile, productive, multidimensional and socio-economically distributed as its urban counterpart.109 This growing “temporary interest” in the countryside—for the time being due to the

still primary prevalent economic role and migration flow towards city centres—has also sparked a noteworthy spectacle that Koolhaas’ terms “thinning,” where some rural communities, especially within Europe yet also present throughout the ‘Global

^Fig. 54. Example of Germany’s rural-urban distribution related to economic production types. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

North,’ are experiencing an increased growth in their physical footprint due to a demand for an occasional “country style of living” to escape the city, yet at the same time are also decreasing in the intensity of their use as they are only being used within a certain time frame of the year.110 All of these occurrences in turn reshape the boundary and threshold between the rural and urban, seemingly dissolving into one another on a theoretical level; the question is, in what “physical manifestation” does this similitude differentiate itself from one another? Rem Koolhaas elaborates on this volatile contradiction by proclaiming the following statement:

The countryside is now the frontline of transformation. A world formerly dictated by the seasons and the organization of agriculture is now a toxic mix of genetic experimentation, industrial nostalgia, seasonal immigration, territorial buying sprees, massive subsidies, incidental inhabitation, tax incentives, political turmoil, digital informers, flex farming, species homogenization…in other words more volatile that the most accelerated city…111 Another major shift occurring throughout the

^Fig. 55. As rural communities continue to grow in parallel with a “temporal escape” from cities, their yearly intensity of use decreases. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

globe’s rural fabric is the entire digitization of how the countryside operates and remolds itself into a structured grid of data and energy. Traditionally, in order to produce more crop yields and “connect oneself” with the plentiful life sources with which God has bestowed upon a group of hopeful and faithful individuals, a proportional amount of workers were needed to create higher yields—the more you work, the more you produce. One historically prevalent work of art that accurately depicts this exhaustive yet interconnected communal existence of the “archaic farmer” with both “Mother Nature” and God is Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Harvesters painted

in 1565. Based on an 18th century study conducted by Antoine Lavoisier, and reanalyzed by Geert Mak in the contemporary era, the average farmer of the 1700s spent nearly the entire year performing predictably critical activities towards sustaining a farm such as plowing, seeding, harvesting, mowing, threshing, and livestock work; on the contrary, presumably a year in the life of a “digitized” typical farmer in the 21st century consists of research, programming, server management, email, administration, public relations, and perhaps most interestingly enough, an entire 17.5% of the year dedicated to holidays—an ode to the reversal of the countryside

^Fig. 56. Typical daily scene within an “archaic” vision of rural living in connection with a “holy” sense of duty and communalism. “The Harvesters,” Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565.

as solely a stage for a communally driven relentless form of “holy” work to a space dedicated to recreational use as well.112 As a result, the digitization of the countryside means that fewer workers physically working on the fields paradoxically leads to higher crop yields, especially within the ‘Global South’ where wheat yields have been drastically increasing from a time span of 54 years from 1950-2004.113 With the introduction of remote controlled farming equipment, intensive monitoring/surveying, drone

data collection, and instantaneous social platforms of communication, the countryside has become an accelerated space of production, leisure, and connectedness with the rest of world’s urban financial centres. For the ‘Global South’ however, this ‘Digital Revolution’—as opposed to the Industrial Revolution that occurred in the ‘Global North’ 300 years ago— manifests itself as a two fold effect: Like the Green Revolution before it, howev-

^Fig. 57. Speculative contrast on a traditionally “physical” relationship with the land and an intangibility of the digital era. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

er, one use of DA [Digital Agriculture] is to maintain unjust and ecologically destructive forms of production and lasso farmers into globalized commodities markets. Indeed, the ongoing enclosure of the agrarian knowledge commons is a data-grab that further locks in agrarian hinterlands as operational landscapes that support a rapidly expanding urban system.

of DA may support ongoing transformations of land ownership that sedate local resistance to the domination of transnational agribusinesses…the rise of DA presents opportunities—however narrow—for farmers in the Global South to take ownership of the means to their own subsistence. We conclude by identifying ways forward, through community platforms and opensource forms of information sharing.114

However, DA data is also a medium for financiers to assess risk and speculate on land and commodities from urban financial hubs…in some locales the implementation

On the one hand, as long as the epicentre of the world’s “capitalist management” pertaining to the monopoly and mass consumerism of agricultural

^Fig. 58. “Kilocalorie delivery ratio describes the proportion of agricultural output directly consumed by people; higher value zones feed more mouths. The overlay of this ratio and submarine cables illustrates the central contours of global capitalism. Most areas with the high delivery ratios are also proportionately less connected to global information flows.” Quoted p. 13. “Data Fix: Informational Imperialism & the Urban Enclosure of the Agrarian Knowledge Commons,” Benjamin Notkin and Timothy Ravis, May 9, 2019.

production occurs within the developed countries of the world, the developing nations use and involvement within this “economic trap” of supply and demand centred around a group of remotely operated ‘mega corporations’ occurs at a small scale of influence within the overall system with detrimental effects on both local economies, living standards, and “world sustaining” ecosystems. On the other hand, through the very liberties, infinity opportunities, and high accessibility of data anywhere, at any time, and to anyone, the constrictive top-down model methodology of misrepresenting and misshaping a rural landscape deeply ingrained into the larger narrative of various cultural groups in the ‘Global South’ can be inverted to follow a “bottom-up” social hierarchy where the framers, workers, officials, and inhabitants re-seize ownership of their land and

determine the appropriate direction that their evolving rural model may take. The sheer “infinite scale” of the digital has the potential to either destruct or construct the countryside; the key factor lies in the user’s interpretability of the digital, which can only be beneficially understood through education, practice, and a collective social platform. Spatially speaking, as a consequence of the countryside’s boundless reaches, largely undeveloped state, and unforgiving geomorphological characteristics has called for a physical reordering of its numerous territorial expanses as a means of accessing and “extracting” the diverse set of capacities this “green platform” holds with respect to the commercial, recreational, residential, industrial, and agricultural sectors; although not a new form of organizing space—spanning from the earliest towns

^Fig. 59. A highly digitized rural setting like Koppert Cress represents a reversal of human capital with machinery; a vision of “post-human architecture.” “Why Rem Koolhaas Brought a Tractor to the Guggenheim,” Michael Kimmelman, February 27, 2020.

and agricultural fields within the countryside—the use of the grid, as repeatedly emphasized throughout the duration of this thesis’ argument, has begun to redefine the flow of people, goods, and fauna in a new digital age of immediacy, transparency, and interconnectedness. According to an analysis by Hannah Wood & Christine Bjerke on Rem Koolhaas’ ongoing study of the revolution occurring throughout the world’s rural areas, Koolhaas mentions how “the countryside is becoming a colossal back-of-house, organized with relentless Cartesian rigour. That

system, not always pleasant, is proliferating on an unprecedented scale. The resulting transformation is radical and ubiquitous.”115 Moreover, a rather contradictory scenario arises out of this surge of ungoverned space into the countryside as urban centres become increasingly densified, thus requiring unprecedented forms of “creatively unusual” redistributions of space allocation and use: a hyper-Cartesian model of growth in the countryside gives way to massive whimsicality in growingly over-stimulated urban areas.116 For instance, the gridded “city-like”

^Fig. 60. Feedlots within the “tabula rasa” of the American countryside depicts a “hyper-Cartesian” structure. “Wrangler Feedyard Wrangler Feedyard, Tulia, Texas,” Mishka Henner, 2013.

districts of cattle feed lots throughout the US’ ruralscapes are partial proof, amongst numerous other agricultural activities spread throughout the world, that hyper-Cartesianism is slowly encroaching on the materiality and ordering of these vast “terra incognitas.” In the end, one may seem skeptical of the future of the countryside: a formerly “pristine,” absolute, pure, and self-sustaining model of growth and succession is becoming a culprit in humanity’s over-consumptive and valueless system of both eco-

nomic and human capital, relentless uniformity, and schizophrenic speeds of information flows. As Koolhaas illustrates in an alarming overlay of graphical data comparing increasing global crop yields to a globally decreasing level of intangible heritage (marked by number of world languages, biodiversity, animal diversity, traditional architecture, and arable land per capita), one can see these two parallels of a “statistically objectified progression” of consumerism versus a “metaphysically devalourized regression” of socio-cultural identities and ecological net-

^Fig. 61. Another example of American feedlots and mineral deposits nestled amongst the vastness of America’s countryside. “Tascosa Feedyard, Bushland, Texas,” Mishka Henner, 2013.

works.117 Ironically, as we seem to “advance” at maximum velocity towards our collective “narcissistic” vision of success, perhaps our previously fundamental notions of “belonging,” “communality,” “craft,” “cultural diversity,” and “sensibility” towards our surroundings have seem to slowly disappear from our commonly agreed upon moral, value, and belief systems. On a positive side, access to a vast system of resources, technologies, precedents of historical significance, and ability to “restart” our path in an artificially abstracted tabula rasa may seem more imminently possible and conceivable as we begin to readdress our core understating of the greater purpose within ourselves, to one another, and to our different “neighbours” dwelling in the waters, mountains, forests, plains, or deserts of this shared plan-

et. Adam Sutherland closes his examination of the countryside’s changing identity by stating that “the rural is a complex patchwork of cultures, hosting an increasingly uncomfortable collision but, at its best, creating a tolerance and cooperation required to make complex fusion viable.”118

Benjamin Bratton’s ‘The Stack’ and Rural Prototypes Nowhere is the “structural complexity” redefining the spatial and ideological parameters of the reformative digital countryside more accurately defined than in Benjamin Bratton’s The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty published in 2015. Central to Brat-

^Fig. 62. Contradictory vision of “progression” in the countryside where advancements occur at the expense of rural identity. Redrawn by author. “Countryside,” Rem Koolhaas, 2012.

ton’s formulation of ‘The Stack’ is the reappearing theme of abstraction that seems to incessantly govern the future of our mental and physical remappings with respect to our surroundings. Highlighting the key talking points of Benjamin Bratton’s stance on abstraction within our digital era during a lecture at the European Graduate School in 2016, Brent Cooper discerns a “[referral] to abstraction as a function of intelligence for an organism to “map its own surroundings,” particularly with respect to food, friend, or foe. The formalizing of modes of reasoning is but a projection of this “primordial abstraction.” As we evolve more complex forms of intelligence, ‘abstraction as mapping’ is the general principle of that complexification.”119 Elaborating on this preconception of abstraction throughout our existential framework, Cooper ties the underlying truths associated with abstraction and Bratton’s theorization by hinting that “the Stack itself is his ultimate abstraction, a conceptual map of the layered relations between model and reality; between the internet and social structure. Abstraction is at the core of his methodology, as true representation and correspondence between map and territory is the foundational prerequisite for problem solving…abstraction as mapping takes us from ‘primordial abstraction’ of mere sensory input, to the highest cognition of pure symbolic representation in the form of math.”120 ‘The Stack’ therefore symbolizes a hierarchically interchangeable structure “naked” to the human eye that lies beyond our observed realities of what we deem to be the barest elemental constitutes composing our external environments; perhaps seeming to act like a centralized “supercomputer,” ‘The Stack,’ in its most literal sense, is the implicit personification of abstraction itself at the most “mathematically” accurate level—an invisible system of interconnected “sub-particles” bouncing off one another, creating new particles with new sets of interdependencies and interwoven data sets. Essentially, ‘The Stack’ is what abstraction would “materialize” itself as within the contextual backdrop of the 21st century’s reliance on the invisible forces at play of “the digital.” Further exploring the labyrinthine composition of the ‘The Stack’s’ integrities, a more concrete description of its multi-versed characteristics and

“form-setting” capabilities is thoroughly emphasized on the autobiographical profile page of Bratton’s The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty, where “Benjamin H. Bratton proposes that different genres of planetary scale computation—smart grids, cloud platforms, mobile apps, smart cities, the Internet of Things, automation—can be seen not as so many species evolving on their own, but as forming a coherent whole: an accidental megastructure called The Stack that is both a computational apparatus and a new governing architecture. We are inside The Stack and it is inside us.”121 With respect to the different components that construct the totality of the theoretical and practical model of abstraction, “Bratton explores six layers of The Stack: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface, User. Earth is mapped on its own terms and understood as a component within the larger whole built from hard and soft systems intermingling—not only computational but also social, human, and physical forces. This model, informed by the logic of the multilayered structure of protocol “stacks,” in which network technologies operate within a modular and vertical order, offers of a comprehensive image of our emerging infrastructure and a platform for its ongoing reinvention.”122 ‘The Stack’ acts similar to a “data centre” housing the numerous layers and informative reference planes upon which we base our decisions and notions of truth all whilst conducting our daily routines irrespective of our awareness that we are plugged into ‘The Stack’—taking on both an immaterial presence as “a cloud” evenly dropped across the atmosphere, and a material manifestation in the tangible products, spaces, interfaces, and various forms of life we come in contact with throughout our intensely active daily lives. Condensing the various aspects held within each layer of ‘The Stack’s’ skeleton, Cooper encapsulates the enormity of ‘The Stack’s’ scope through a set of key words that oversee each of the separate strati within the entirety of this “all-governing” body of data sets: Earth; material resources, energy reserves, geographic constraints, planetary civilization.

Cloud; corporate global internet and infrastructure (a la Google, Amazon, Facebook), remapping sovereignty in the process.

the “plot” becomes a more abstract structure that situates characters into the forgone conclusion of its unfolding, even as they suffer the choices that aren’t really theirs to make.”124 Hence, ‘The Stack’ can be envisioned as not only an intangible digital supercomputer of data and reference points, yet may also take on a tangible persona as an architectonic “Superstructure” capable of carrying out a multitude of synchronized operations across a vast open floor plan where each user becomes recognized as both an individual component and unified whole carrying forward the entire scheme—sometimes actions may occur independent or dependant of one another, whereas at times it may occur as a direct consequence of a previously occurring string of events— ‘The Stack’s’ deeply rooted versatility and function as a “plot” of open space gives it the imperative tools to redefine a ‘forgotten’ or ‘unstable’ space with a new set of underlying codes and purposes. Within the greater dialogue surrounding the transformative countryside, ‘The Stack’s’ presence is predominantly felt in the form of “superstructural” industrial parks and large data centres that concentrate an expansive network of production under a single roof, hence behaving similar to an autonomous ecosystem of constituent parts and actors that all contribute to the overall anatomy of this scaled down and intensely densified material portrayal of ‘The Stack.’ A strong example that comes to surface when speaking about “Stacks” as architectural objects within a “borderless” abstracted rural plot of land is the “Tesla Gigafactory 1—the largest building in the world by footprint…both the astronomical size and placing of the Gigafactory is representative of a silent revolution in rural architecture: towards anonymized, vast and automated megastructures.”125 In terms of the geomorphological alterations occurring throughout the world’s rural areas as a result of these homogeneously cell-like ‘superstructures,’ “the construction of megastructures is also resulting in extensive flattening of rural terrain. Prior to the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center development, the landscape was undulating and hilly. This flattening is primarily an economic decision as it makes prefabricated buildings easier to expand and operate.”126 In accordance with the sheer scale of these

City; lived experience of daily life, smart grids, endless surveillance, and monitorized consumption. Address; identification, location, control, governance, full spectrum mapping. Interface; coupling users and computers, ideological and politicized interface, AI / VR / AR. User; customers, contributors, participants, human and non-human.123 As can be observed from the six layers that depict ‘The Stack’ in its holistic sense, the system manifests itself in a “co-productive” manner where multiple occurrences run parallel and often perpendicular to one another rather than following a chronological mode of operation. ‘The Stack’s’ individual layers have no apparent order or gradient of importance, yet they work in unison with one another in order to drive the highly complex and dynamic energy patterns occurring in a restless society of continual activity and transfer of data from one medium to another, from one space to a different locale, and from one individual to another. One last noteworthy quality of ‘The Stack’s’ ability to act as an “open platform” of autonomy yet simultaneity lies in its ability to perform as a “grid” in which any given “agent” may subconsciously or consciously seek its own trajectory, path, and identity. Bratton alludes to this idea of simultaneity and ‘blankness’ as an “empty platform” by referring to “the Stack [as] an engine for thinking and building. The architectural metaphor may suggest an exclusive design for one given site, but it should direct us instead toward a geometry in which different things occupy the same site at the same time and cohere into a stable system because of this co-overlapping…the etymology of platform refers to a “plan of action, scheme, design”…once situated on the platform of the stage, 77

^Fig. 63. Illustration depicting ‘The Stack’ as a system of elemental layers comprising an abstracted world. Diagram drawn by Metahaven. “A Design Brief for the Planet: Review of The Stack by Benjamin B. Bratton (MIT, 2016),” FSBRG.

^Fig. 64. (Top). An autonomous engine of production impersonates ‘The Stack’ as an architectonic “superstructural” entity set within the vastness of the countryside. “New Ground II: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, February 28, 2018.

^Fig. 65. (Bottom). Sheer scale of rural mega-structures redefine and reshape their external surroundings. Diagram by Clean Technica. “New Ground I,” Wood and Bjerke, January 31, 2018.

“energy centres,” the countryside’s large, open, and unordered nature creates the ideal setting for revolutionary forms of production and analysis to occur within a rapidly changing and increasingly interconnected untapped “white space” free of any preconditioned laws, constraints, or visible “borders.” This “surgically accurate” freedom of control and movement reorganizes not only the countryside’s inherent spatial logic and identity as a formerly “terra incognita” foreign to the city dweller, yet gradually initiates a fading gradient from an urban lifestyle to a rural one—what once was a space occupying a segregated form of agricultural activity hidden from sight and supplying cities with the numerous resources in needed to function as global economic cores, is now simply an extension of the urban condition into a steadily “less dense” manifestation of urbanity’s industrial, commercial, social, cultural, political, and ecological pillars. All land was previously regarded as rural, and as our global scenarios became increasingly overspread and complex, so too did our “footprint” proportionally related to the modifications taking place across the various territories spread across the globe. Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke elaborate on Bratton’s philosophy with respect to ‘The Stack’s’ role in the countryside by recalling that “back in 2017, at the showcase of the New Normal programme, professor Benjamin Bratton suggested, “the countryside is part of urban systems in ways that it hasn’t been before. It’s not a site of nature, it’s where the interfaces of the most complex forms of cultural globalization are taking place”….the gigafactory represented open plan taken to the absolute—a building complex so large it formed its own interior microclimate. “These buildings can be understood as geoengineering in a petri dish”, suggested Bratton, “for which the design task is closer to systems design and composition than it is to architecture.”’127 As a consequence of this parallel drawn between ‘The Stack’ as a systematically composed “cloud” of data scattered across various platforms, and the Tesla Gigafactory 1, for instance, serving as a case study for rural users to begin reimagining the endless structural, formal, and organizational opportunities that may arise from a space that is in growing need of reforming the base

of its identity, a digital revolution is sparked by “superstructural” entities framed through a boundless body of terrain. Aside from the conceptual backdrop of ‘The Stack’ present within the modified rural agendas across the globe, numerous rural prototypes and schematic proposals are emerging out of a need to accommodate and transition towards an advanced state of digitization completely reversing the traditional roles, values, and built systems formerly prevalent throughout the countryside. According to the Creative Rural Industries Consortium, several key factors come into play when envisioning a new version of how the countryside may operate in the years to come: The economic, environmental and demographic factors impacting on rural areas are changing landscapes and human settlement patterns in the countryside that offer new creative opportunities and challenges for architects and designers. The cumulative effects of the public response to climate change, increased urban migration into the countryside, and CAP-related changes in agriculture, are combining to create demands for innovative architecture, new forms of housing and work-spaces, and environmental solutions to design… architects and designers are already contributing to the creative rural economy by developing value-added rural designs, innovative marketing campaigns for rural tourism and recreational facilities, and creating experimental built forms in the countryside…engineers and architects are also involved in designing agricultural machinery (tractors, harvesters, tools), farm buildings, barn conversions, and work-spaces, as well as agri-engineered land forms, cropping systems (precision farming), effluent management systems, and food processing plants.128 All of the aforementioned sectors of “remodelling”— such as technological advancements, “urban-to-ru80

ral” migration patterns of local population groups (as will be analyzed through a B.C. lens in the following subsections), and shifting climate patterns permanently transforming the physical attributes of formerly “stabilized” biomes—are what determine the unknown and multisided potential trajectories the rural areas of the world may take. With the aid of highly permeable communication systems and global storage banks of data, the outcomes of a given plot of land within the countryside may be instantaneously edited, remapped, reanalyzed, and repurposed at any given point of time through a myriad of sources and perspectives occurring at the same time; in an increasingly “shrinking” world of both space and time, the actual and implied edits happening in the countryside fall within an enormous sub-context of references, points of interest, and collectively minded objectives. The numerous technological advancements to reclaim formerly traditional farm plots, or claim expansive territorial reaches of an “ungoverned” status, have reshaped the way in which we analyze, control, grow, experiment, and secure open space. One of the most prevalent changes to take place in rural areas is the remote automation of agricultural equipment that has permanently changed the ways in which we relate to the land, and vice versa. As Wood and Bjerke highlight, “take the driverless tractor for instance. It can find its own way out to the fields with preset routes programmed by a remote farmer. If the individual tractors and other devices are scaled up into a conceptual ‘megamachine’, the automated swarm can carry out the jobs of an entire farming community. Although the automation of farming is reducing labor costs, it is meanwhile reforming the layout and nature of what it means to live in a farming community.”129 The “unwritten” laws of the traditional farmer generally perceived as a relentless worker constantly mending, managing, surveying, and monitoring the land becomes a task performed through a systematic interface—‘The Stack’—where the predominantly “physical work” is removed from the daily ritual of the farmer, hence opening up new forms of tasks that in turn introduce new sets of programs, activities, and disciplines making room for a new “creative class” of “ru-

ral thinkers. Consequently, “as the robotic machinery supersedes manual labor, the geolocation of the farmer is no longer tied to the countryside…these new digital ‘workers’ on the farms are collecting real-time data and introducing unprecedented abilities which streamline farm processes. In addition, the working day of the farm is extended significantly as the automated machinery can operate 24-7 and regardless of day and night.”130 Another primary change taking place in the countryside is the ways in which land is being surveying, monitored, secured, coded, and organized in categories of distinguishing properties. Wood and Bjerke, in their hypothetical article following the life of future rural worker (Zoey) set in 2030, mention that “the most pronounced hardware shift in the agriculture industry since 2018 has been the use of drones—multipurpose drones now map every square inch of countryside terrain, updating models in real-time. This has enabled most farmers to now work remotely from desk interfaces…in the past 12 years, drones have taken on an altogether new role—interacting with their surroundings rather than solely monitoring them. For example, the use of spray drones for targeted applications is now commonplace, as was using drones to reach areas rendered inaccessible for conventional machines, unlocking new corners of the American landscape.”131 The drone has moved past its apparent role as a tool of surveying and monitoring—a sort of AI for rurality, drones have begun to not only manage, yet alter and intervene on the successional behaviour of flora and fauna present throughout a plot of land digitally mapped to the accuracy of a centimetre. Granted that, the future of the countryside as a remotely operated digital realm controlled to the absolute certainty of a centimetre has completely remodelled the “blank canvas” as a Cartesian grid of coordinates, interdependant formulas, and mathematical relationships—‘The Stack’ as a set of “grids” layered one on top of the other. Lastly, the use of virtual fences—applied to pasture lands, yet also highly versatile as an invisible border delineating one space and its properties from another—have slowly started to reorder both the aesthetic attributes of rurality and also the systematic 81

^Fig. 66. (Top). Self-operated machinery alter the socio-cultural identity of the countryside and our role within it. Image by John Deere. “New Ground I,” Wood and Bjerke, January 31, 2018.

^Fig. 67. (Middle & Bottom). Drone technology drapes the countryside in a coordinated grid of pixels and data points; an unprecedented level of control is introduced. Image by Robohub. Virtual fences digitize the “invisible” borders of rural areas; a metaphysical order readily adapts to dynamic environments. Image by Dave Forall. “New Ground II: Countryside 2030,” Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, 2018.

^Fig. 68. An “urban-scale” vision of a reinvented rural condition: an iterative grid “stacks” users along the numerous hard and soft layers creating an autonomous place of communal living and pluralism. Image by authors of the project titled below. “Within The Frame: The Countryside as a City,” Nicolas MJ Lee and Carly Augustine, 2014.

behaviours, patterns, and stratums of the countryside’s character. Namely, the in-depth speculations on virtual fences and their respective consequences (specially in an American context) by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley outline the very importance of our need to “fence” land by stating that “today, fences are the framework through the national landscape is seen, understood, and managed, forming a vast, distributed, and often unquestioned network of wire that somehow defines the “land of the free” while also restricting movement within it…as seems to be the case in fencing, a relatively straightforward technological innovation—GPS-equipped free-range cows that can be nudged back within virtual bounds by ear-mounted stimulus-delivery devices—has implications that could profoundly reshape our relationships with domesticated animals, each other, and the landscape.”132 These virtual fences, although simply invisible to he naked eye, completely invert our understanding of space itself; similar to a world of virtual reality where we digitally construct our paradoxical immaterially physical environments, or the LiDAR scanners present in our modern-day smartphones, virtual fences completely remove the need for a palpable or visual marker, and in turn replace them with metaphysical gridded “force fields” of intersecting lines, guides, and borders. In other words, a “supersurface” reminiscent of Superstudio’s work emerges where users simply “plug-in” to a database of energy and Cartesian order offering an infinitely adaptable and iterative form of creating and recreating space. Finally, as an example of rural archetypes occurring on a larger scale to that of a “rural-city”—the grid’s incrementally growing capacity to act like a generator of social cohesion, flexibility, and freedom of use through an “overseeing” governing body such as ‘The Stack’—is well portrayed through a rural vision proposed by Carly Augustine’s and Nicolas Lee’s “Within the Frame” (2014) as part of a larger studio initiative set in Zhongmu County (China) at Harvard’s GSD lead by Professor Christopher C.M. Lee. The studio, termed “The Taiqian Studio,” aims to readdress the “urbanization” of rural areas, specifically within a Chinese context, by attempting to answer the following question: “How do you urban-

ize the rural without losing the very essence of the countryside?”133 As Professor Lee elaborates, “the challenge for us is to imagine a self-sufficient place able to support a dynamic economy in the countryside, providing cultural and intellectual stimulation and offering a respite from the inequalities and divisions that plague the developmental city; in other words, to imagine the city as a space of equal and plural coexistence.”134 With respect to Carly Augustine’s and Nicolas Lee’s proposal, “‘Within The Frame” identifies the issues of the city through the investigation and redefinition of the connection between its architecture and its landscape. A multiplicity of scalar relationships is created through the use of housing as a framing device for a diverse landscape. From the personal spaces of the interior gardens, to the communal spaces of the corn fields, there exists a relationship between the dwelling, landscape and every day activities.”135 Evidently, the bold proposal of Lee and Augustine clearly highlights a highly structured yet decentralized core of the “rural city” as a “breathing organism” where each constituent part of the entire community functionally and programmatically “overlaps” with its neighbour, all the while preserving “clear boundaries” between each user, similar to the ways in which virtual fences delineate space. Although not a “hightech” solution to rural living—primarily due to the socio-cultural and geographical context—the countryside as a “stack” of multiple “landscaped” layers comprising the user-based interface radically transform the inherent identity of a formerly “mono-static” form of existence within the countryside to one of multifaceted plurality.

B.C.’s Agricultural History The reformative consequences of a progressively complex global scheme have recently begun to manifest themselves in British Columbia’s rural agenda as well. This sense of communalism, plurality, flexibility, and the “imperceptibleness” of rurality’s organizing body—‘The Stack’—is also clearly present in B.C.’s agricultural history and past rural identities spread across millennia spanning from the ancient 84

ed a seasonally and provisionally dependant society in constant dialogue with their surroundings. Rather than physically altering the “nature realm” and imposing a “hyper-Cartesian” order upon an ungoverned space, as Rem Koolhaas alluded too, the Plateau Indigenous Peoples developed around the “massive whimsicality” of nature’s receptive dynamism. In an agricultural sense, “food was not always plentiful, however. There were occasions when the salmon runs failed, certain animals were not available, or root and berry crops did not materialize. At such times the people had to travel farther and work harder to survive. Each spring the appearance of the first run of salmon and the first fruits or berries was celebrated with a special ceremony to ensure a good harvest.”137 Accordingly, as the various groups migrating across expansive territories in search for flora and fauna, a set of guiding criteria, as Bryan Hayden describes, dictated their movement:

prehistoric traditions of the First Nation’s indigenous groups, specifically the Plateau Indigenous Peoples covering much of Southern B.C., and the Western settlers that arrived with European, in addition to American, ideals of “country living.” Through an indigenous lens, the agricultural history of rural living diverged from ideals of communalism, nomadism, and an ecological sensibility towards the land in which the Plateau Indigenous Peoples viewed as a shared coexistence with Mother Nature. As Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard underline, “land and resources were considered communal property, with a few exceptions. Some salmon-fishing stations were owned by individuals, while others were owned collectively by resident or village groups. Remote hunting grounds and root-harvesting grounds were generally open to all those who spoke the same language, and inhabitants of a specific area sometimes gave consent to use these areas to others. Obligatory sharing and economic egalitarianism formed the basic ethos of the society.”136 A sense of community and spatial interchangeability allowed local tribes and groups to collectively reform their ethos with respect to the greater territory as a means of adapting and reacting to their surroundings; although the vast space of the Plateau region was socially divided in “invisible” sections within an organic network of valleys, rivers, plains, and mountain peaks, a unifying force, similar to the way in which ‘The Stack’ behaves, governed the belief systems and ideologies tied to the land. A nomadic lifestyle of the First Nations depict-

The size and composition of the groups using the Parkland basecamps and the duration of their stay seems to have varied ac85

cording to five factors: (1) distance of the locality from the winter village, (2) the general abundance of plant and animal resources at the locality, (3) the seasonal variations in resource abundance, (4) the number of available campsites, and (5) the danger of attack from other ethnolinguistic groups138

flies away. Where feasible, the camps were set on the lee side of the trees, with the open meadows in front of the trees being used for general camp activities.”139 In sum, although the First Nations lacked any “modern” conveniences as opposed to their settler counterparts, through their understanding of the cyclical patterns, phenomena, and absolute properties of nature’s operations, they were able to “indirectly” impose their own set of laws, truths, orders, and “theoretical” thresholds throughout the countryside. Most notably, this unique approach to non-intrusively managing their locales can be well emphasized through their understanding of prescribed burning, where “indigenous people also managed natural ecosystems using tools like wildfire to increase the abundance of plants and animals suitable for hunting and gathering.”140 A deep understanding of the natural phenomena at play aided the Plateau Indigenous People to not only manage, yet also redirect their shared spaces using nature’s very own essential processes of succession as a means of creating a symbiotic situation where both “bodies” would benefit from. On the contrary, historically speaking, the Western settler ideology with respect to rurality follows a chronological model branching from the notion of

This strategic network of seasonally permanent (during winter) and temporarily “exchangeable” (during spring/summer) campsites reinforced a socio-cultural core highly dependant on aspects such as coexistence, codependency, and co-evolution; in essence, the prefix “co-” is a direct representation of the Plateau Indigenous People’s core values of pluralism and communalism. With respect to the physical description of the campsites, a deeply ingrained knowledge of the climatological, geomorphological, and ecological processes at play throughout their rural realms allowed the First Nations groups to adapt and prosper in seemingly harsh and unlawful conditions in comparison to the Western mode of a domesticated existence within the countryside. Bryan Hayden depicts the campsites in a comprehensively functional and practical manner, stating that “the camps were set up on flat, dry land, close to water, and at the edge of the forest. The trees provided shelter from the wind and rain, and the firewood for the roasting pits and hearths. They could also be used as wind break for the meat drying racks so that the smoke from the smudge fire could linger and keep the

<Fig. 69. (Top). Core pillar of communalism to the Plateau Indigenous Peoples (Kuteni tribe pictured). Photo by J.R. White, c. 1907. “Kutenai people,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, June 7, 2019.

<Fig. 70. (Bottom). Nomadic structures (Yakima tepees) portray an “environmentally coexistent” approach to spatial reform. “Plateau Indian people,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020.

^Fig. 71. Prescribed burning utilized as a “naturally occurring” symbiotic relationship between humans and nature. “Prescribed fire,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, February 11, 2020.

arcadianism—a purist attitude towards the harmonic qualities of nature—followed by the stereotypically accepted notions of agrarianism which centralize around the “farmer,” and finally to the ‘Country Life Movement’ that challenged the rise of urbanity’s demoralizing attitude. Forthwith, arcadianism, as defined by David Demeritt, “celebrated the moral virtues and personal benefits of country living…[it] enframed the countryside as an important site of emotional consumption and individual spiritual escape…in this sense, then, arcadianism was a reactionary, anti-progressive discourse: it was pervaded by nostalgia and the pressing need to save what was left of an authentic but quickly fading rural tradition.”141 Reminiscent of the neoclassical attitude towards landscape iconography as “unscathed,” “fundamental,” and “ethereal,” arcadianism promoted the beauty and aesthetic of the countryside as an idealized form of living, where one was in absolute harmony and unison on a spiritually faithful level; a sacred connection with the land was developed between nature and humanity. A method through which this perception of rurality was undertaken in an agricultural sense throughout B.C.’s diverse regions was “orcharding, [which] was the only line of agriculture described in much detail by arcadian texts. While the attention of nineteenth-century gentlemen farmers turned steadily away from the production of agricultural commodities and more towards the cultivation of flowering plants, the propagation of fruit trees held a continuing fascination for wealthy hobbyists…with sufficient irrigation, the Kootenays, the Okanagan, and the Similkameen seemed ideal for fruit production.”142 A symbol of beauty, elegance, and luxury, fruit farming branded the British Columbian countryside as a place of prosperity, opportunity, idealism, and enlightenment for newcomers enticed to make a living amongst the ill-conceived connotations of a harsh ‘New Frontier.’ Agrarianism, however, took on much more of a “hearty” and “toughened” approach to traditional family values, in addition to a sense of duty tied to concepts such as individualism and utilitarianism as a means of working the land to provide for your family. David Demerrit conjures this image of “rural life” by affirming that “the pioneer settlement

of much of rural North America was informed by agrarianism, a discourse celebrating agriculture as the source of all wealth and the wide distribution of land among yeoman farmers as the source of freedom and democracy…the general idea that “we all live on the back of the farmer,” that agriculture is “the backbone of all industries,” or that farming and gardening “are the basic industries of every permanently prosperous country” was an oft-repeated axiom in British Columbia.”143 Interestingly, as industrialization was taking full swing and cities began to take precedence over a formerly rural mentality amongst the middle and working class, the sheer scale and resource-dependant characteristics of B.C. attested the prioritization on agriculture in the public agenda of inhabitants looking to make a decent, well-earned, purposeful, and rewarding lifestyle in a “virigin terra incognita” of endless opportunities and limitless stretches of undeveloped and “unresolved” land. It came to no surprise that “[the farmer’s] fences marked the imposition of an abstract grid of exclusive, absolute property rights over land and the resources on it. They also partitioned specialized spaces of production and reproduction that made up an agrarian landscape: a field of oats, another of hay, a pasture, a barn, a farmhouse. The farmer of agrarian discourse moved through these different spaces to create a dense social network held together by roads, churches, schools, and the other institutions of rural life.”144 The use of fences allowed farmers to create rural communities based off of the grid’s simplicity, practicality, and malleability. In turn, 87

ative class back to the countryside in the 21st century, mid-century rural occupants envisioned a rural B.C. which rivalled, if not superseded, the technologically advanced urban centres, while still preserving the slowly disappearing notions of intimacy within communities, family values, interaction with the natural environment as a form of spiritual awakening, and the inherent qualities in hard work/resiliency. As a response to this alarming emptying of the countryside’s residents and a loss in the morally grounded values learned through an agricultural way of life, rural representatives and organizations initiated a series of reforms with the aim of preserving rural British Columbia: previously “uncivil” plots of land “illogically” structured according to Western modes of living begun to follow iterative cycles of multidirectional growth, diverse programming, and an interweaving of multiple social groups. In effect, prior to the Second World War, a new concern begun to emerge where younger workers started flocking to urban areas in search for more economic opportunities, less strenuous forms of work, and a newly praised “modern urban lifestyle.” This mass exodus to cities gave way to the “Country Life Movement…[articulating] concerns about the degeneration of the countryside…Country Life discourse saw rural depopulation, social stagnation, and economic decline, particularly in the oldest parts of eastern North America…the best way to preserve the essential qualities of rural life was to make it more organized, more efficient, and more modern so that it could advance as urban life had done.”145 A key takeaway from this definition of the ‘Country Life Movement’ was the priority given to advancing and progressing the core constituent parts that formulate rurality’s identity as an equally “modern,” “civilized,” and “superior” form of living in contrast to urbanism. Perchance, foreshadowing the reversed gradual “re-exodus” of the white-collar cre<Fig. 72. Orchards in B.C.’s interior, i.e. Summerland, depicted arcadianism as refinement & prosperity. “Prominent Canadians once owned orchards in Summerland,” John Arendt, 2020.

To stem the tide of young men and women leaving the countryside, the Country Life Movement promoted agricultural education, nature study, and rural school reform…the Country Life Movement addressed the economic problems of rural life and agriculture in four ways: First, it tried to instil a business-like approach to farming that, it was widely assumed, would make for success in agriculture as it had in other sectors of the economy. [Secondly], the Country Life Movement also emphasized efficiency and planning as solutions to the economic problems of rural life. The concern for efficiency legitimated scientific studies of wasted motion in farm kitchens and hay barns as well as government agencies to ensure the efficient use of natural resources. Thirdly, the Country Life Movement advocated cooperative marketing because hier-

^Fig. 73. Gridded logic of rural towns, (Yale Road, Chilliwack, early 20th century) developed around an agrarian model of production & integration. “Agriculture in British Columbia,” 2013.

archical organization, backed by planning and staffed by experts, was the only way to achieve the efficiency and economies of scale necessary for modern life.

the most accelerated city” in the years to come.

Finally, Country Lifers promoted agricultural science to increase farmers’ productivity and income by rooting out superstitious “moon farming” and unscientific agriculture.146

Evidence of this “volatility” emerging out of rural B.C.’s reconstructed persona can be seen in an overall growing tendency of local urban dwellers to flock towards the countryside—also known as counter-urbanization—in search of a new tabula rasa upon which they may be able to test new ideas, reconnect with the rooted identity of B.C.’s prolific wilderness, and reimagine new means of creating a daily routine as our previously understood belief systems dissipate through the intrinsically complex global scheme of “digital nomads.” According to an organization called INTELI specialized in the prominence of “creative clusters” entering into the global picture, future rural and less populated areas are evolving into creative hubs as an influx of creative minded people are looking for a fresh new start and perspective on “modern living:”

Urban-Rural Migration Patterns

Similar to the highly organized and assembled urban agendas, the rural programme insisted that the same driving forces which made cities a volatile “cocktail” of energy, movement, progress, and data would in turn appear throughout the numerous “corners” and “cracks” of ‘Country Life.’ Beginning with a bottom-up model of educating the younger demographic, ‘Country Lifers’ aimed to “rewrite” and “re-edit” the rules of an “incomplete” rural scheme—partially credited to the immeasurable spatial gaps still present throughout B.C.’s raw wilderness—so that as Rem Koolhaas noted, the countryside could perhaps become “more volatile that

Small cities and even rural areas can attract creative people, based mostly on quality of life and the place’s qualities (the so called ‘amenities’). These amenities constitute a set of unique characteristics of the territories, both natural and manmade, with an aesthetic, social and economic value, and can be classified in natural, cultural, symbolic and built assets. People are increasingly looking for sustainable and healthy lifestyles, giving priority to well-being, community spirit, identity, authenticity, but also the availability of a minimum critical mass of basic services to the population.147 Primarily due to the rising prices of congested ur-

^Fig. 74. Technological advancements, ex. steam powered tractors, defined rurality’s revival through the ‘Country Life Movement.’ “9.14 Rural Canada in an Urban Century,” Daniel Samson.

>Fig. 75. ‘A return to rural’ as a consequence of affordability, lifestyle, and newly emerging opportunities. “Counter-urbanization: has the exodus from cities begun?,” Nyman Media.

ban centres, increasing lack of interconnectedness between residents with respect to a collective force driving the community’s distinctive traits, and a lack of autonomous “self-reflection” in a homogeneously manufactured landscape of incessant repetitiveness, urban dwellers are seeking a more selfaware and personalized attitude towards a balance between work, life, and play. Statistically speaking, on an international level, the extent to which this shift is taking place has created a reevaluation of the urban-rural divide where the boundary between the two is beginning to become more convoluted, complex, and spread over much larger spans of inhabitable space. INTELI outlines that “in fact, more than half of all urban-dwellers in the world live in cities with less than 500,000 inhabitants and 40-50% in cities and towns with less than 100,000.”148 Similar circumstance can be seen in a Canadian setting, where “Canada’s rural and small town (RST) municipalities have undergone considerable change over the course of the past 40 years…more than 40 per cent of Canada’s smallest settlements grew during the 1996-2001 census period…economic factors, such as affordable housing and the availability of employment opportunities, have been isolated inter-

nationally as conditions pushing some people out of larger population centers. Urban residents are also drawn to rural environments for the perceived amenities that they provide.”149 Hence, it becomes apparent that the former labels of the “rural condition” as a “backwards” or “archaic” form of living are incrementally reverted to their respective antonyms depicting a “forward” and “contemporary” lifestyle devoid of the “chaotic” behaviours present in restrictively governed megalopolises. In British Columbia, this shift is particularly felt as a significant exodus of Vancouver born or based residents looking to reclaim the “recreational mentality” associated with the spatially abundant spaces of B.C.’s long-established rural landscapes and “natural identities.” In an article on the shifting psyches of Canadians in tangent with this juxtaposition between the different conditions offered in urban and rural areas, Alexandra Posadzki sums up that “with housing prices spiking in major urban centres like Toronto and Vancouver, much of that growth has been in smaller communities as more and more young families choose to move further away to realize their dreams of owning a home.“People want a back yard, a driveway and a stand-alone home

so they can have the space for their families,” said Christopher Alexander, regional director at ReMax Ontario-Atlantic Canada.”150 Paradoxically, although family sizes are generally decreasing in the ‘Global North’ as young professional are looking to further their careers and productivity levels, a consistent demand for single-family detached homes—as opposed to a “studio-based” living scenarios—seems to still govern the complexity occurring throughout the countryside’s evolving identity; traditional “family values” of the historic ‘Country Life Movement’ are incorporated in a digitally structured network of autonomous family units spread over a less dense plot of “open space.” As a result, a chronologically bilateral dialogue between the past, present, and future depicts an eclectically theoretical and formal resolution to the reforming of B.C.’s rural identity. In more detail, the following number of intra-provincial migrations have been occurring to a specific set of regions spread across B.C.’s “southern hemisphere”:

and they cite lifestyle and relative affordability as the top factors.151 As British Columbians flock to the countryside for the diversity of scenic landscapes, slower pace of life, versatility and affordability of the housing market, crisp atmosphere, and a deeper sense of connectedness with the defining elements of B.C.’s collective identity, urban centres will continuously grow as international hubs of whimsicality while rural centres will revisit the traditionally ingrained visions of ‘New Frontier’ life through a highly interactive and malleable model of instant communication, data transfer, and metaphorically “invisible” movements dictated by fields of electromagnetic energy. Some case studies exemplifying this shift occurring throughout B.C.’s rural areas, beginning with a “hyper-urbanized” rural scenario in Kelowna, followed by Squamish’s “semi-rural” development, and finally a “small-town” rural character to Fernie, all depict the many phases and ways with which this change is taking place across the countryside. In Kelowna, now a prominent “rurally situated” urban centre set within an expansive dry-warm climate and landscape ideal for orchards, the rate at which this large exodus from Vancouver’s metropolitan core is taking place has completely altered the ways in which rural B.C. operates and manifests itself. Jen St. Denis declares how “real estate statistics show there is a growing trend of Vancouver residents moving to Kelowna, a city of just under 200,000 five hours east of Vancouver…two primary markets are driving the increase, Griffiths said: older families whose children are often still in school who have reaped the windfall of rapid real estate gains in Vancouver, and younger professionals who are moving to Kelowna for a combination of work, cheaper housing and lifestyle reasons.”152 As mentioned before, the stress on the housing market, “spiritually unsustainable” lifestyles, and a grow-

StatsCan’s population estimates for sub-provincial areas…show that Vancouver saw a net 9,926 people leave its census metropolitan area…between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2016, and settle in other areas of the province. The migration losses were most pronounced among those aged 25-64 years and children under 18. Almost half of Metro Vancouver’s net, intra-provincial migration losses (4,617) were to the Fraser Valley. The Capital region (which includes Victoria), Nanaimo, the Central Okanagan (which includes Kelowna and West Kelowna), and Squamish-Lillooet round out the top-five destinations for those migrating away from Metro, but staying within the province. Ask mayors in these areas why people are moving there,

<Fig. 76. (Top). B.C.’s counter-urbanization shifts towards the southern regions of the diverse territory. “Sustainability: Trends in B.C.’s Population Size & Distribution,” Gov. of B.C., 2018.

<Fig. 77. (Bottom). ‘Vancouverites’ are migrating to B.C.’s countryside in search of a redefined live, work & play balance. “The Surprising Cities Canadians Are Leaving,” Daniel Tencer, 2017.

ing economic diversity occurring in the countryside have all accumulated to Vancouver-based residents making the move out to the Southern Interior as a mission of personal fulfillment and an easily digestible sense of progress. Scaling down the magnitude to which this transformation is taking place, in Squamish, a midsized rural town along the Sea-to-Sky of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional district, the consequences of Vancouver’s “locally sourced” counter-urbanization are being felt throughout the numerous sectors of the city’s framework. With reference to a report conducted by CBC News on the growing community’s reforming fabric, “the newest residents of Squamish, B.C., are full of energy and entrepreneurial spirit, but are creating demands that the municipality—with a population of about 18,000—is struggling to meet, says Mayor Patricia Heintzman. As part of Canada’s fourth fastest growing census metropolitan area, Squamish is seeing more demand for housing and amenities than it has in years, and Heintzman says the influx has strained the city’s resources…on a more abstract level, Heintzman said the community’s changing demographics have residents grappling with their collective identity. Heintzman said Squamish sees itself as a rural town connected to the natural areas that surround it.”153 Despite the regenerative aspects to B.C.’s counter-urbanization, as formerly unprepared rural infrastructural and socio-cultural platforms are beginning to rapidly face a highly dynamic demographic inflow of an active working class, the overall composition of Squamish is facing an urgent necessity of appropriating newly formed flexible and effective means of mending their rural agenda. In terms of a “classical” example associated with the rural identity of B.C.’s small-town persona with which the province was based upon since the beginning of the Gold Rush during the early to mid-19th century, the town of Fernie in the East Koo-

>Fig. 78. (Top). Kelowna’s “advanced rural-urban” status stems from its ideal climate and newly emerging economies. “Kelowna,” Value Plus 3% Real Estate Inc.

tenay’s has been facing unexpected levels of population growth. Ezra Black affirms that “Fernie is the fastest growing community of its kind in Canada, says the 2016 census…“Of all the Weak MIZs [(less than five per cent of its residents work in Census Metropolitan Areas or Census Agglomerations)] in Canada with more than 5,000 population, Fernie is actually the fastest growing in all of Canada,” said Stacey Hallman, a Statistics Canada demography division analyst…Fernie Chamber of Commerce executive director Patty Vadnais theorized that people who’ve been coming to the community to recreate are choosing to live here because of good schools, an outdoor lifestyle and other amenities.”154 Once again, although manifested in a much slighter way, the consistently reappearing themes of affordability, a recreationally focused lifestyle, and the countless opportunities across various spectrums of the general demographic have all contributed to the revival and revamping of B.C.’s rural towns. The perceived and unperceived changes—as consequence of these emerging urban to rural migration patterns—that are taking place in the rural timeline of B.C.’s socio-cultural contextual narrative have been readdressing and re-envisioning the means by which future countryside dwellers may perceive, and in turn regulate or modify their new “artificially constructed” natural surroundings.

B.C.’s Rural Social Transformation The socio-cultural situation in Canada’s collective and individual identities is slowly becoming distanced from its formerly “raw/wild” connotations and dependencies with respect to a labour intensive approach, to that of primary resources extraction; a shift is occurring towards a more “environmental” or “recreational” utilization of the infamous “natural landscapes” that have captured the sublime of

>Fig. 79. (Middle). Squamish, a midsized rural town, struggles to systematically react to an influx of a “creative class.” “7 Reasons to Love Squamish,” Squamish Chamber of Commerce.

>Fig. 80. (Bottom). Fernie, a “traditionally” small rural scenario engulfed by nature, attracts new occupants. “A Raveneye’s view of Fernie - A Seasonal Perspective,” Raven Eye Photography.

the beholder’s imagination since the earliest signs of human settlement that occupied the borderless territories of Canada’s extensive wilderness. John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed outline that “scholars point to the unique character of Canadian society, closely linked to natural resource extraction, modes of production, remoteness, rurality, and the North. At the same time, the Canadian rural landscape offers a chance to examine the repeated rise and fall of communities, industries, and cultural traditions over decades.”155 Hence, as Parkin’s and Reed further elaborate, “in ongoing efforts to understand these rural changes, some authors point to an emerging post-staples economy in which extractive industries become a secondary factor in new rural-urban linkages and an emerging emphasis on environmental values.”156 Evidently, the historical shift from an economically driven “primary resources” attitude as a means of rapidly modernizing and “enhancing” a young aspiring nation, to that of a “sensible appreciation” towards the fragile and temporal aspect of the countryside has created an unmistakable divide within Canada’s social structure when it involves the economic and socio-cultural direction the country as a whole should take. This clash of the multiple facets and factors at play in Canada’s rural development can be seen in the exceptionally pluralized socio-cultural scenarios at play in B.C.’s multiple parties, sectors, and mosaic understandings of value, heritage, and lifestyle choices. Greg Halseth, Sean Markey, and Laura Ryser encapsulate this “friction” between the many

forces at play in B.C.’s self-perceived rural identity by hinting that “rural British Columbia (B.C.) is a dynamic and evolving landscape. For generations it has been the economic heart of B.C., and since 1980 rural B.C. has been experiencing the opportunities and challenges of a faster paced and more integrated global economy…B.C.’s non-metropolitan area is not a uniform landscape with a single trajectory, but instead is diversifying into a suite of different development regions…in sum, there are many different “rurals” that comprise non-metropolitan B.C. Over time, changes in industrial connections have reshaped metropolitan-hinterland relationships.”157 This pluralism to B.C.’s aggregated identity serves as a reference plane upon which all future occurrences may fall within—a complex infusion of numerous cultures, perspectives, opinions, and spatial properties coexisting within an equally heterogeneous rural landscape. A crucial socio-cultural divide that still governs this “highly dynamic” territory of layered histories, truths, and moral codes is the on-going discrepancie between indigenous and non-indigenous rural agendas. As Halseth, Markey, and Ryser state, “added to this complexity is the fact that in B.C., unlike most provinces in Canada, there remain considerable areas where the Indigenous land question has not been settled through treaty negotiations. This has been identified time and again as a significant barrier to Indigenous and non-Indigenous community and economic development, as well as to the fortunes of the province as a whole.”158 The critical necessity to infuse the oppos95

ing indigenous and non-indigenous cultural differences are of upmost importance with respect to the “coexistent goals” of B.C.’s rural agenda; perhaps, the shared 21st century “environmental” trajectory of the province’s evolving belief system and outlook towards our relationship with rurality may hold the key in merging this historic divide as a reciprocative exchange of moral codes, cultural beliefs, land management practices, and “eclectically formulated” anthropogenic methods of preserving the local flora and fauna we all identify ourselves with in one way or another. As mentioned before, the lifestyles of the 21st century British Columbian have changed; the countryside is viewed as an escape from the frantic urban condition—an increased awareness of nature’s “healing” potentiality has resulted in an entirely altered family structure and daily routine. Generally speaking, “research identifies that young households are seeking a different suite of amenities than families in the 1960s and 1970s. This need to renew the population and to attract immigrants and in-migrants will require investment across all of these areas to guide successful recruitment and retention in small communities.”159 One such investment of particular interest to the larger narrative contrasting <Fig. 81. Contrasting (left) traditional “primary resources” (Powell River paper mill) and (right) modern “environmental tourism” based rural conditions (Gibsons Harbour), author, 2020.

B.C.’s “primary resources” industrial context with a newly “amenities-based” identity to rural B.C. is that of Valemount. Parkins and Reed illustrate this phenomena through a case study looking at Valemount’s modifying identity: The Robson Valley of British Columbia, where Valemount is located, is an example of such change. At the turn of the twentieth century, hundreds of small sawmills sustained many households and livelihoods throughout the region. Yet today you can count the number of sawmills in that valley on one hand…Valemount has succeeded in attracting more people to visit, and increasingly more people are making the village a vacation destination. A bright spot is the development of a local tourism niche in recreational snowmobiling.160 The shift from a rural society highly reliant on the primary industry of sawmills, to that of one reeled into the global trend of tourism, has reformed the overall social, demographic, spatial, economic, and political framework of Valemount’s framework; the transformative effects tied to the highly effective

^Fig. 82. (Left). Downtown Valemount 1974; a rural identity devoid of progress amongst a changing context due to closures of sawmills. “Valemount,” Wikiwand.

^Fig. 83. (Right). Modern-day Valemount redefined as a tourist and holiday hotspot with a reconfigured downtown core. “Tourism Valemount Webcams,” Tourism Valemount.

forms of digital communication have aided in rapidly dispersing the unique natural amenities which Valemount has to offer to the 21st century resident in search of a spiritually refined and diversified mode of living. A digital platform—such as ‘The Stack’— connects formerly disconnected forgotten rural

communities to a worldwide network of vast data exchanges governed by the worldwide web. In view of these changes taking place throughout B.C.’s rural areas, it seems that rural and urban areas are metaphorically shortening both the distances and ideological values between the two

^Fig. 84. Map of Canada’s rural-urban spread and increasingly complex rural identity. “Social Transformation in Rural Canada,” John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed, 2012.

places through this “all-governing” digital network. In the concluding words of Halseth, Markey, and Ryser, “people [want]…jobs that “respect people, the environment, and the rural and small town quality of life that defines a northern lifestyle.” The general story of rural development in B.C. and the implications for those development trajectories looking forward highlight, first and foremost, that successful policy and investment approaches recognize that rural and urban regions are together in a singular provincial economy and they further recognize the valuable contributions that rural regions make to the health of the provincial economy.”161 This co-linear parallel between the dissolving rural-urban divide and the “protection” of the inherent values associated with a “northern lifestyle” is the key relationship that marks B.C.’s metamorphosing rural identity; rural living becomes just as prevalently significant as its urban counterpart in terms of the economic, recreational, and socio-cultural amenities it may provide, and the significance of B.C.’s rural communities within the “environmental storyline” of B.C.’s provincial identity equally define the deeply ingrained modes of interacting with and perceiving our mutual role in a vastly unordered, unstructured, and “naturally dominated” landscape. In turn, with the increasing “stress” placed on the countryside as a result of this large migration from B.C.’s urban cores to the numerous rural towns evenly scattered across a “free reigned” territory, the need for creativity and imagination remains a prominent factor in ensuring the continual thriving of B.C.’s rural identity through new means of structuring, managing, and monitoring our shared green spaces. In the initial pages to Parkins’ and Reed’s in-depth analysis of the social transformations occurring throughout rural Canada, they call attention to the fact that “Nathan Young speaks about how imagination infuses the economic identities of places, constraining or limiting options for future transformation. By focusing on places in British Columbia where older economic identities tied to resource industries are being questioned, he illustrates how new visions of place and identity offer opportunities for rural places to reinvent themselves and demonstrate bold acts of imagination as strategies for transformation.”162

Through the power of the human conscious, and our ability to “artificially abstract” our surroundings as a means of reinventing “out-dated” or “degenerated” forms of thinking, the infinite possibilities that a newly created “terra incognita” provide us with create a platform upon which new ideas, methods, and spatial configurations can be tested.

Emerging Local Economies The power of imagination and creativity, as previously implied, has large ramifications on the future prosperity and identity creation of rapidly changing rural towns; a unique “cocktail” of external and internal factors dictate the extent to which these changes take place, in addition to the supposed “form” they may appropriate. INTELI asserts that “the presence of creative people is highly associated with jobs creation and growth in small communities…the entrepreneurial spirit of the creative class induces the development of creative businesses such as arts, music, design, and software. Moreover, creative industries provide innovative inputs for other areas of activity in local economies such as agriculture, crafts, textiles, tourism or gastronomy—the so-called knowledge spillovers.”163 INTELI elaborates by quoting UNCTAD’s statement in 2008 where “‘in the contemporary world, a new development paradigm is emerging, which links the economy and culture, embracing economic, cultural, technological and social aspect of development at both the macro and micro level. Central to the new paradigm is the fact that creativity, knowledge and access to information are increasingly recognized as powerful engines driving economic growth and promoting development in a globalising world.”’164 The substantial “domino effect” of creativity’s role in reforming the foundational roots and integral parts to a rural town’s overall identity leads to an interwoven “ecosystem” of creativity and innovation where not only the occupants within this system have consequent effects on the resulting identity transformation of a place, yet also the place and economy themselves have an equally reciprocal influence on the “ecosystem’s” atmosphere and character: 98

This growing relationship between creativity and territory leads to the introduction of the concept of ‘creative ecosystem’. It is an environment of excellence based on creative assets that generates socio-economic growth and development, and comprises three interlinked components: Economy—Creative Industries: companies and organizations of the cultural and creative sector as economic, social and cultural engines; Place—Creative Spaces: places as spaces of cultural and creative production and consumption that attract resources, people and capital; People—Creative Talent: people with artistic skills and personal abilities that nurture creativity, with an entrepreneurial spirit enhancing the creation of innovative businesses.

the dictates of the multiple “parties” that made B.C. into what we know of it today. In B.C., the technology industry, more specifically tied to the ‘digital’ field, is quickly reforming both the physical and socio-cultural structure of the province’s rural areas where these amendments are having the most drastic effects on the “evolutionary path” of smaller sized communities facing an influx of creative young professionals aiming to initiate various small businesses or contribute to emerging creative industries relocating to these rural regions. In a report created by the Business Council of British Columbia looking towards the future of B.C.’s economic sector, it states how “in recent years the concept of the technology-driven “smart city” has garnered more attention. Communities need to embrace smart policies and forward-looking strategies in their development plans. Investments in digital infrastructure can help cities confront the challenges that stem from urbanization and density. Technology can help manage congestion, improve energy efficiency, enhance security, educate and engage citizens, and improve the allocation and flow of resources.”166 This contemporary “stack” that has been in literary design discourse over the past five to ten years has begun to also appear within the increasingly complex rural situation governing

Such interaction depends largely on the specific governance systems and institutional arrangements of the territories— Governance, and that of their position in the spatial system and urban hierarchies, and their level of access to information and communication technologies and the digital economy—Connectivity.165 These three parts to the ‘Creative Ecosystem’— economy, place, and people—form the basis of Canada’s, and in the cases of this thesis’ focus, B.C.’s rural agenda for ensuring a homogeneous territory of interconnectivity between rural, urban, and any type of community in-between the two evolving labels; however, moving forward, keeping current with B.C.’s distinct primary resources-based “settler roots,” in addition to the ancient practices of the indigenous populations, a direct dialogue with B.C.’s historical persona is key in ensuring a newly formulated identity well informed and contextualized by 99

the technological progress happening across B.C.’s smaller communities. Respectively, the agricultural situation in rural B.C., as noted previously through the technological expansion occurring in the countryside, is becoming of central importance to a historically and presently crucial industry branding the countryside as a “productive green oasis.” As the report on B.C.’s emerging economies announces, “any review of agricultural land will recognize B.C. has an innovative, vibrant and growing agri-food sector that is the most diverse in Canada, so protecting land to ensure this sector can continue to expand is critical. The value of agri-food exports has soared to nearly $4 billion and now rivals a number of other large commodity export categories that have long been the foundation of B.C.’s export base.”167 The agricultural plots that have defined B.C.’s collective rural identity—from the ‘Arcadian’ era, to the ‘Agrari-

<Fig. 85. ‘The Creative Ecosystem’ establishes a framework for emerging economies in rural areas. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities,” INTELI, June 2011.

an’ one, and finally culminating in the ‘Country Life Movement’—still remain a core component of B.C.’s digitized forward-looking territorial manifesto; the inherent dependencies and existing infrastructural amenities in place throughout B.C.’s countryside ensure and reinforce this staple sector of rural B.C.’s historic and emerging economic circumstances. One prolific example of the “digital supercluster” occurring throughout the British Columbian territorial expanse is the creation of an economic region located at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains in the east of B.C. revolving around digital production, storage, fabrication, and analysis. According to the Kootenay Association for Science & Technology (KAST for short), “smaller interior communities, particularly those gaining a reputation for a supportive startup culture like the Kootenays, are attracting qualified, experienced tech and knowledge work-

^Fig. 86. The digital revolution across Canada unifies a territory within a “cloud” of data generation. “Innovation Superclusters will Supercharge Canada’s Economy,” Innovate BC, 2019.

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ers…the Columbia Basin Trust invested millions in building a fibre optic network in the region, providing access to high-speed internet for companies and residents and making it more practical for tech companies to launch in the West Kootenays.”168 More particularly, a region surrounding the “Greater Trail Area” seems to be leading this “fourth industrial revolution” through a large digital “supercentre” focused around digital fabrication, production, and testing. As featured in an article written by the Province of British Columbia, the revolutionary centre is “sold” to the general public and rural communities as follows:

This new digital centre has dramatically altered the overall economic, socio-cultural, political, and built identity of the Trail region with respect to the ways in which it operates, attracts future residents, structures its rural agendas, and repurposes existing industries to a progressive outlook of rurality as the forefront of progress within the province. In turn, this reformative process has had a rippling effect with respect to neighbouring “montane” areas looking to expand their technological capacities, and in turn, realigning themselves within the newly redefined rural persona overtaking B.C.’s countryside. For instance, in Canal Flats, a formerly wood fabrication-based industrial town north of Trail, has recently overtaken an ambitious construction project intended to “repurpose” Canal Flats as “data storage nucleus” within the greater reaches of Metal Tech Alley. As Anna Dimoff mentions, the centre will entirely transform the formerly inactive site into a creative space of unprecedented dynamism and production:

Welcome to Metal Tech Alley: A cluster of industry and technology companies leading the fourth industrial revolution, all from the Trail region, with a population of less than 10,000 people. A key part of Metal Tech Alley’s progression has been the MIDAS Fab Lab, a public-private enterprise started by the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology (KAST), a non-profit regional organization dedicated to the technology sector; Teck Metals, the world’s largest integrated lead-zinc smelter; and Fenix Advanced Materials, a private company experienced in the commercialization of metallurgical industry by-products. MIDAS supports academic research and development partnerships, business incubation services, and offers a dual sector fabrication lab and equipment in metallurgy and advanced/ digital manufacturing.

The community of Canal Flats in the East Kootenay is replacing industrial jobs with technological ones. The new Columbia Lake Technology Centre will house a large data centre and offer an estimated 100 jobs in the industry…in 2017, Brian Fehr, chairman and managing director of the multinational forestry-sector corporation BID Group, acquired the site as a personal investment…[Brian] Fry is partnering with Fehr to grow the big tech project and help attract people to the community. He said the size of the new property will allow them to build large computer servers to process massive amounts of data, which is a service in high demand right now with the rise in automated vehicles, artificial intelligence and digital currency. The centre will be connected to fibre optic networks which allows the company to receive and send data easily, said Fry. “We’re milliseconds from anywhere in the world… once you’re connected to the right types of networks, you think in milliseconds not in ki-

Picking up where MIDAS leaves off, a recent addition to Metal Tech Alley is I4C, an international Industrial Internet of Things hub, and a production and testing facility. I4C supports early-stage Internet of Things qualified companies in research and development, light fabrication, commercialization and/or distribution.169

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^Fig. 87. (Top). Metal Tech Alley brings digital technology and a new identity to the Kootenay’s region of B.C. Still from video. “Innovation in Metal Tech Alley,” Metal Tech Alley, June 25, 2018.

^Fig. 88. (Bottom). Canal Flat’s new Columbia Lake Technology Centre repurposes the former sawmill into a hub of data storage. Still from video. “MegaPod,” Iris Energy, May 1, 2020.

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lometres.”170 In parallel with the previously discussed topic such as the metaphoric “shrinking” of the “space-time” continuum swiftly spreading across every area of the globe, the enormous rate at which the world is becoming a digital “stack” and gridded system of data points, coordinates, interdependencies, and diverse energy generators has vast ramifications on not only the unquestionability of urbanity’s volatility, yet also in the most remote and previously “underdeveloped” regions of the world. Data centres, such as those appearing in the newly emerging focal town of Canal Flats, are acting like large decentralized “banks” of ‘The Stack’s’ individual layers; the sheer immediacy at which these critical pieces of information can be reached—in milliseconds as opposed to kilometres according to Fry—completely reverses our previous understanding of how we carry out our everyday tasks—from the simplest task of paying for our groceries to the most complex one of how an early staged artificial intelligence is slowly beginning to alter the ways in which we react to our immediate surroundings and to one another.

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97. Bergdoll, “European Architecture,” 83. 98. “Fernando Maselli Artificial Infinite 2014–2016,” Atlas of Places, published February 2017, https://www. atlasofplaces.com/photography/artificial-infinite/. 99. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.” 100. Fernando Maselli, “Artificial Infinite / Infinito Artificial,” Fernando Maselli, accessed January 11, 2021, https://www.fernandomaselli.com/artificial-infinite. 101. “Fernando Maselli Artificial Infinite,” Atlas of Places. 102. “Atlas of Places Artificial Nature I 2018,” Atlas of Places, published April 2018, https://www.atlasofplaces. com/research/artificial-nature-i/. 103. Koolhaas, “Countryside,” presentation. 104. Koolhaas. 105. Koolhaas. 106. Adam Sutherland, “Reinventing the rural: a new perspective on our countryside,” The Architectural Review, published March 19, 2018, https://www. architectural-review.com/essays/reinventing-the-rural-a-new-perspective-on-our-countryside. 107. Sutherland, “Reinventing the rural.” 108. Koolhaas, “Countryside,” presentation. 109. Koolhaas. 110. Koolhaas. 111. Koolhaas. 112. Koolhaas. 113. Koolhaas. 114. Benjamin Notkin and Timothy Ravis, “Data Fix: Informational Imperialism & the Urban Enclosure of the Agrarian Knowledge Commons,” (presentation, Harvard Graduate School of Design, Boston, USA, May 9, 2019), http://www.urbantheorylab.net/projects/. 115. Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, “New Ground I: Advancing the Countryside,” Archinect, published January 31, 2018, https://archinect.com/features/article/150047669/new-ground-i-advancing-the-countryside. 116. Koolhaas, “Countryside,” presentation. 117. Koolhaas. 118. Sutherland, “Reinventing the rural.” 119. Brent Cooper, “The Abstraction of Benjamin Bratton: Software, Sovereignty, and Designer Sociology,” Medium, published August 18, 2017, https://medium. com/the-abs-tract-organization/the-abstraction-of-benjamin-bratton-756c647ab6ec. 120. Cooper, “The Abstraction of Benjamin Bratton.” 121. Benjamin H. Bratton, autobiography to The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty (Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA: The MIT Press, 2015), back cover. https:// observatory.constantvzw.org/books/benjamin-h-brattonthe-stack-on-software-and-sovereignty-2.pdf. 122. Bratton, The Stack, autobiographical back cover. 123. Cooper, “The Abstraction of Benjamin Bratton.” 124. Bratton, The Stack, p. 64 and 43 respectively. 125. Wood and Bjerke, “New Ground I.” 126. Wood and Bjerke. 127. Hannah Wood and Christine Bjerke, “New Ground II: Countryside 2030,” Archinect, published February 18, 2018, https://archinect.com/features/article/150052196/new-ground-ii-countryside-2030. 128. “4. New Rural Design and Architecture,” Creative Rural Industries Consortium, accessed January 20, 2021,

http://www.ruralculture.org.uk/rural-cultural-strategy/4-new-rural-design-and-architecture/. 129. Wood and Bjerke, “New Ground I.” 130. Wood and Bjerke. 131. Wood and Bjerke, “New Ground II.” 132. Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley, “The Land of the Free: How Virtual Fences Will Transform Rural America,” The Atlantic, published February 7, 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ archive/2013/02/the-land-of-the-free-how-virtual-fenceswill-transform-rural-america/272957/. 133. “Christopher Lee, “The Countryside as a City,”’ Harvard University Graduate School of Design, accessed January 20, 2021, https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/event/ christopher-lee-the-countryside-as-a-city/. 134. “Christopher Lee,” Harvard University Graduate School of Design. 135. “Within the Frame: The Countryside as a City,” American Society of Landscape Architects, accessed January 20, 2021, https://www.asla.org/2015studentawards/99591.html. 136. Dorothy Kennedy and Randy Bouchard, “Plateau Indigenous Peoples in Canada,” ed. Zach Parrott, The Canadian Encyclopedia, edited March 4, 2015, https:// thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/aboriginal-people-plateau. 137. Kennedy and Bouchard, “Plateau Indigenous Peoples in Canada.” 138. Bryan Hayden, A Complex Culture of the British Columbia Plateau: Traditional Stl’átl’imx Resource Use (Vancouver: UBC Press, 1992), 119, https://books.google. it/books?id=yScGVxCwTW4C&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=true, Google Books. 139. Hayden, “A Complex Culture of the British Columbia Plateau,” 121. 140. “Agriculture,” 2021 BC Tomorrow Society, published August 22, 2019, https://www.bctomorrow. ca/blog/agriculture#:~:text=History%20of%20Agriculture%20in%20bc&text=Grains%2C%20fruits%20and%20 vegetables%2C%20cattle,and%20cattle%20ranching%20 were%20introduced.

dian-families-moving-to-escape-soaring-housing-prices/. 151. Jennifer Saltman, “International migration drives Metro population growth, while losses fuelled by draw of neighbouring areas,” The Vancouver Sun, published February 14, 2018, https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/metro-vancouver-population-sees-record-losses-in-latest-census-report. 152. Jen St. Denis, “For some young Vancouverites, it’s Kelowna or bust,” Business Intelligence for B.C., published May 31, 2016, https://biv.com/article/2016/05/ some-young-vancouverites-its-kelowna-or-bust. 153. “Squamish, B.C., a magnet for newcomers, StatsCan report finds,” CBC News, published February 16, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/squamish-migration-1.4536006. 154. Ezra Black, “Fernie is the fastest growing community of its kind in Canada,” The Free Press, published February 26, 2017, https://www.thefreepress.ca/news/ fernie-is-the-fastest-growing-community-of-its-kindin-canada/. 155. John R. Parkins and Maureen G. Reed, Social Transformation in Rural Canada: Community, Cultures, and Collective Action (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2012), 5, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315615319_ Social_transformation_in_rural_Canada_Community_cultures_and_collective_action, PDF. 156. Parkins and Reed, Social Transformation in Rural Canada, 5. 157. Greg Halseth, Sean Markey, and Laura Ryser, “British Columbia,” State of Rural Canada, accessed January 26, 2021, http://sorc.crrf.ca/bc/. 158. Halseth, Markey, and Ryser. “British Columbia.” 159. Halseth, Markey, and Ryser. 160. Parkins and Reed, Social Transformation in Rural Canada, 4-5. 161. Halseth, Markey, and Ryser. “British Columbia.” 162. Parkins and Reed, Social Transformation in Rural Canada, 11. 163. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities,” INTELI, 6.

141. David Demeritt, “Visions of Agriculture in British Columbia,” BC Studies, no. 108 (Winter 1995–96): 32–33, https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/bcstudies/ article/view/1240/1284.

164. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities,” 16.

142. Demeritt, “Visions of Agriculture in British Columbia,” 35–36.

166. “B.C. 2035: A Vision for Economic Growth and Prosperity” (Vancouver: Business Council of British Columbia, 2016), 18, https://www.bcbc.com/pdfs/ BC2035-Feb17-FINAL.pdf.

143. Demeritt, 40–41. 144. Demeritt, 42.

165. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities,” 16–17.

167. “B.C. 2035,” Business Council of British Columbia, 24.

145. Demeritt, 47–48. 146. Demeritt, 52–56. 147. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities: Guidelines for Local Authorities” (Óbidos Municipality: INTELI, June 2011), 6, https://urbact. eu/sites/default/files/import/Projects/Creative_Clusters/ documents_media/URBACTCreativeClusters_TAP_INTELI_Final_01.pdf. 148. “Creative-based Strategies in Small and Medium-sized Cities,” INTELI, 39. 149. Clare J.A. Mitchell, “Counterurbanization and the Growth of Canada’s Rural and Small Town Municipalities: 1996–2001,” Canadian Journal of Regional Science 31, no. 1 (2008): 117–8, https://idjs.ca/wp-content/uploads/V31N1-MITCHELL.pdf. 150. Alexandra Posadzki, “Canadian families moving to escape urban housing prices,” Maclean’s, published February 8, 2017, https://www.macleans.ca/news/cana-

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168. “Vancouver Tech Companies Migrating to Kootenays,” Kootenay Association for Science & Technology, published November 8, 2018, https://kast.com/vancouver-tech-companies-migrating-kootenays/. 169. “Metal Tech Alley: How an Industry Town in Rural B.C. Rebuilt its Economy,” Gov. of B.C., published December 15, 2017, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/ content/employment-business/economic-development/ bc-ideas-exchange/success-stories/technology-sector/ metal-tech-alley. 170. Anna Dimoff, “Big data, bright future: new tech centre aims to revitalize former B.C. mill town,” CBC News, published June 17, 2018, https://www.cbc.ca/ news/canada/british-columbia/big-data-bright-futurenew-tech-centre-aims-to-revitalize-former-b-c-milltown-1.4705332.

Wildfires

Global Context Climate Change Overview Global Wildfire Scenarios Post-wildfire Landscape Identity

Local Context Wildfire Statistics Historic B.C. Wildfire Seasons B.C.’s Forest Health Factors

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Climate Change Overview

world’s plant activity now takes place in ecosystems where people play a significant role. We’ve stripped the original forests from much of North America and Europe and helped push tens of thousands of species into extinction. Even in the vast oceans, among the few areas of the planet uninhabited by humans, our presence has been felt thanks to overfishing and marine pollution.”172 At the very essence of all these devastating ramifications that climate change has posed to our global balance along the food chain is the human; our presence on this planet can no longer be regarded as a spectator on the formerly “naturally occurring” geological, biological, and climatological processes, however as an active participant and even instigator of new forms of life, spatial configurations, weather patterns, artificially enhanced phenomena, and most importantly, new forms of behaviour across the wide spectrum of species inhabiting this planet as they attempt to readjust to a newly “artificially driven” planet. This notion of artificiality and our undeniable power in being able to precisely redirect and reguide numerous organic processes on this malleable planet is well explained in Gugger’s psychological “caricature” of humanity’s role as “creator” where he points out that “we live in an age of ecological panic masked by the cynicism of ideological denial. In the scheme of the five stages of grief, after denial follow anger, bargaining and depression, until we eventually reach the point of acceptance. What we are grieving is the death of the idea of nature and the

In anticipation to the prototypal design application of the aforementioned theoretical core associated with the reformative aspects of rurality’s evolving identity, the “empirically based” and “tangible” supporting wildfires core serves as an additional layer within the “countryside complex” where the highly transformative and consequential potency of fire becomes a force to be reckoned with in terms of the effects it has on the ecological, socio-cultural, economic, and “spatial” properties of rural areas. In view of this iterative research process, seeing that wildfires share the common denominator of climate change with numerous other increasingly destructive global phenomena, a comprehensive overview of climate change’s reverberations, implications, and theoretically grounded future scenarios shall be undertaken as a means to provide the force of wildfires with a contextualized exploration of its primary “fuel source”. Hence, as Professor Gugger alarmingly warns the reader, “at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the world’s population was one billion, but it is now seven times that, and by 2050 it is predicted to surpass nine billion. Atmospheric CO₂ concentration has more than doubled since 1950 and is causing global warming. Human debris dumped into the oceans has been accumulating in patches known as the Pacific trash vortex.”171 In a similar tone, Bryan Walsh adds to this urgent global situation by declaring that “almost 90% of the

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loss of our anthropocentric world view…geologists have come to call this era the Anthropocene, meaning literally the “human era.” Earth in the age of the Anthropocene is an artefact—Spaceship Earth, an artificial object travelling through time and space and steered by Earthiens.”173 Of equal perplexity, Walsh “grounds” this philosophical speculation on our role within the overall global network of planet Earth by alluding to the rate at which our world is becoming altered, stating that “the change has been so rapid that scientists have dubbed the past half-century the Great Acceleration—and this period shows little sign of slowing as economic growth and improved health care extends the life spans and turbocharges the resource use of billions of people in the developing world.”174 Despite the fact that we are “grieving,” in the words of Gugger, for the loss of biodiversity, ecologically stable patterns of succession, and vast plots of land nourishing our world’s reservoirs, it is far too late to stop the metaphorically speeding “freight train” with which humanity is increasingly accelerating through every corner of the globe in order to keep up with the newest forms of “progress,” lifestyle choices, and available commodities to the wide scope of the global demographic. As stressed in the previous paragraph, humanity has taken on an almost “god-like” capacity to entirely modify the planet’s identity on even a molecular level; the culminations associated with global productivity patterns and ‘advancing the human race’ become the primary factors with which the future wellbeing of this planet and the fate of our own trajectories are based upon. On a more reassuring note, perhaps this irreversible global scenario of an anthropogenically centred structural framework may be the very characterizing factor to Earth’s survival and prosperity in the years to come; given that “nature is over” according to Time Magazine’s article, published already 11 years ago, the future of the world’s rural

<<Fig. 89. Photo of a burning residence in Port Coquitlam (B.C.), author, 2020.

areas may become at “the mercy” of our collective actions and value-based instructions we pass on to future generations. Quoting Percy Bysshe Shelly, Gugger conjures up an “optimistic world view” on the endless possibilities unexplored with respect to a self-sustaining model of growth in which both humanity and nature become the protagonists: We want to imagine an “ecology without nature,” where clean energy and environmental management embrace human and non-human needs in ways that go beyond an economy of preservation in terms of “visual impact.” We want to imagine post-anthropocentric landscapes in which human impact might be seen as a responsible act of cultivation rather than an embarrassing

<Fig. 90. Receding glaciers (Grinnell Glacier in 1938, 1981, 1998, and 2006) depict the devastating effects of climate change and rising seas levels. “Climate change,” Stephen T. Jackson, 2021.

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^Fig. 91. Planet Earth’s destiny lies at the fate of an anthropogenic force steering the globe into the unknown of the future. “Laba Manifesto 2016,” Harry Gugger, September 2015.

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mutilation of the supposedly pristine wilderness. We want to imagine industrial buildings that interact with climate and its changes, collaborating, as Robert Smithson put it, with geology’s entropy and the massive scale of the landscape. We want to design non-polluting industries whose production loops recycle natural resources and abolish the concept of waste by creating buildings that do more that just exploit the environment by actually helping to cultivate it—“Waste equals food.”175

changing “digital landscape.”

Global Wildfire Scenarios The global scenarios with respect to the ravaging effects that wildfires have on the climatological, ecological, and infrastructural patterns present a grim and uncertain future where previously expansive ecosystems and rural communities may disappear due to the sheer intensity, frequency, and diffusion with which wildfires are raging across the world’s forested landscapes. As Emily Chung reveals, “bigger, hotter wildfires are ravaging forests and burning them to the ground more frequently as the climate gets hotter and drier…according to Natural Resources Canada, climate change during this century is expected to result in more frequent fires in many boreal forests, potentially doubling the amount of area burned by 2100 compared to recent decades. And the fires are also expected to get larger and more intense, says University of Guelph researcher Merritt Turetsky.”177 Of even greater concern with respect to the overall state and health of the planet’s decreasingly widespread carbon sinks, “Turetsky said, the increase in forest fire activity and severity could lead to significant consequences for affected ecosystems. She has studied boreal forests in Alaska and the Northwest Territories which burned in major wildfires. In both cases, the forest didn’t bounce back in the way researchers expected. “Large areas there are simply not regrowing vegetation,” she said. A lack of new growth leads to concerns for biodiversity. The barren land can also cause issues with landslides and soil erosion.”178 As global weather patterns shift to warmer states of being in previously cooler and wetter climates, humid and semi-humid biomes will turn into semi-arid savanna-like landscapes of prime susceptibility to the occurrences of sweeping wildfires with an even larger fuel load; the

The role of the human in this fine balance between repressing nature or nurturing it becomes the central theme with which we, as a collective “superpower,” must address if the progressively worsening global situation is to ameliorate, or on an even more unyielding sense, “re-bend” the arc towards a direction of harmony and purity between human and non-human forms of life. As Thomas Glade mentions in a analysis on a collection of photos by Cladius Schulze depicting hypothesized “life sustaining” structures built by humankind, “in the age of the Anthropocene, climate change and extreme weather constantly increase the threads of gales, floods, and avalanches; it’s civil protection agencies maintaining ordinary life. These pictures are not about on defining the boundary between “artificial” and “natural”. On the contrary, the defences are the prerequisite to these landscapes: the sunshine sparkles on the surface of the mountain lakes only because it was artificially dammed, the dunes only rise because they are protected against storm surges.”176 Although such structures may have not yet reached the technological and “moral” potentials they could theoretically strive to attain, a refined version and approach to such modes of thinking may hold the key in creating a space where life as we know may continue to thrive, evolve, and adapt to a rapidly

<Fig. 92. Photos of “regulatory structures” alluding to an “utopic” potential of harmony between nature and humanity. “Claudius Schulze State of Nature 2013–2015,” Thomas Glade, April 2017.

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^Fig. 93. (Top). Intensified global wildfire potentialities projected to 2030–40 portray an increasingly “desert-like” planet. “Climate Change and Wildfires,” Lindsay Ross, August 6, 2020.

^Fig. 94. (Bottom). Wildfire stats pose an “anthropogenic centered” global crisis. “The Alarming Global Spread of Wildfires,” Martin Armstrong, August 28, 2020.

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increased emissions from our consumer-driven capitalist monopolies, in addition to the skewed global mental attitude of progress as a consequence of the problematic implications associated with globalism, have driven this equation into an adverse situation of insensibility towards other forces at play irrespective of our own interests. Ultimately, this systems of “cause and effect” has lead to an irreversible ‘domino effect’ according to a summary of Dr. Nigel Sizer’s analysis on wildfires conducted by Karl Mathiesen, where “the increase of fires in northern forests [has] worrying implications for the climate. “If global warming is leading to more fires in boreal forests, which in turn leads to more emissions from those forests, which in turn leads to more climate change. This is one of those positive feedback loops that should be of great concern to policy makers.”’179 This “unbreakable cycle” of incessant climatological repercussions becomes the greatest factor addressing the rate at which the world’s rural areas are changing and alerting their identities in parallel to the numerous other forces at play. In Europe, the 2017 wildfires that severely damaged the Mediterranean forested ecosystems, communities, and infrastructures were regarded as one of the worst natural disasters to occur within the continent’s general timeline of impactful natural events. In tangent with the previously stressed effects of climate change on the rising strength of wildfires across the globe, in the 2017 European wildfires, it played a significant role:

fire killed at least 64 people, injured 204, and displaced over 500 from their homes. Triggering the EU’s Civil Protection Mechanism, France, Italy and Spain have provided firefighting planes to help get Portugal’s “worst forest fire in more than a century” under control. The smoke of the wildfires in Portugal were catapulted high into the atmosphere and then transported several thousands of kilometers across Europe. Smoke from the fires could be seen all the way to the Swiss Alps from the station at Jungfraujoch (3580 m).” The study also found that the intense summer heat of 2017 would become the new normal in the region by the middle of the century.180 In the case of the 2017 European wildfires, the primary culprit to the catastrophic impact that the wildfires had on the European community as a whole was the unusually dry and hot summer as a result of the shifting climatological patterns across the world with respect to the role climate change posed in the overall question; furthermore, as briefly touched on before, the unresolved lack of “separation” and “spatial planning” between dense brush and local communities—i.e. the wildland-urban interface—further fuelled the consequences to the unprecedented calamity. As summers are getting hotter and drier, wildfires will not only spread and burn at a higher rate, yet also occur throughout a larger seasonal timeframe if our current pollutant levels—especially within urban centres as Koolhaas warned us—do not momentously decrease through social-cultural, technologically, and political revisions. On a far more alarming scale in terms of surface area, the 2019 Amazonian wildfires wreaked havoc on the extremely rich and globally life-sustaining forested areas of the Amazon rainforest. A formerly “unrecognized” hotspot for wildfires in contrast to the northern pine forests of Canada, the United States, and Russia, Brazil’s wildfire season of 2019 took the entire world and country by surprise as the primary commercially driven motives, coupled with

One analysis by the WWA project looked at the European heat wave in 2017, and found that climate change had increased the probability of such a heat wave by a factor of 10. As the researchers noted, these hot and dry conditions contributed to the forest fires that ravaged Spain and Portugal in June: “A major forest fire in Spain forced more than 1,500 people from homes, campsites, and hotels, and encroached on a UNESCO World Heritage site housing endangered species. In Portugal, a deadly forest 112

the secondary impacts of climate change, sent the innumerable areas of trees burning in an uncontrollable frenzy:

Everyone on the planet benefits from the health of the Amazon. As its trees take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen, the Amazon plays a huge role in pulling planet-warming greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Without it, climate change speeds up. But as the world’s largest rainforest is eaten away by logging, mining, and agribusiness, it may not be able to provide the same buffer.

An unprecedented number of fires raged throughout Brazil in 2019, intensifying in August. That month, the country’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) reported that there were more than 80,000 fires, the most that it had ever recorded. It was a nearly 80 percent jump compared to the number of fires the country experienced over the same time period in 2018. More than half of those fires took place in the Amazon…“there is no doubt that this rise in fire activity is associated with a sharp rise in deforestation,” Paulo Artaxo, an atmospheric physicist at the University of São Paulo, told Science Magazine.

Scientists warn that the rainforest could reach a tipping point, turning into something more like a savanna when it can no longer sustain itself as a rainforest. As the trees and plants perish, they would release billions of tons of carbon that has been stored for decades—making it nearly impossible to escape a climate catastrophe.

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One in ten of all animal species on Earth call the Amazon home, and experts expect that they will be dramatically affected by the fires in the short term...according to Barlow, even low-intensity fires with flames just 30 centimeters tall can kill up to half of the trees burned in a tropical rainforest.181

other hand, as a direct consequence of the mass consumerism present in the modern age, developing societies residing around these vital forests are facing external pressures to reap the economic benefits derived from these highly sensitive environments; perhaps as alluded to before, the power of digitization’s role as a highly accessible “open-sourced” network may hold the key in reversing the externally managed economic situation towards one of direct ownership and internal organization. In a North American context with respect to the most recent globally devastating wildfire event, the 2020 US Wildfires, specifically those of California, reached unparalleled proportions even within the infamous reputation of California’s wildfires history. The fires raged on at unforeseen length of time and spread rapidly across the entire Western US at a pace with such velocity that firefighters were unable to adequately respond to in time:

Due to the sheer flora/fauna diversity and symbiotic relationships occurring throughout the world’s tropical rainforests, the susceptibility of these highly sensitive forested areas are of an even greater magnitude; coincidently, as the “sensitivity levels” of a forest increases so too do the carbon sequestering properties they hold, in addition to their unrivalled significance in contributing to the world’s immensely dynamic and large gradient of species, natural processes, and distinct rural communities. On the <Fig. 95. Landsat 8 OLI of the 2017 Portuguese wildfires, specifically the Pinhal Interior Norte region, contrasts the severity of the burnt and unaffected areas. “Fires in Portugal,” ESA, 2017.

^Fig. 96. Sensor-based image showcases the extensive scale of 2019 Amazon rainforest wildfires re-transforming an entire biome. “Inferno in the rainforest,” Katherine Unger Baillie, 2019.

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It was the state’s worst wildfire season on record. By the end of it, the flames had killed 31 people, destroyed or damaged more than 10,000 buildings and burned a staggering 4.1m acres. The North Complex fire was responsible for more than 300,000 acres of scorched land, killing 16 people in its wake…it wasn’t just the number of fires—according to Cal Fire there were nearly 10,000 incidents this year—but the scale at which they burned. Five of the six largest blazes in the state were recorded in 2020. The 4.1m acres that burned double the previous annual record.

ests that burn more severely. The climate crisis is making the state increasingly hot—it recorded what is probably the hottest ambient temperature on Earth in Death Valley in late summer and August and September were the hottest on record—and dry, leading to more extreme fire behavior.182 Once again, the coupled effects of climate change’s accelerative heating and drying properties across all regions of the globe, coupled with ill-informed forestry management techniques discouraging the use of prescribed burning as a tool for fire suppression, have all contributed to the surprising scale, magnitude, and adaptability these fires had on their “targeted areas.” Unfortunately, although the shift to the countryside may hint toward a more “harmonious

Decades of fire suppression policy removed [prescribed burns] from the landscape, causing forests to grow denser and brushier than they had been before, creating for115

and pure” vision of our relationship with one another, our agricultural heritage which made our mosaic of civilizations possible, and the other “non-human” entities we co-inhabit this planet with, it is precisely these rural areas that are becoming centre stage for the turbulent climatological consequences which rural communities will have to combat with as a result of our incessantly unsustainable urban visions of global markets and mass commodifications.

around which the collective identity of the landscape was formed disappear…now the collective understanding relates to the impact of the fire and the aesthetics this produces, with little attention paid to a history before the fire. The new geography is brought about through the creation of a new boundary (the extent of the fire and at the same time the destruction of elements. It has altered perceived distances and spatiality. For individuals the routes, perceived boundaries and landmarks used for understanding this landscape have changed, altering the way individuals negotiate and engage with the area. The individual practices and customs which once defined the use of the landscape no longer fit, as social constraints have altered…new practices develop in the area, producing new identities, are connected with dealing with the fire and managing its consequences. People who previously had little in common now have shared practices with the burned landscape as a material focus.

Post-wildfire Landscape Identity Preserving a direct link as a continuation of the discussion to the previous topic of “Landscape Identity” in the first section of this thesis’ research phase, the socio-cultural and physical implications of wildfires on the formerly lush, biodiverse, and self-sustained forested areas poses a crucial component within the overall impact that wildfires have on the newly emerging landscapes ‘sprouting,’ or in this case, ‘wilting’ across rural communities worldwide. The identity of a post-wildfire landscape drastically reconstructs the lifestyles, perceptions, and even behaviour patterns of the inhabitants on both an individual and collective level residing near these “black” landscapes—a stark contrast to their formerly green personas evoking labels such as “richness,” “purity,” and “paradise.” A study on the sociological, physiological, and philosophical implications that wildfires have on a “post-fire landscape” conducted by Andrew Butler, Ingrid Sarlöv-Herlin, Igor Knez, Elin Ångman, Åsa Ode Sang, and Ann Åkerskog highlights these consequences following their impact on the overall transformed identity of such affected areas:

This later period of coping with loss and how one handles it is a constantly ongoing process needing longitudinal studies to address these changes…engaging with landscape identity allows a clearer appraisal of whose losses are legitimised in planning and policy decisions.183 Similar to the well-documented ‘Kevin Lynch Method’ within design discourse that portrays one’s personal interpretation of a space as boundaries, districts, edges, paths, and landmarks, the ways in which a former resident of healthy green forests re-

After a forest fire a new geography is created. The landscape drastically changes and many elements and aesthetic qualities

<Fig. 97. Satellite captures the scale of the 2020 California wildfire’s smoke spreading across the Pacific. “NASA’s Terra Satellite Shows Smoky Pall Over Most of California,” Lynn Jenner, 2020.

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discovers oneself within a burnt and dead landscape of charred remains has a rippling effect across not only one devastating event, yet through multiple generations and neighbouring areas as new spatial interrelationships are created. Former mountains, rivers, or iconic natural features that remained a reliable and consistent form of reference for situating oneself within a landscape, both in a tangibly spatial and intangibly metaphysical manner, suddenly cease to exist as the blanketing fabric of pine needles and leafs reveal a homogenous experience of space stretching across a vast network of vertical posts. As such, the ways in which one may use and respond to the “desolate environment” vastly changes and becomes fixed to the burn itself rather than the remaining geomorphological qualities of a territory. In short, an entire culture and heritage linked to the

numerous “offerings” that a dense forest provided to a dependant rural community completely reorients itself towards attempting to “re-understand” or “revalue” the means by which they associate themselves and their own belief systems within an opposing landscape of “blackness.” For example, Sweden’s 2014 wildfires that occurred in a previously dense boreal forest entirely reconfigured the means by which local residents interacted with and viewed the newly reformed barren landscapes of dark trees and charred vegetation; the article cited above outlining the primary effects of wildfires on a landscape’s overall identity became a direct consequence and testimonial of such a traumatic event. According to Butler, Sarlöv-Herlin, Knez, Ångman, Ode Sang, and Åkerskog, “on 31 July 2014, a small forest fire was inadvertently ignited 117

forestry machines trundle across the landscape removing the remnants of the destruction; fire damaged timber piled up ready for removal; and heat shattered boulders whitened by the fire, denuded of moss and exposed to the elements.”185 From a single catastrophic event that lasted an infinitesimal margin of time in comparison to the nearly “limitlessly cyclical” successions of development with which the forests and locals relied upon in order to thrive, coexist, and adapt to one another’s necessities across millennia, an entire vast expanse of terrain became unrecognizable and irreversibly altered in terms of its biological, chemical, socio-cultural, and regenerative characteristics; as summers are continuously getting hotter, longer, and drier, seedlings are struggling to reemerge following such intense wildfire events, as previously touched upon, and therefore such landscapes may require unimaginable periods of time to regenerate—although not as their previous state—into a landscape that holds a more flourishing and bestowing sense of nature for its human and non-human inhabitants. Likewise, in the United States, the 1996 and 2011 wildfires that spread over a much larger span of space with much higher burning fuel loads as a result of both the increasingly dryer/hotter climatological patterns and the ill-advised restrictive practices of fire suppression, a whole region stretching across the horizon has been permanently stripped bare of highly visible patches of vegetation and trees. As John Schwartz recalls, “the hills here are beautiful, a rolling, green landscape of grasses and shrubs under a late-summer sky. But it is starkly different from what was here before: vast forests of ponderosa pine. The repeated blazes that devastated the trees were caused by simple things: an improperly extinguished campfire in 1996, a tree falling on a power line in 2011…“we are in the middle of this 30,000-acre, near-treeless hole,” said Craig D. Allen, a research ecologist with the United States

during forestry work in Västmanland County, Sweden. Due to a variety of management and environmental factors the fire quickly spread, to become the largest forest fire in modern Swedish history. By the 5th of August the fire had covered an area of approximately 14 000 hectares, affecting four municipalities.”184 As a direct consequence of this surprisingly insignificant fire that eventually grew in size to completely remold the entire landscape’s physical properties, “nine months after the fire…it is hard not to be touched by the charred desolation; <Fig. 98. A uniform post-wildfire landscape in Kangaroo Island, Australia completely alters rural reality. “Wildfires should be considered a top threat to survival of species,” Sonia Aronson.

^Fig. 99. Sweden’s 2014 wildfires redefined a deeply rooted ‘northern heritage’ as a scarred rural identity. “Landscape identity, before and after a forest fire,” Andrew Butler et al., 2018.

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Geological Survey.”186 Furthermore, Schwartz elaborates on these detrimental repercussions that the wildfires posed to the general identity of the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico by disclosing that “if historical patterns had held, the remaining pines would by now be preparing seeds to drop and start the cycle of regrowth. But the mother pines are nowhere in sight…in an increasing number of cases, said Malcolm P. North, a research scientist with the United States Forest Service…“after the satellite trucks leave and everyone goes home, you have a charred condition on the landscape that does not have a historical precedent.”’187 Similar to the case of the Swedish wildfires of 2014, the “emptiness” of the landscape took precedence over the unique geological stratifications of the canyon’s valleys due to the mere proportion and magnitude at which the

burns were visible across the expansive territory in contrast to “living elements.” Perhaps most “dauntingly” of all is the fact that a blackened and empty landscape becomes abstract; the charred remains fuse together to create a uniform “burned aesthetic” across the landscape—that in the words of Malcolm P. North—“have no historical precedent”; in other words, the physical act of burning a landscape renders it as a tabular rasa and terra incognita—ideal conditions, despite the “negative” aspects, to reimagine itself as a new space devoid of any prior connotations—the “ideal” landscape, in the most “literal sense” following the previous rhetoric of the countryside’s digitization, to adapt to unforeseen changes or demands arising from the world’s rural areas. On a more “beneficial” note with respect to the transformative power that fires hold in remodelling 119

the identity of a landscape is the ancient practice of using prescribed burns over larger patches of shurbland in Australia’s interior by the indigenous Martu people; these practices not only benefit the groups which carry forward the deliberate act of burning the landscape, yet also the entire ecosystems present within the semi-arid regions of Australia’s Outback. In a study formulated by Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding, and Nyalangka Taylor, the authors describe how “at the scale of a burned patch, fire immediately removes vegetation and re<Fig. 100. Arizona’s Santa Fe National Forest heavily altered by wildfires left an “emptiness” in the landscape. “As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West,” John Schwartz, 2015.

duces local animal populations, but it may increase in-patch species diversity (alpha diversity) by interrupting the process of plant succession that results in domination by a few competitive species…across a vast landscape of nearly 500,000 hectares, Martu set approximately 360 fires per year…these hunting fires are very different from lightning fires: they are ten times smaller on average and 10 times closer to each other.”188 Moreover, in more concrete terms, the direct implications of these burnt areas have a chain reaction across the network of inhabitants re-

^Fig. 101. The Martu homelands in Australia portray a symbiotic relationship between fire, humans, and non-humans. “A Landscape Architecture of Fire,” Douglas W. Bird et al., June 2016.

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siding in these semi-burnt landscapes, where “the patchy landscapes created through several years of wintertime hunting…have significant effects on the distribution of both plant and animal species. Sand monitor density is increased in regions where there is greater environmental heterogeneity: the higher the density of habitat edges—contrasts between new burns, regrowing vegetation, and old-growth— the higher the density of monitor lizards.”189 Markedly, these newly created landscapes by the Martu people, although “artificially” altered to serve their hunting interests, serve a greater purpose of ensuring that the contributing species within the symbiotic network of fire, humans, flora, and fauna all collectively benefit from and even severely depend on this interconnected system of survival. Unfortunately, however, due to the settler’s “fire suppressive” mentality, such practices are slowly disappearing and so too are the diverse species which depend on them. As stated before, in an age where anthropogenic forces dominate the global trajectory and newly constructed modes of reality, such socio-cultural belief systems, in addition to numerous other advanced forms of “ecologically supportive technology,” remain the sole factors which will suggest a possible future where we may be able sustainably co-inhabit the planet and ensure its continued regenerative proprieties.

decades of fire suppression, often threatening communities that are expanding into wildlands. Wildfire seasons are beginning earlier and summer droughts are more pronounced, likely enhanced by global climate change. Given the extent of forests in B.C.’s mountainous terrain, most communities are at risk of burning during a wildfire.”190 In more depth with respect to one of the key factors that have been driving this upward trend of increased fire intensity and frequency, “an unintended consequence of suppression has been to increase forest densities and fuel loads in the dry forests of British Columbia, making them more susceptible to severe fire that is difficult to control and may threaten human communities—a phenomenon known as the fire-suppression paradox.”191 With the interruption of the naturally occurring fire cycle ensuring a lower density of dead organic matter and prevalence of mature trees that are more resistant to smaller “bush fires,”—a direct result of the settler’s mentality that fires posed serious threats to newly constructed infrastructure— the overall fires grew in size as they were able to quickly spread across the dense touching canopies and were further fuelled by the highly flammable dry and dead ground vegetation. Coupled with the deteriorative impacts of climate change and population levels increasing throughout the province—of key concern with the newly emerging trend of shifting towards rural areas hence increasing the wildland-urban interface—the wildfire situation in B.C., and Canada as whole, has been rapidly accelerating towards unprecedented levels, damaging the sensitive ecosystems, communities, economic statuses, and overall identities of the countryside. In terms of the statical numbers that are illustrating these alarming guiding factors on the current wildfire situation in B.C. and Canada, they reinforce an already dire situation in need of upmost attention if these current patterns of change are to subdue or occur at much more manageable, controllable, and

Wildfire Statistics The wildfire causes and consequences within a British Columbian or Canadian context pose similar threads and implications with the previously discussed primary components outlining the impacts that wildfires have on altering the identity of rural communities worldwide. Generally speaking, “in the past 15 years, high-intensity wildfires have burned through forests altered by mountain pine beetle or

>Fig. 102. (Top). Historic trends in wildfires (1981–2010) represent “normal” patterns of fire occurring in drier and hotter semi-arid regions. “Fire Weather Normals,” Natural Resources Canada.

>Fig. 103. (Bottom). Contemporary wildfire conditions worsen across multiple biogeoclimatic zones of Western Canada (July 25, 2018). “Fire Weather Normals,” Natural Resources Canada.

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contained levels. For example, with respect to the contributive factor of climate change on the increase in wildfires, a primary “reference point” serving as a validation of its undeniable presence within the overall equation is the climb in lighting strikes occurring throughout the globe and B.C. In the words of Tamsin McMahon, “there is also evidence that climate change is making lightning strikes, which are frequent causes of wildfire, more common. In a 2014 study published in the journal Science, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, estimate that lightning strikes could increase in number by 50 per cent throughout the 21st century.”192 As lightning strikes increase across the globe, a prime contributor and initiator to the wildfire question is elevated to concerning levels of propagation across formerly unaffected areas such as arctic landscapes where the drier conditions of these “cold deserts” may form the ideal conditions for extremely vast shrub and ground cover fires uninterrupted by a lack of tree cover and further fuelled by heavy winds—the catastrophic effects of which shall be most noticed in the already endangered arctic and subarctic ecosystems. Another unsettling element that is statistically fuelling these fires—in direct correlation to the countryside theory with which this thesis is based upon—is the increased spread of the wildland-urban interface that is of greatest concern in the short-term perspective to the incoming and existing demographic migrating to rural areas across Canada and B.C. As Tamsin McMahon re-stresses, “Canadian Forest Service fire scientist Lynn Johnston estimates that roughly 60 per cent of municipalities and First Nations reserves in Canada have been built within 5 kilometres of large fire-prone areas…experts believe those development pressures will only continue to grow as local municipalities permit more development in fire-prone areas to solve affordable housing shortages and boost property tax revenue.”193 With this newly incoming

<<Fig. 104. (Top). As prescribed burning decrease across B.C.’s timeline, wildfires are fueled by excessive amounts of vegetation. “In wildfire-prone B.C. and California,” Tamsin McMahon, 2018.

surge of urban dwellers—looking to flee the overpriced and over-stimulated urban centres—towards these small rural communities lacking the necessary and well-planned infrastructural interventions to deal with this incoming influx of newcomers, the entire buffer zone between expansive stretches of woodland and communities will shorten, in addition to increase in the number of “contact points”; formerly well-protected and structured communities will now be at risk as they attempt to juggle over-exhaustive project timelines, new modes of thinking and working in the countryside, housing prices, and “firewire” urban design. In sum, all of the above direct consequences and distressing statistics associated with the “fuelling” ingredients of wildfires across B.C. and Canada have resulted in an even more disconcerting economic situation where although new sustainable models of fire suppression, prevention, and research are necessary to steer the curve towards a more manageable “firescape,” the already detrimental effects of the past couple of wildfire seasons—in addition to the seasons to come as formally unburned landscapes face their “turn” in this vicious cycle of “megafires”—prevent such measures to be taken as previous events need to be accounted for. For instance, “a Canadian study has projected that fire suppression costs in the country will increase by 60-119% by the end of the century due to climate change. Annual fire suppression costs in Canada averaged $537 million from 1970-2009, but this study projected that figure would increase to between $1 billion and $1.4 billion by the end of the century. Additionally, fire seasons that we currently consider to be extreme in B.C. (i.e. occur once every 10 years) could eventually become the new norm; as many as two out of every three fire seasons could be “extreme” by the end of the century.”194 This vast increase in the costs associated with simply just managing and coping with the growlingly destruc-

<<Fig. 105. (Bottom). With the number of wildfires increasing across BC, evacuations occur more often, hence putting communities at risk. “Wildland fire evacuations,” Gov. of Canada, 2020.

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<Fig. 106. (Top). B.C. will drastically change over the course of the 21st century; the province is becoming more arid. “Can B.C.’s forests cope with climate change?,” David Jordan, July 9, 2015.

<<Fig. 107. (Bottom). Growing arctic lighting strikes are proof that climate change is impacting global wildfires. “Is lightning striking the Arctic more than ever before?,” Alexandra Witze, 2020.

^Fig. 108. B.C.’s wildfire threat analysis reveals a province with unimaginable fuel loads for future ‘megafires.’ “2019 Provincial Strategic Threat Analysis BC Wildfire Service,” Gov. of B.C., 2019.

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tive effects of “megafires” will place a huge strain on the Canadian economy and detract resources from being put into places where they need to be focused so that wildfire management becomes a question of prevention rather than suppression. Lori Daniels, Robert Gray, and David Bowman conclude with the fact that “for many communities in B.C., it is not if, but when, wildfire will pose a threat. The necessary home renovations, forest thinning and other mitigation activities require substantive, sustained funding so they can be applied consistently across large areas to ultimately make forests and communities resilient.”195 The emergency of the national wildfire situation must be taken as a major priority in terms of municipal, provincial, and federal agendas related to the future of Canada’s highly sensitive rural and increasingly populated areas that were formerly “ignored” due to their economic and political “short-comings” with respect to their urban powerhouses. On a more immediate level, the changes begin with the residents themselves, where individual acts of fire prevention such as home maintenance, knowledge of emergency response guidelines, “fire smart” daily practices, and a deep understanding or appreciation for the forces and significant roles that our forests play in the well-being with respect to our daily lives all have a monumental influence as a collective force in reshaping our ability to deal with the loss of forests and highly treasured national identity of a “breathtakingly sublime” wilderness.

Columbia’s recorded history. Due to an extended drought in the southern half of the province, forest firefighters faced conditions never seen before in Canada. Lightning strikes, human carelessness, and arson all contributed to igniting nearly 2,500 fires involving more than 10,000 firefighters and support personnel and burning more than 265,000 hectares (ha) at a cost of $375 million…the largest evacuation in B.C. history…involved more than 30,000 people.”196 Most notably, out of the multiple fires that ragged across the province in 2003 was the frenzied fire surrounding the ‘Greater Kelowna’ area, where “the devastating Okanagan Mountain Park fire…destroyed 238 homes, 25,900 hectares, and forced the evacuation of more than 33,000 people.”197 In parallel with the aforementioned causes of wildfires across B.C., the primary culprits of climate change with a rise in lighting strikes, unusually “desert-like” conditions over prolonged periods of time—in addition to a decline in snow melt which further contributes to the drought like conditions—and finally ill-con-

Historic B.C. Wildfire Seasons With respect to specific wildfire seasons that have marked the growing trend of higher intensity, more persistent, and extremely costly fires, the overall impacts of climate change—mainly attributed to an increase in lightning strikes during summer months, unmanaged forestry conditions, and dangerously structured wildland-urban interface areas—have aided in ensuring that dreadful warnings and predictions are now a reality. Beginning with perhaps the most dire wildfire season in terms of its impact on neighbouring rural communities, “the 2003 fire season was one of the most catastrophic in British 127

ceived fire suppression policies all fuelled the 2003 wildfires into extremely high risk populated areas in the Southern Interior Okanagan region. In terms of an even more devastating wildfire season, especially in a primarily “ecological sense” due to the sheer volume of forested areas that burned—as opposed to a greater “civil-oriented” provincial disaster associated with the 2003 wildfires— was the 2017 wildfire season which completely skyrocketed on the historical databases as a wildfire season of unimaginable proportions. Adam Donnelly recalls the painstakingly relentless force with which the fires reigned over B.C.’s countryside by pointing to the fact that “2017 was an unprecedented year for wildfires in British Columbia…“certainly BC <Fig. 109. The 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire (magenta) forced an unprecedented evacuation from Kelowna (top bright green). “Okanagan Mountain Park Fire,” UVic, 2005.

will remember 2017 as one of the worst fire seasons on record,” Provincial Fire Information Officer Ryan Turcot told CFJC Today. “Over 1.2 million hectares of land burned… just over $561,000,000, just in suppression costs alone… and just the amount of people displaced by this year’s fire season, over 65,000 people were evacuated over the course of the summer.” It all seemed to come at once, as a result [of] record high temperatures in early July and a lack of precipitation; just two factors that made 2017 the worst fire year on record.”198 Once again alluding to the hotter and drier summers phenomenon in B.C., “historically, people have been responsible for more wildfires (53 per cent) than lightning (47 per cent). But the number of fires caused by humans has dropped off

^Fig. 110. Vast scale of the Williams Lake wildfires in 2017 illustrate the destructive powers of a record setting season. “MLAs unanimous on B.C. wildfire recovery,” Tom Fletcher, 2017.

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precipitously in recent years…[in 2017], more than half (51 per cent) have been caused by lightning and 39 per cent by humans.”199 Furthermore, the sheer consequential effects of these wildfire events were further evident in the provincial status of time, where “the fire season prompted a Provincial State of Emergency that was declared on July 7 and not rescinded until September 15, lasting 70 days. This was the longest Provincial State of Emergency in the province’s history, and the first to be declared since the 2003 firestorm.”200 On an entirely different scale in comparison to the 2003 wildfire season, the 2017 wildfire’s mix of “unlucky” lightning strikes, higher than normal winds, drier conditions, and record breaking temperatures finally caught up to the ‘tipping point’ where decades of fire suppression and lack of emergency preparedness at municipal and provincial levels all contributed to the consequences mentioned above. Finally, of a similar fashion to the 2017 wildfires, the 2018 wildfire season “repeated” the 2017

wildfire season yet with increasingly higher surface areas of forests being burnt, in addition to air pollution levels reaching such alarming figures that at one point the Greater Vancouver region held the title as one of the most polluted cities in the world, a label to the city which is usually unheard of due to its reknowned clean air and ecological preservation initiatives. According to the Gov. of B.C.’s summary page on recently notable wildfire seasons, “the 2018 wildfire season was unique in its impact to almost all regions of the province, and in its record-setting area burned…[where] 2,117 fires consumed 1,354,284 hectares of land, which surpassed the previously held record of hectares burned from 2017 (over 1.2 million hectare)…66 evacuations were ordered, affecting 2,211 properties…[and] the total cost of wildfire suppression reached $615 million.”201 Moreover, a direct consequence of these fires, as outlined above, was the enormous extent at which the wildfires spewed constrictive smoke all across the atmosphere far from their original post of origin, 129

to an economic and temporal scenario that is beyond the scope of the province’s agendas as a direct result of countless years disregarding knowledgeable methods of forest management that have lead to a “tumbling” wildfire effect out of control. In view of the two aforementioned wildfire events that struck a large blow to the province’s natural ecosystems, financial reserves, community safety measures, and overall quality of life in rural areas, urgent schemes have been into place—some of which have already been implemented, and others which are still under process in being realized primarily due to political or economic reasons—aiming to efficiently and effective address the growing concerns arising with the devastating effects that wildfires pose of B.C.’s rural identity. Wendy Stueck presents her audience with an optimistic view of B.C.’s wildfire agenda, where “cities are clearing brush, revamping zoning practices and offering free seminars to homeowners in an effort to reduce wildfire risk, even as development pushes farther into forested areas. They are also creating community wildfire protection plans—a key recommendation from a 2003 review of that year’s devastating fire season—although many have not been fully implemented…the scope of areas to be treated—with predictions of drier, hotter summers—makes for a complex, long-term challenge.”204 In light of previous insights into B.C.’s urgent need for addressing the growing wildfire situation that is placing irreversible stress on the province’s many sectors, demographic spreads, and fragile interdependent ecosystems, policy makers and local residents have slowly begun grasping the calamity of the entire state of affairs by raising their awareness to the gravity of the consequences that wildfires can have on not only the environment, yet also on the individual and collective lives of those who identify with and coexist with the many defining elements that make up B.C.’s countryside; ‘the fire’ has begun to enter within our daily

where “plumes of smoke from the fires are believed to be travelling as far east as Ontario, the Maritimes and beyond—even across the Atlantic Ocean to Ireland.”202 Despite the quick reaction time in attempting to extinguish the fires, Lori Daniels, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia’s faculty of forestry [states] “in many places in B.C., the forests adjacent to communities are so dense that even when you drop water on them from a water bomber the water all stays at the top of the trees and never makes it to the ground where the fire is travelling.”’203 Likewise, although numerous plans were revised and attempted to be put into practice following the 2017 wildfire events, the outright scale of B.C.’s expansively unaltered woodland attributes <Fig. 111. Huge smoke plumes released during B.C.’s largest wildfire season (2018) heavily disturbed global air pollution levels. “Smoke From BC Forest Fires Reaching Cape Breton,” 2019.

^Fig. 112. Cover page of B.C’s “FireSmart Manual” following the historic 2003 wildfire season sparked provincial wildfire prevention plans. “FireSmart Manual,” Gov. of B.C., 2003.

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routine whether we would like to acknowledge it or not.

identity and framework of a specific plot within a forested landscape: Nearly the entire vegetation landscape of British Columbia is shaped by wildfire. The wildfire regime of a place is determined by the frequency, intensity, extent, and seasonality of wildfire, and especially the variability in those components. The fire regime affects biodiversity through two main processes.

B.C.’s Forest Health Factors Ultimately, a set of naturally occurring factors contribute to the general structure of a forest and determine whether it will thrive as a prosperous model of ecological succession or struggle to adapt and recover from an increasingly widespread introduction of natural disasters occurring at levels not seen before. In terms of the role that fire itself has in balancing, and even in some cases, ensuring the existence of certain forests, an in-depth research into fire’s role within the forest ecosystem (particularly of North America) by Roger D. Hungerford, Michael G. Harrington, William H. Frandsen, Kevin C. Ryan, and Gerald J. Niehoff states that “presettlement fire played an important role in nutrient conversion, plant succession, diversity, and stand dynamics in coniferous forests of western North America…logging and grazing altered the role of fire as an ecosystem process. In the absence of periodic surface fire these forests gradually accumulated fuels and became overstocked with numerous dense thickets of young trees and shrubs.”205 A reoccurring theme throughout the “Wildfires” section of this book, large scale ‘Western fire suppression initiatives,’ coupled with primary resources extraction as a means of rapidly accelerating the economic scenario in the “undeveloped” region of the ‘New Frontier,’ have all disturbed the ‘fire cycle’ which not only ensures the overall health of the trees within the forest, yet also the entire flora and fauna of the woodlands that depend on such processes (as outlined in the benefits attained by numerous Australian species from the Martu people’s burning traditions). In a British Columbian context, Ze’ev Gedalof illustrates the role of fires as a critical component in the resulting site

First, the specific fire history of an individual site influences the species that are able to persist at that site, the availability of light and nutrients, the quality of the substrate, and the distance to propagules. Second, variability in the fire regime across the landscape gives rise to environmental heterogeneity across the landscape—favouring different assemblages of species. Variability in climate at scales of seasons to years contributes to variability in the relative abundance of fuels and the flammability of the site.206 Hence, it becomes apparent how fire—generally labeled as a destructive force capable of completely eradicating all plant and animal species present— has the capacity to steer the sensitive and highly interconnected ecosystem which ‘sprouts’ through the fire’s ability to regenerate and “restart” a forested area; as fire is such a form-altering force, the magnitude, time, location, and frequency of fires all determine the evolution of the biogeoclimatic zones throughout B.C., which in turn determines the future physical identity of large expanses of land in the countryside. In other words, the future of B.C.’s

>Fig. 113. (Top). Periodic and contained fires lead to greatest levels of biodiversity. “Black dots in low-severity fire regimes are very old patches of large, old trees being killed by insects and decomposed by fire, and gray dots are emerging pole-size stands that have less defined edge.” Quoted p. 30, Northwest Science journal, volume 72. Redrawn. “The Landscape Ecology of Western Forest Fire Regimes,” James K. Agee, 1998.

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>Fig. 114. (Bottom). Forest homogeneity due to proposed wildfires in Ta Ta Creek leads to more susceptible conditions. “Modeling the effects of forest succession,” Taylor, Baxter, and Hawkes, 1998.

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rural areas is profoundly shaped by the reformative attributes of fire. Proceeding towards a more refined exploration of the factors that determine the comprehensive “productivity” that emerges out of landscapes following a specific type of fire event, the frequency, in addition to the magnitude, at which fires burn determines the amount of biodiversity that is present within a forested ecosystem. As Ze’ev Gedalof utters, “one important theory that has been developed to explain the role of fire in regulating biodiversity is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis…proposed by Joseph Connell in 1978…[where] areas that burn very frequently will contain only those species that tolerate frequent burning; areas that never burn will contain only species that are shade tolerant; however areas that burn with intermediate frequency will contain populations from both groups resulting in the highest biodiversity.”207 As a result, neither extreme forms of fire suppression, nor the consequential “megafire” aftermath that follows such constrictive policy makings, contribute to healthy levels of biodiversity and harmony within the cross-relationships between the numerous species at play in maintaining a self-sustained model of growth; an “intermediately severe” and frequent pattern of controllable fires further the chances that a forest may auto-generate itself and produce numerous types of beneficial species. For instance, in the region of southeastern British Columbia (the Kootenays), the overall biodiversity and climatological characteristics is declining due to the sheer volume of high intensive wildfires that are eradicating many hectares of previously diverse woodland, hence the emerging forests will contain primarily lodge pole pine, as in

the case of a projection model looking at possible future scenarios in Ta Ta Creek, due to that fact that “lodgepole pine is one of the first trees to come back after a wildfire. Its cones are protected by a seal of pitch, and fire or heat is needed to release the seeds. This allows the seeds to stay on the tree or ground for many years until a disturbance such as fire or harvesting provides suitable growing conditions.”208 Consequently, on a larger scale surrounding Ta Ta Creek, according to S.W. Taylor, G.J. Baxter, and B.C. Hawkes, “there was a 50 % reduction in the area of grassland and open forest over the past 40 years while the area of closed and dense forest doubled… the proportion of the study area that is susceptible to a fire with more than 50 % crown fuel consumption over the normal fire season increased from 7 to 14 % during 1952-92. This was projected to increase to 29 percent in 2032 without management.”209 Thus, it becomes evident how through decades of fire suppressive methods related to forest management lead to a declining forest diversity where entire distinct landscapes such as grasslands disappeared due to the overcrowded forests of pine trees and shrubs that grew at dangerous levels, further contributing to the overall fuel loads of the area; the result is a young homogenous landscape projected to be dominated by resilient tree species capable of growing quickly and densely following a heavily effected landscape at severe magnitudes of burning, thus increasing fuel loads furthermore. Another crucial factor determining the holistic wellbeing of B.C.’s forests is the presence of parasitic bacteria, insects, or other “intrusive-like” species that drastically alter the biological structure, physical appearance, greater ecosystem, and even

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neighbouring communities as numerous economic sectors and socio-cultural value-based systems become affected due to a loss of forest identity, useable wood, and ecological stability. Amalesh Dhar, Lael Parrott, and Christopher D.B. Hawkins depict the concerning infestation in B.C. with the following statistical figures:

ably uncontrolled wildfires rage on at unprecedented levels, which in turn leads to even more wildfires targeting formerly heterogeneous and diverse spots of land as the carbon sequestered from fires further warms the climate up, hence contributing to even more fires that create the ideal successional models of forest growth with which the mountain pine beetles thrive on; in other words, an “unbreakable” cycle of more fires, less diverse forests, ideal climatic conditions for pests, and increasingly dense young forests of less fire resistance as opposed to more mature trees with ample dead vegetation all drastically alter a forest’s overall DNA. As Dhar, Parrott, and Hawkins stress, “after tree death, needles fade to red within a year of attack (red stage) and risks of ignition, torching, and canopy fire are expected to increase due to lower leaf moisture content (10 times lower in foliar moisture content compared to green needles), non-fiber carbohydrates and fats, which increase flammability.”211 Consequently, the entire organization and state of the forests are recomposed of new dominant types of species and their respective behaviour patterns with respect to the whole ecosystem, where “due to MPB attack, forest changes will primarily be related to species abundance, composition and condition of residual secondary structure/trees. As attacked trees die and more light reaches to the forest floor, advanced regeneration and understory vegetation display enhanced growth rates.”212 Firstly, not only are the emerging forest becoming increasingly homogenized and susceptible to the devastating effects of vast wildfires, but the previously alive trees that have been killed by the mountain pine beetle also become much more combustible, thus further increasing the intensity

The rate of spread and severity of the current outbreak is the largest recorded in the history of Canada, infesting >20 million hectares of pine forest in western Canada. Climate change (winter minimum temperatures that are too warm to cause beetle larval mortality) and effective forest management (e.g., harvest regulation, fire suppression that maintained an abundant mature pine tree population across the landscape leading to homogenous stand structures) are considered major factors which expedited the expansion of MPB outbreaks in BC. Typically, MPB attack large or old individuals (diameter >20 cm or >60 years of age) of pine. However, due to the severity of the current outbreak, MPB even attacked young pine trees…the current MPB epidemic has already killed a cumulative total of 723 million of pine (53% of the total merchantable pine volume) in BC.210 This “domino effect” of fire suppression leads to denser homogenous forests of primarily lodgepole pine throughout much of B.C.’s interior where size-

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<Fig. 115. (Left to right). Succession of 80 years at Lick Creek (US) depicting an overly dense and homogeneous forest. “Modeling the effects of forest succession,” Lucinda McBride, 2017.

^Fig. 116. B.C.’s forests are gradually dying in plots of infected trees stands, affecting both the physical and ecological identity. “Projected Percentage of Pine Killed by 2024,” Gov. of B.C., 2016.

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and spreading behaviour of “megafires;” secondly, as light reaches the ground in greater quantities as a result of needles loss, the vertical structure of the forest’s levels restructures itself to favour ground vegetation growth and surviving trees—formerly dominate species are now moved to the bottom of the food chain, whilst others simply have to relocate to new tree stands or perish in the unfavourable conditions. Dhar, Parrott, and Hawkins suggest that “post-beetle management should seek to reconcile social, ecological and economic objectives, retaining a patchwork of the best residual stands at the landscape scale, combined with salvage logging if necessary in stands where economic and ecological recovery objectives can best be met using this approach.”213 By combining the best interests of the contradictory needs of a highly diversified rural scenario surrounding these infected forest—where some communities favour the economic benefits of salvaged dead trees as primary resources, whilst others reknowned for their “amenities-based” modes of living prefer to retain the collective identity with which the local landscapes provide to locals, newcomers, and tourists alike—the overall situation seems to benefit all parties involved; perhaps most important of all, the assurance of the continued self-sustaining properties tied to these increasingly disappearing diverse and ancient forests will be the greatest challenge moving forward in a changing rural and biogeoclimatic identity of B.C. In conclusion, it appears that there are many forces at play which may steer the world-renowned forests of British Columbia towards a path of self-regeneration, prosperity, and diversity, or inversely towards a more doomed path of “self-destruction,” complete uniformity, and lack of successional capabilities—fire, insects, and other seemingly “intrusive” forces all have their important role in ensuring the continued distinctiveness of B.C.’s flora and fauna, however all of these factors must be contributing in moderation if their “healing” properties are to be felt otherwise. With respect to the distinctive identity of B.C.’s ancient forests which have been both the “sacred towering neighbours” and building blocks of an equally primordial indigenous peoples, “old forests, especially those with very large trees, are the

product of ancient ecosystems, an icon of British Columbia’s landscape, and a key aspect of the province’s unique identity. In addition to their intrinsic value, the timber they provide is an economic mainstay, and was once the province’s main economic driver. The same forests anchor ecosystems that are critical to the wellbeing of many species of plants and animals, including people, now and in the future.”214 B.C.’s distinct forests not only contribute to the overall identity of the province, yet also the entire socio-cultural, ecological, economic, and even political structure of the province; from a certain viewpoint, B.C.’s “prehistoric” forests are the core to our daily lives as British Columbians—in both an indirectly metaphysical manner and as a physically present element, everything we produce, value, and reinterpret has been built around these “natural cathedrals” of timber. According to XPRIZE and Kimberly-Clark, a collaboration between two separate organizations aiming to respond to the global forest crisis, the solution to managing our forests lies in a harmonious balance between the “past and present”—“nature” and “ the artificial”—“high tech and low tech”; in other words, the key lies in the power of dualities: We must maintain our forests for the next generations, but it is still unclear how this can be done. We need the benefits of forests right now. The growing population needs food—more and better food than ever before…as human beings reach prosperity and feel secure in the present, they start searching for meaning—and can find it in the beauty and deep calmness that can often be found in the forests…instead of choosing one or the other—wild forests untainted by technology or cold machinery to replace the forests’ functions—we must seek the balance. We need to find the best ways to integrate both human-made machines and the “natural” ones—i.e., those created via the process of natural selection and incremental evolution.215 In sum, if we are to continue ensuring the continued 136

appreciation of our increasingly “amenities-based” lifestyles and newly emergent desires of migrating to the countryside as global urban centres become incessantly overcrowded, over-polluted, and over-exhausted, the immensely vast carbon sinks and “lungs” of our planet need to be managed, structured, and reformed in such a way that both anthropogenic and natural-based modes of “intervention” are either guided to unfold in naturally occurring

patterns or entirely manipulated in scenarios where nature lacks the ability to regenerate itself; to re-emphasize, our role on this planet as the primary actors in contrast to our previous status of mere spectators generation ago serves as the missing link in ensuring the continued survival of not only our forests, yet also ourselves.

^Fig. 117. B.C.’s 1,500 year old inland temperate rainforests of cedars reaching 60 meters need “human and natural” forces to ensure survival. “Amid forestry struggles,” Sarah Cox, 2020.

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171. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.” 172. Walsh, “9. Nature Is Over,” 1. 173. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.” 174. Walsh, “9. Nature Is Over,” 2. 175. Gugger, “Laba Manifesto 2016.” 176. Thomas Glade, “Claudius Schulze State of Nature 2013–2015,” Atlas of Places, published April 2017, https://www.atlasofplaces.com/photography/state-of-nature/. 177. Emily Chung, “Some forests aren’t growing back after wildfires, research finds,” CBC News, published December 12, 2017, https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/forests-wildfires-1.4444998. 178. Ryan Flanagan, “Forest fires will become more widespread and destructive, expert warns,” CTV News, updated August 6, 2018, https://www.ctvnews.ca/ canada/forest-fires-will-become-more-widespread-anddestructive-expert-warns-1.4034546. 179. Karl Mathiesen, “Northern fires caused almost a quarter of global forest loss.” 180. Andrew Mendelson and Andrew Gage, “The science behind B.C.’s forest fires,” West Coast Environmental Law, published December 4, 2017, https://www. wcel.org/blog/science-behind-bcs-forest-fires. 181. Justine Calma, “Everything you need to know about the fires in the Amazon,” The Verge, published August 28, 2019, https://www.theverge. com/2019/8/28/20836891/amazon-fires-brazil-bolsonaro-rainforest-deforestation-analysis-effects. 182. “California’s wildfire hell: how 2020 became the state’s worst ever fire season,” The Guardian, published December 30, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/ us-news/2020/dec/30/california-wildfires-north-complex-record. 183. Andrew Butler, Ingrid Sarlöv-Herlin, Igor Knez, Elin Ångman, Åsa Ode Sang, and Ann Åkerskog, “Landscape identity, before and after a forest fire,” Landscape Research 43, no. 6 (2018): 885–87, https://doi.org/10.108 0/01426397.2017.1344205. 184. Butler, Sarlöv-Herlin, Knez, Ångman, Ode Sang, and Ann Åkerskog, “Landscape identity, before and after a forest fire,” 878. 185. Butler, Sarlöv-Herlin, Knez, Ångman, Ode Sang, and Ann Åkerskog, 878. 186. John Schwartz, “As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West,” The New York Times, published September 21, 2015, https://www.nytimes. com/2015/09/22/science/as-fires-grow-a-new-landscapeappears-in-the-west.html. 187. John Schwartz, “As Fires Grow, a New Landscape Appears in the West.” 188. Douglas W. Bird, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Brian F. Codding, and Nyalangka Taylor, “A Landscape Architecture of Fire: Cultural Emergence and Ecological Pyrodiversity in Australia’s Western Desert,” Current Anthropology

57, no. 13 (June 2016): 74, https://www.journals. uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/685763?mobileUi=0#.

mail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-the-tide-hasturned-bc-cities-step-up-wildfire-prevention-efforts/.

189. Bird, Bliege Bird, Codding, and Nyalangka Taylor, “A Landscape Architecture of Fire,” 74.

205. Roger D. Hungerford, Michael G. Harrington, William H. Frandsen, Kevin C. Ryan, and Gerald J. Niehoff, “Influence of Fire on Factors that Affect Site Productivity,” SoLo, paper presented at the Symposium on Management and Productivity of Western-Montane Forest Soils, Boise, ID, April 10–12, 1990, https:// forest.moscowfsl.wsu.edu/smp/solo/documents/GTRs/ INT_280/Hungerford_INT-280.php.

190. Lori Daniels, Robert Gray, and David Bowman, “We created B.C.’s wildfire problem – and we can fix it,” The Globe and Mail, published July 13, 2017, https:// www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/we-created-bcswildfire-problem-and-we-can-fix-it/article35686104/. 191. Daniels, Gray, and Bowman, “We created B.C.’s wildfire problem.” 192. Tamsin McMahon, “In wildfire-prone B.C. and California, urban sprawl and bad planning are fuelling future infernos. What can we do?” The Globe and Mail, published September 3, 2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/world/article-in-wildfire-prone-bc-and-california-urban-sprawl-and-bad-planning/. 193. McMahon, “In wildfire-prone B.C. and California, urban sprawl and bad planning are fuelling future infernos.” 194. Mendelson and Gage, “The science behind B.C.’s forest fires.” 195. Daniels, Gray, and Bowman, “We created B.C.’s wildfire problem.” 196. “Wildfire Season Summary, 2003,” Gov. of B.C., accessed February 4, 2021, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/ content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire-history/wildfire-season-summary. 197. Amy Judd, “10 years later: Remembering the Okanagan Mountain Park fire (Gallery),” Global News, published August 16, 2013, https://globalnews.ca/ news/784424/10-years-later-remembering-the-okanagan-mountain-park-fire-gallery/. 198. Adam Donnelly, “Wildfire 2017: A look back at the worst fire season in BC’s history,” CFJC Today, published November 7, 2017, https://cfjctoday. com/2017/11/08/wildfire-2017-a-look-back-at-the-worstfire-season-in-bcs-history/. 199. Tara Carman, “Area of B.C. burned by wildfires at a 56-year high,” CBC News, published July 29, 2017, https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/areaof-b-c-burned-by-wildfires-at-a-56-year-high-1.4226227.

206. Ze’ev Gedalof, “Fire and Biodiversity in British Columbia,” ed. Brian Klinkenberg, Biodiversity of British Columbia (Vancouver: Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, 2020), https://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/ FireandBiodiversityinBritishColumbia.html. 207. Gedalof, “Fire and Biodiversity in British Columbia.” 208. “Lodgepole pine,” naturally:wood, accessed February 6, 2021, https://www.naturallywood.com/species/ lodgepole-pine/#:~:text=Lodgepole%20pine%2C%20 the%20most%20abundant,pine%2Dfir)%20species%20 group.&text=Lodgepole%20pine%20is%20a%20highly,come%20back%20after%20a%20wildfire. 209. S.W. Taylor, G.J. Baxter, and B.C. Hawkes, “Modeling the Effects of Forest Succession on Fire Behavior Potential in Southeastern British Columbia” (conference research paper, III International Conference on Forest Fire Research 14 Conference of Fire and Forest Meteorology, vol. 2, Luso, Portugal, November 16–20, 1998): 2059, https://www.researchgate.net/ publication/274383843_Modeling_the_effects_of_forest_succession_on_fire_behavior_potential_in_southeastern_British_Columbia. 210. Amalesh Dhar, Lael Parrott, and Christopher D.B. Hawkins, “Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia: Stand Dynamics, Management Response and Ecosystem Resilience,” ed. Jarmo K. Holopainen and Timothy A. Martin, Forests 171, no. 7 (August 5, 2016): 2–4, https://doi.org/10.3390/ f7080171. 211. Dhar, Parrott, and Hawkins, “Aftermath of Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak in British Columbia,” 5–6. 212. Dhar, Parrott, and Hawkins, 3.

200. “Wildfire Season Summary, 2017,” Gov. of B.C.

213. Dhar, Parrott, and Hawkins, 11.

201. “Wildfire Season Summary, 2018,” Gov. of B.C.

214. “A New Future for Old Forests: A Strategic Review of How British Columbia Manages for Old Forests Within its Ancient Ecosystems” (British Columbia: Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, 2020), 18, https://engage.gov. bc.ca/app/uploads/sites/563/2020/09/STRATEGIC-REVIEW-20200430.pdf.

202. Jesse Ferreras, “B.C.’s wildfire smoke isn’t just floating across Canada — it’s reaching Ireland,” Global News, published August 25, 2018, https://globalnews.ca/ news/4406758/bc-wildfire-smoke-canada-ireland/. 203. “B.C. wildfires 2018: Premier says wildfires prompted unprecedented second state of emergency,” The Vancouver Sun, published August 22, 2018, https:// vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-premier-johnhorgan-to-tour-areas-affected-by-wildfires. 204. Wendy Stueck, “‘The tide has turned’: B.C. cities step up wildfire-prevention efforts,” The Globe and Mail, published August 31, 2018, https://www.theglobeand-

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215. “The Future of Forests: Impact Roadmap.” (The United States: XPRIZE and Kimberly-Clark, accessed February 6, 2021), 6, https://assets-us-01.kc-usercontent.com/5cb25086-82d2-4c89-94f0-8450813a0fd3/ ea6f88ab-7814-430e-93c2-d2f728af7a87/FOF_ImpactRoadmap_Report_v3_KP.pdf.

“I like to envision something in-between. Not only (between) nature and architecture, but also (between) inside and outside. Every kind of definition has an in-between space. Especially if the definitions are two opposites, then the in-between space is more rich.”216 — Sou Fujimoto

Design Methodology The overall logic with which this thesis project’s interventions is based upon in the second part of the book is that of dualities in representation. A clear corporeal, technical, tangible, perceptible, and quantifiable example of a redefined countryside in British Columbia—particularly a reimagination of Lillooet’s rural agenda—serves as case study in order to visualize, experience, and sense a new mode of living, working, and playing within an increasingly fire-prone “natural realm” that is beginning to take many new shapes, personas, and connotations as intensive wildfires and emerging rural trends drive this evolutionary process. In contrast to a more “traditional” representation taking into account a specific design proposal with a precise set of parameters for a well-defined site, the “contextually” theoretical substrate that thematically and conceptually steers the project’s design process follows more of a speculative and open-ended analysis towards a set of spatial scenarios that generally comprise any given site—urban, architectural, and landscape constituents—which act as a guideline (as mentioned in this book’s introduction) with the aim of reappropriating this specific Lillooet-based approach to restructuring the rural countryside within different regions and communities of British Columbia. Hence, in order to ensure that the above mentioned “juxtaposed dualities” of offering a reformed vision with respect to the future of the countryside in B.C. are well depicted, the three previously stated “tools” in the introduction are utilized in ensuring that the same rationale may be applied elsewhere in the province, country, and perhaps even globe depending on other factors at play: scale (urban, architectural, and landscape), time (past, present, and future), and place (socio-cultural, ecological, and economic forces). In a more specific sense, the scales with respect to the “size” of the various urban, architectural, and landscape interventions begin at a

“territorial” scale highlighting external forces at play (extra large), followed by an “all-encompassing” master plan approach summarizing emerging patterns (large), then zooming to a “site specific” focus at an intermediate level of detail (medium), and finally culminating into a human-oriented level (small) which ultimately offers the “greatest” appreciation of the experiential and material properties of the prototypal rural community. With respect to the design language, philosophy, and formal or typological strategies of carrying out the various urban, architectural, and landscape interventions, a key aim is in attempting to balance the implications associated between “technologically advanced or highly digital” modes of resolving a spatial condition and more “traditional or heritage-based” solutions stemming from “timeless” agendas such as social incentives, a multilayered collaboration between multiple groups, “artisanal” methods of construction, and a heightened use of “fundamental yet potent” naturally occurring phenomena such as light, shadow, materiality, and spatial relationships; the resultative collective scenarios paint an eclectically and highly suggestive “real,” hypothetical, and imaginary image of a new rural identity that is both archaic and futuristic, utopic and realistic, exact and imprecise, predictable and unpredictable—in other words, the very malleable, dynamic, evolving, and unpredictable nature of the emerging countryside situation worldwide becomes physically incorporated into a designed simulation of rurality into the foreseeable future. In turn, the observer is able to “enter” this “feasible” simulation as a participant or avatar utilizing the “skeletal” framework-—i.e. ‘The Stack’—which is proposed via a set of interventions as a starting point with which to envision a redefined model of living in the 21st century.

216. Sou Fujimoto, quoted in Simon Knott, “Sou Fujimoto: The spaces in-between,” ArchitectureAU, published September 25, 2014, https://architectureau. com/articles/sou-fujimoto-the-spaces-in-between/.

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Site Introduction A B.C. Case Study: District of Lillooet

exploration of the aforementioned rural and wildfire topics:

The chosen location for this thesis project’s intervention stage, the District of Lillooet, poses a great deal of opportunities and equally important challenges with which the theoretical implications of the evolving countryside throughout the globe and the “practically” urgent climate change effects on wildfires completely reformatting the physical and socio-cultural identity of vast forested areas are tested. With respect to this thesis’ site selection criteria, the following points are key in ensuring an adequate

1) Native communities prevalence; 2) Small/ medium rural town population; 3) High risk forest fire zone; 4) Close to protected or provincial parks/landscape landmarks; 5) Overall surrounding region experiencing population increase; 6) Strategic urban position well interconnected with the context; 7) Possibility of being along a chain of smaller towns with a larger nearby munic-

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ipality.

It becomes apparent how Lillooet serves as a testament to the “natural and wild” identity of B.C.’s countryside, thus providing for the “ideal” case study town to carry out a set of urban, architectural, and landscapes interventions with which to tangibly portray the ways in which rural areas—specifically tied to the ‘Global North’s’ region of North America which is currently lacking such forward-looking spatially reformative visions—may metamorphose in a reconfigured lifestyle of the “digital nomad” and renewed landscapes as a result of climate change.

Hence, in parallel with the criteria listed above, the overall development of the contextual Squamish-Lillooet Regional District as one of the fastest growing districts in B.C. population-wise, the wide spectrum of recreational amenities and infrastructural frameworks, a prominent multilayered historical presence, economic capabilities with respect to “rural-based” industries such as agriculture or agri-tourism, vastly diverse geomorphological characteristics coupled with a semi-arid climate, and surrounding wildfire activity all contribute to a holistically multifaceted rural scenario that encompasses many of the collective properties with which B.C.’s rural identity is based upon. In tangent with these summarized factors to Lillooet’s foundation, an organization categorizing Canadian towns accordingly describes the rural community as follows:

Demographics and Socio-cultural Identity In terms of Lillooet’s demographic patterns, the population growth occurring directly within the city’s boundaries has not really been increasing over the past decade or so primarily due to that fact that “urban living” was still a prominent choice for young professionals and new migrants to British Columbia settling in the Greater Vancouver area as a large economic core with many opportunities. Statistically speaking, “the population has remained steady over the last 10 years at 2350…to stay somewhat conservative, we suggest the population growth rate to 2037 to be 1.0%. This value may be low if First Nations systems expand or are further developed outside of town boundaries.”218 Furthermore, according to the most current “Official Community Plan” for the District of Lillooet composed in 2009, “the highest proportion of the 2006 population (560 people, or 24.2%) was in the 25-44 age cohort…420 people (18.1%) were in the 45-54 cohort, and the third largest segment of the population (325 people, or 12.3% of the total) was between the ages of 55 and 64.”219 Now that 12 years has passed since these stats of the population distribution were last gathered, the most prominent age cohort is bumped up to 45-54 year old layer. Consequently, it appears that Lillooet’s population growth

Lillooet, [a small town of approximately 2,300 people], is British Columbia’s hidden gem...and not only because it is the jade capital of Canada. The town is located between the eastern edge of the Coastal Mountain foothills and the western edge of the province’s interior desert landscape. Steeped in First Nations (Canada’s aboriginal people) culture and rough and tumble gold rush history, Lillooet overlooks the Fraser River, the largest salmon spawning river in the world and the longest undammed river in North America. Lakes and smaller rivers form part of the Fraser River drainage system and the terrain varies from semi-arid desert on one side of the Fraser to rugged mountain and subalpine forest on the other…Lillooet’s slogan is “Guaranteed Rugged”—a testament to its wild and natural beauty.217

<Fig. 118. Lillooet’s central location within the vast rural network of B.C., especially on the “Sea-to-Sky Highway,” creates a chain of rural communities, author, 2021.

>Fig. 119. (Top). An accelerating population in the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District will drastically alter the area’s rural identity. “RGS Projections,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, 2017.

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>Fig. 120. (Bottom). Lillooet’s demographic shift, although smaller than the district’s, will be heavily dependent on external factors. “Report, District of Lillooet,” Associated Engineering, 2017.

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and attraction of young creative professionals to the area is not as accelerated or pronounced as initially predicted. However, given that the district is in the “outskirts” of the booming Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, future growth scenarios for Lillooet may take a sharp turn towards a net positive trend of newcomers as housing prices are driven upward in the Squamish, Whistler, and Pemberton community areas, thus driving people further north along the easily accessible and well connected ‘Sea-to-Sky Highway’ in search of more affordable living conditions. According to the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District’s RGS Population and Employment Projections, “the Region is expected to grow from 42,795 in 2016 to 56,864 in 2036; this represents an annual growth rate of 1.5%…to add roughly 5,442 new jobs between 2011 and 2026…[and] to add a total of 5,518 dwellings over the study period (2016-2036) at an average growth rate of 276 dwellings per year.”220 In sum, although current trends over the past five to ten years are not quickly progressing towards unforeseen levels, the scale at which these changes are occurring contextually paves the path for future patterns to occur otherwise. With respect to the “blanketing” socio-cultural identity that defines Lillooet’s overall character as a rural town of multiple amenities and a “grounded” approach towards appreciating a slower, more introspective mentality of modern living, “in a 2007 survey of residents, quality of life considerations were listed as the best reasons for living in Lillooet. Residents valued the climate, small town friendliness, beauty of the natural environment and reception opportunities as the most valued aspects of their community. Lillooet is gifted with an attractive natural environment and benefits from numerous regional recreational and cultural services and facilities.”221 As urban cores become increasingly overpriced and over-densified, urban dwellers will aim to relocate to well connected rural communities such as Lillooet

<Fig. 121. (Top). The St’at’imc First Nations in the Lillooet area have greatly contributed to the town’s socio-cultural identity. “Charles Gentile-Lillooet Indians,” Wikimedia Commons, 2020.

where remote working as a consequence of an instant digitization of the countryside will result in a surge towards these areas of emerging opportunities and a heightened quality of life in a new “rural age.” Historically speaking, the District of Lillooet housed a number of cultural groups with a diverse set of beliefs, values, and moral systems which in turn resulted in a unique socio-cultural identity that definitively sculpted Lillooet in the “mosaic-like” town it is today. In brief, “Lillooet has a rich history, beginning millennia ago with First Nations that continue to live in the region today. Archeologists have worked with Lillooet First Nations to excavate an extensive village of pit houses and food caches dating back approximately 2,000 years.”222 Later on along the chronological timeline, “in 1860 Lillooet was one of the largest cities west of Chicago, second only to San Francisco. Lillooet’s history is entrenched in the B.C. Gold Rush of 1860…Lillooet was Mile “0” on the Cariboo Pavillion Road (the first wagon road to be surveyed in B.C. and the route to the Cariboo gold fields)…on both sides of the Fraser River at Lillooet one can find “Chinese Rocks”—a reminder of the search for gold by Chinese people before the turn of the century. Washing the sand and gravel for the elusive yellow metal, the Chinese neatly piled the washed rocks, in some places more than 12 feet high, in long rows.”223 In a more recent historical subtext surrounding the global event of the Second World War, “Japanese settlement in British Columbia began in 1877 and when Canada declared war against Imperial Japan in 1941…a group of B.C. politicians persuaded Canada’s Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, to create a one hundred mile “security zone” on the west coast of British Columbia…different kinds of settlements were created…the East Lillooet internment camp consisted of sixty-one uninsulated tarpaper shacks without indoor plumbing, a garage, a schoolhouse/community hall and a community garden.”224 In view of these stratums within

<Fig. 122. (Middle). Lillooet’s mining era of the Gold Rush housed a multicultural scene of native, Chinese, and European inhabitants. “Village of Lillooet,” Library and Archives Canada, 2020.

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<Fig. 123. (Bottom). Self-sufficient Japanese Canadians in Lillooet’s internment camps demonstrated resilience during hard times. “Vancouver Asahi,” The Canadian Encyclopedia, March 29, 2016.

Lillooet’s rich history, the interventions which will follow in the next part of the thesis are in a direct dialogue with the socio-cultural identity of Lillooet’s multiple typological, formal, and material aspects to the town’s situated identity within a greater narrative of temporality (temporary versus permanent shelters), “in-situ” relationship with the geomorphological aspects of Lillooet’s terrain, and traditional modes of assembly.

under cultivation. To sustain a future population of 5,000 that number will need to grow to 2,620 ha.”226 Consequently, it becomes apparent how a direct link between the past, present, and future needs to be addressed in order to ensure that Lillooet is able to maintain its “agricultural” and primary resources roots through contemporary social incentives such as agri-tourism, flex crops, local markets, agricultural research, digitally controlled farming, and new “work weeks” where rural occupants are able to accommodate an increasingly flexible, spontaneous, and dynamic lifestyle. Accordingly, the District of Lillooet has begun undertaking certain agricultural initiatives with the aim of revamping the local economy and overall rural identity of the community by investing in new sectors within the agricultural field, introducing new forms of collaboration between local, farmers, and external parties, and exploring new methods of sustainable farming that may increase crop yields and overall quality levels. For example, “several studies…highlight the potential of viticulture in the area, and a large amount of investment capital has recently been delivered to the Lillooet area in the hopes of developing a new wine region in B.C.”227 Likewise, “there is an opportunity to increase the commercialization of the local produce industry. At one point Lillooet was known as the tomato capital, but this has been abandoned. The capacity to grow field tomatoes based on local climate conditions remains high. Historically there was a producer of melons, squash, and root crops who sold directly to Choices market. However it is believed that a lack of local labour resources led to the failure of that operation.”228 Seeing that Lillooet has the “correct” platform with which to begin a new agricultural plan in the greatly diverse territorial spread of river plateaus, valleys, and hillsides—coupled with ideal climatological conditions of relatively high temperatures throughout the year and a record-break-

Local Economies The economic situation has been previously successful within the primary resources sector during the 20th century where large urban centres such as Vancouver have not yet reached such internationally reknowned magnitudes rendering it to more of a “megalopolis-like” form of development, however, with an increase in the number of “white-collar” jobs that came with the introduction of the internet in the 1990s, the overall scenario began to slowly decline in Lillooet. In the “Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B, District of Lillooet & St’at’imc Agricultural Plan,” it states how “communities in the region have long based their economy on natural resources. Historically jobs have centered around gold rushes, railroad construction, mineral exploration and mining, hydro dam construction, highway projects, forestry, fishing, tourism, farming and ranching. Downturns have resulted in unemployment, wage disparities, rapid shifts in population, and lost opportunities for associated businesses. Despite these challenges, people are attracted to the area by its beauty and quality of rural life.”225 Furthermore, “although approximately 15,000 ha of ALR [Agricultural Land Reserve] is located in the Lillooet area, the vast majority is not being irrigated on a regular basis. In order to be self-sufficient in food security, 1,572 ha of irrigated land would need to be >Fig. 124. (Top). Lillooet’s main industries of retail, transportation, and health care provide an ideal foundation for a tourist platform. “Labour Force by Industry,” Townfolio, November 2017.

>Fig. 125. (Bottom). A large potential to convert underutilized “green spaces” into agricultural uses serves as a “rural makeover.” “Agricultural Plan,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, 2014.

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ing number of annual sunny days respective to the rest of British Columbia—it is only a matter of time when energetic, young, and creative professionals will seek to test out their progressively minded aspirations in the hopes of bringing “modern living” and the overall rural mode of living back to the countryside.

gan to modernize and a globally uniform mentality driven by globalization has detracted inhabitants from the potential significance of these unique attributes, the community began to slowly shrink in size in comparison to other communities along western North America. A new appreciation for these forgotten qualities has just begun to re-attract “digital settlers” to the area. Of a similar note, the climatological properties of Lillooet pose an equally “quintessential” rural scenario where local environmental conditions lead to unprecedented levels of agricultural production and general comfort as a “pleasant” place to be. In a statistical sense, “climatically, Lillooet lies within a semi arid zone characterized by vegetation such as bunch grass, sage, ponderosa pine, fir and aspen. The average temperature in winter is around -2ºC (28ºF) to -5ºC (41ºF) with summer temperatures around 21ºC (70ºF). Annual perception is just over 30 cm (12 inches) per year.”231 Consequently, the semi-arid conditions which govern the overall climatological patterns over the District of Lillooet, in addition to the fertile soils as a direct result of gradual sediment deposits and erosion from the two main rivers running through Lillooet, contribute to a fairly “unexpected” warm and dry “northern climate” in comparison to other regions of B.C. that fall well below zero in the winter, or simply have too many cloudy days which lead to a lack of sunlight in growing and harvesting various crops (the only other main region being the infamous Okanagan Valley in the Southern Interior region of B.C.).

Environmental Properties The “environmental properties” of Lillooet span over millennia and are a result of many unique geological, climatological, and ecological processes which have shaped it into the semi-arid landscape of rivers, plateaus, mountains, and lakes, all of which are some of the main attraction points which draw newcomers to the surrounding area. As stated in the 2009 “Official Community Plan,” “Lillooet is situated in a diverse physical environment. The mountain ranges, glacial history, the Fraser River, dry climate and wildlife have influenced recent and past settlement in the area. The Seton and Fraser Rivers flow through the community and strongly define the character of the settlement.”229 More specifically, “the benches and terraces of the Fraser Valley are composed of loose glacial and river deposits. As the glaciers melted, they deposited sands and gravels, then the Fraser River began to flood cutting into these deposits, carving the deep and narrow valley that we see today. The benches and terraces along the valley were formed as river levels changed and cut through the glacial deposits and different heights. These glacial and flood deposits make these benches some of the most fertile agricultural land.”230 As a result of long process of sedimentation, erosion, stratification, and fertilization of the soil, Lillooet’s natural identity has become a hotspot for miners, farmers, loggers, and early settlers to thrive upon the many “riches” that Lillooet had to provide; unfortunately, as society be<Fig. 126. (Top). Geomorphological processes have sculpted the region into the main defining factor, i.e. the landscape, that attracts newcomers. “Lillooet Natural History,” Pierre Friele, 2017.

A Fire-Prone Community The wildfire scenario in Lillooet, although not having experienced much significantly devastating activity since 2009 Mt. McLean wildfire, has been a constant threat to the safety of the locals, infrastructural el-

<Fig. 127. (Bottom). A semi-arid climate of milder temperatures and lower precipitation levels leads to ideal agricultural, yet also fire scenarios. “Climate Lillooet Ranges,” Meteoblue.

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ements, ecological balance, and overall collective identity of the surrounding iconic landscapes that both the inhabitants and visitors cherish. According to the District of Lillooet’s “Community Wildfire Protection Plan,” “the District of Lillooet is situated in the hot, dry Fraser Canyon region of British Columbia, an area where wildfires are a natural part of the landscape. Wildfires occur frequently, generally every 4 to 50 years in any given location. Changing conditions in our climate and forests mean that wildfires are posing a greater risk to communities than ever before…the 2009 Mt. McLean fire burned 3,696 hectares and resulted in the evacuation of the entire communities of Lillooet, Sekw’el’was, Xwisten, and T’ít’q’et.”232 In terms of the general forest health factors and after effects associated with the wildfires, “the history of wildfire in the region can be seen on the landscape as a mosaic of young and old forests… the current forest stand structure around the community of Lillooet is strongly influenced by previous wildfire activity, most recently by the Town Fire of 2004, McLean Mtn Fire of 2009 and several smaller fires within the community in 2010 and 2011…

the extensive areas of beetle-killed Ponderosa Pine in East Lillooet and above town are of concern due to the significant amount of fuel loading in the areas of dead pine.”233 Thus, as previously discussed in the “Wildfires” section of this thesis book, it appears that the same key factors which are driving the uncontrollable “megafire” situation in B.C. are also wreaking havoc on Lillooet’s extensive forests surrounding the entire community: previous fire suppression initiatives and the critical role of climate change have lead to an unbreakable fire cycle where as more forests increase to burn, so too does the overall atmospheric temperature rise, further creating even more hot and dry conditions for even more fires—add the mountain pine beetle to the equation and the entire landscape transforms into a current “patch-like” mosaic of young and old trees, where as wildfires become increasingly widespread, younger homogenized forests (perhaps of Pondersa pine due to their superior fire resistance) will sprout into place decreasing the overall renowned biodiversity of Lillooet.

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217. “Lillooet, British Columbia,” BestPlaceinCanada, accessed February 9, 2021, http://bestplaceincanada. com/lillooet. 218. “Report, District of Lillooet: Master Water Plan Update” (British Columbia: Associated Engineering, October 2017), 13 (3–2), https://lillooet.civicweb.net/ document/40986, PDF. 219. “District of Lillooet: Official Community Plan” (British Columbia: Council of the District of Lillooet, February 2009), 17 (2–2), http://lillooet.ca/PDF/ Event-Posters/Official-Community-Plan-2009.aspx, PDF. 220. “RGS Projections - Population, Employment and Dwelling Units,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, published May 24, 2017, https://www.slrd.bc.ca/ inside-slrd/current-projects-initiatives/rgs-projections-population-employment-and-dwelling-units. 221. “District of Lillooet,” Council of the District of Lillooet, 76 (9–1). 222. “Lillooet, British Columbia,” BestPlaceinCanada. 223. “Historical Sites,” District of Lillooet, accessed February 9, 2021, http://lillooet.ca/Arts,-Culture-Community/Historical-Sites.aspx. 224. “Golden Miles of History,” District of Lillooet, accessed February 9, 2021, http://lillooet.ca/Recreation-Activities/Golden-Miles-of-History/Japanese-Canadians-in-Lillooet.aspx. 225. “The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B, District of Lillooet & St’at’imc Agricultural Plan” (British Columbia: Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, September 2014), 34, https://www.slrd.bc.ca/sites/default/files/reports/SLRDB_AgPlan_Pt1_FINAL_Sept%20 2014.pdf. 226. “The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B,” Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, 28. 227. “The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B,” 33. 228. “The Squamish-Lillooet Regional District Electoral Area B,” 34. 229. “District of Lillooet,” Council of the District of Lillooet, 82 (10–1). 230. “District of Lillooet,” 83 (10–2). 231. “District of Lillooet,” 83 (10–2). 232. “Community Wildfire Protection Plan: District of Lillooet” (British Columbia: Landscape Consulting Corporation, September 23, 2016), 1, https://lillooet. civicweb.net/document/34000#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20the%20Community,lands%20and%20 adjacent%20crown%20lands.&text=Through%20 the%20implementation%20of%20this,become%20a%20 fire%2Dresilient%20community, PDF. 233. “Community Wildfire Protection Plan,” Landscape Consulting Corporation, 4–19.

<Fig. 128. The 2009 Mt. McLean wildfire’s impact on Lillooet’s identity reformed the local’s environmental awareness. “Images from a province ablaze,” The Globe and Mail, 2009.

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Part II Three Scenarios of Intervention

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“I am not proposing Utopia, but a procedure that provides each community with the choice of its unique social arrangements.”234 — Ivan Illich

Scenario I — Urban Strategies

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Urban Strategies are employed throughout Lillooet as a means to provide a short and long term vision for the expected expansion of the district’s population and connectivity to the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District and beyond. The district’s untapped agricultural sector, potential commercial opportunities, and unconnected recreational/touristic sites allow for a malleable rural-urban growth model to promote yet re-contextualize the unique community identity and geographical features of an evolving rural B.C. town. The analysis begins with a general identification of key circulation, commercial, infrastructural, and residential interventions to accommodate a refined rural identity of the town, along with a reconsideration of the necessary precautions associated with wildfire management. In turn, a more focused proposal is defined within the residential and agricultural sectors as suggested by the district itself, followed by a more holistic yet complex outlook towards the ‘future of the countryside.’

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Fig. 131. District of Lillooet — Aerial collage of a complex rural identity.

<<<<Fig. 129. Sketch of Lillooet’s rural network portal (Node 1), author, 2019. <<Fig. 130. Zoom of the proposed urban strategies in Lillooet, author, 2019.

234. Ivan Illich, Tools for Conviviality (London: Marion Boyars, December 10, 2001), 21, https://arl.human. cornell.edu/linked%20docs/Illich_Tools_for_Conviviality.pdf, PDF.

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Fig. 132. Rural-Urban Interface — District of Lillooet zoning, sites, and connections.

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Fig. 133. Urban Strategies — Short and long term initiatives.

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Fig. 134. DOL Initiatives I — Agricultural strategies intermix technological systems, social identities, and ecological incentives to reanimate Lillooet’s economic scheme.

*note D.O.L. stands for District of Lillooet

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Fig. 135. DOL Initiatives II — Residential strategies take into account local building techniques and materials as a means of creating affordable housing, a self-sustaining model, and a diverse set of amenities for future growth.

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Fig. 136. Proposed Initiatives I — Future agricultural strategies “digitize” the landscape as a “stack” whilst preserving a collective integration amongst inhabitants and their various sets of “innovative disciplines.”

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Fig. 137. Proposed Initiatives II — Future residential strategies are focused on an environmentally aware digital platform that incrementally adapts to its surroundings via flexible and dynamic forms of development.

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Scenario II — Architectural Visions

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The architectural vision for the District of Lillooet is situated in the “Special Area 4 - Airport Lands” of the city’s “Official Community Plan.” The area’s high fire risk, diverse set of programmatic suggestions, ideal view corridors, flat topography, and undeveloped status provides a unique and favourable opportunity to realize an innovative vision for a multilayered residential and agricultural scheme. A 1 km2 area at the northern end of the airstrip is the site of the intervention. The resulting proposal is separated in two scales: a master plan for a successional system of residential relationships and a hypothetically ‘semi-private’ custom country home for an agricultural researcher. The low-density cluster model master plan is separated into two residential typologies: a ‘fixed’ modular incremental urban residential growth model following an intensification vertical growth pattern every 25 years of one, two, and three bedroom units, juxtaposed by an ‘unfixed’ low density rural residential growth model of custom country homes with diverse roles that act as both private homes and socio-cultural nodes within the community.

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Fig. 139. Site of Architectural Interventions — The predominantly flat ‘Airport Lands’ provide a ‘tabula rasa’ with which to test out numerous coexisting residential and agricultural patterns of rural living. <<Fig. 138. Zoom of the vision for a residential master plan, author, 2019.

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Fig. 140. ‘Firewise’ Community Planning — An analysis of fire behavior with respect to urban development provides a well-informed strategy for addressing high fire risks.

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Fig. 141. Fire Risk Factors — An abundant source of diverse fuel types, wind patterns dispersing potential embers from intense fires, and edge relationships between surface types all contribute to a ‘fire-prone community.’

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Fig. 143. Residential Master Plan — Modular housing meets stand-alone ‘community homes.’

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Fig. 144. Conceptual Framework — A gridded logic of indefinite iteration, limitless expansion, adaptability, and dynamism conduces an “occupant-run” mode of management.

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Fig. 145. Urban Details — A system of pedestrian-focused urban characteristics and ecologically oriented solutions for waste and pollution creates a symbiotic relationship between humans and nature.

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Fig. 146. Unit Details — A mosaic of spatial typologies exploring numerous thresholds between privacy and openness follow a “succession” model of urban growth through a modular design logic.

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Fig. 147. Wildfire Prevention — Readily available local fire resistant materials and assembly methods, in addition to distanced spatial arrangements between structures and vegetation ensure a low risk wildland-urban interface.

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Fig. 148. The Pit House.

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The agricultural researchers.

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Fig. 149. Theoretical Context — Pre-existing construction typologies and a tight-knit community profile frames a “customized” rural identity of social interaction within a ‘creative hub.’

Fig. 150. Ground Floor — Semi-private flex space.

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Fig. 151. Details of Function — A cyclical mode of “upgrading” future rural scenarios, use of local labour forces, and site-focused rationales with respect to the “ground relationship” contributes to a “low imprint” design.

Fig. 152. First Floor — Private work-live enclave.

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Fig. 153. A Centralized ‘Firescape.’

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Xeriscape landscaping and a ‘firewise’ exterior.

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Fig. 154. Modular vs. Handcrafted — An interwoven yet contrasting structural logic between “imprecise” methods of construction such as stuccoing and “precise” prefabricated components creates a historical dialogue.

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Fig. 155. Connections — “Passive-based” assemblies of earth, timber, metal, rock, and glass fuse together “organic” and “inorganic” materials to create a redefined rural identity connoting an “artificially natural” dwelling.

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Scenario III — Landscape Identities

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Mt. McLean, the prominent Northeastern peak overlooking Lilloet, has been the site of vast changes over the past quarter century. The high intensity wildfires of 2004 and 2009 heavily altered the perceptible identity of the forested landscape, carving an altered vision of reality in B.C.’s rural regions for locals and visitors. A pre-existing logging road sculpted by the need to manage Lillooet’s growing wildfires risk and a local trail to the panoramic Red Rock view point serves as the site of a thematic path from the city to the peak of Mt. McLean. The 15 km Mt. McLean Summit Path connects 10 distinct yet interwoven nodes promoting Lillooet’s rural and outdoors identity whilst acting as a socio-culturally and environmentally informative pilgrimage on the wildfire risk mitigation initiatives, local native belief systems, geographical features, and wildfire effects of the immediate and surrounding territories. The overnight journey to the peak provides the visitor with a paradoxically personal yet shared experience of a malleable imaginative landscape acting as a sensorial exploration of the place—linking the past, present, and future.

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Fig. 157. High Fuel Load — Previous wildfire events, notably Mt. McLean’s 2004 and 2009 wildfires, have established ripe conditions for future burns due to dried out dead vegetation and a younger less fire resistant pine cover. <<Fig. 156. Zoom of the vision for a summit path master plan, author, 2019.

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Fig. 158. Proposed Incentives — The vast acres of unmaintained and burnt woodland entices local forestry officials in preventing future large scale wildfire events whilst ensuring overall forest health.

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Fig. 159. Post-wildfire Identity — A heavily burned mountainous terrain manifests itself as a juxtaposing system of patched spatial patterns portraying a greater narrative of the region’s evolving rural identity.

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Fig. 160. Forest Health Factors — Parasitic levels of mountain pine beetle infestation have created increasingly dead forest stands that further fuel the wildfire threat and homogeneity of future woodlands.

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Fig. 161. Summit Path Master Plan — A sensorial journey through 10 nodes.

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Fig. 162. Conceptual Framework — A constantly evolving and shifting landscape due to the effects of climate change and anthropogenic measures defines the greater “territorial” identity of B.C.’s future countryside.

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Fig. 163 . Main Path Details — A “staggered” trail design with key “guiding elements” repeated throughout the diverse landscape offers a comprehensive perspective on the many properties that compose Mt. McLean’s identity.

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Fig. 164. Nodes Details — Thematic interrelationships within a “digital” fabric of data points and coordinates are formally conceived as spatially, materially, and “symbolically” minimal interventions along the main path.

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Fig. 165. Wildfire Prevention — A “marriage” between remote controlled wildfire mitigation techniques and a more “hands-on” approach to managing forest cover leads to a low impact probability in the event of a wildfire.

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Fig. 166. A Personal Scale — A salvaged wood clad entrance begins with a scaled down introspective experience reflecting and encapsulating the landscape’s attributes back towards the viewer via an internal 360º mirror.

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Fig. 167. A Fragmented Scale — Interruptions in viewpoints due to natural and artificial obstructions reveal bits of the mountain and surrounding valley in an unpredictable manner.

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Fig. 168. A Social Scale — Meeting points in the mid-range portion of the main path offers an interactively scaled experience through informative and self-reflective themes.

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Fig. 169. A Contextual Scale — Large openings in the heavily affected burn areas of Mt. McLean, along with an altitude-dependent change in vegetation types, introduces the vast geomorphological processes of the site.

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Fig. 170. Nodes 2 to 5 — Small scale structures mold into the local site conditions as a means of placing the emphasis on the site itself.

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Fig. 171. Nodes 6 to 9 — Intermediate scale structures act as landmarks throughout the latter more expansive portion of the trek further juxtaposing the interchangeable threshold between the natural and artificial.

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Fig. 172. Node 10 — Immerse.

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The 360º pavilion.

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Fig. 173. ‘Lighthouse’ Community — Four nearby weather stations revolve around the central outlook.

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Fig. 174. The Compass — B.C.’s Coast Mountains territory reveal itself in the form of peaks and settlements.

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Fig. 175. Pavilion Studies — A contextually based immersive experience is formed through extreme contrasts between light and darkness, open and closed, small and extra large.

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Fig. 176. Pavilion Details — A vertically phased structure connoting a “miners shed aesthetic” transitions upwards from a “dark public realm” to a light filled “private space” in dialogue with B.C.’s Coast Mountains.

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Vision — A Reformed Rural Network

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Fig. 178. Architectural Visions — The pit house.

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Fig. 179. Landscape Identities — The compass.

<<Fig. 177. Zoom of the CNC process for the contextual model, author, 2019.

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Fig. 180. Three Scenarios of Intervention — MDF, wax, and copper. 213

Fig. 181. Site Model Zooms — Lakes, valleys, rivers, and a path.

Fig. 182. The Pit House Experience — A material study.

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“...maybe the question of identity comes down to distinctiveness: that something becomes recognisable, has character and is a bit different from something else. And of course, as you said, there is almost a spiritual aspect to identity. I think there is character in good architecture. It creates place—place that you can relate to, and this produces identity.”235 — Peter Zumthor (in conversation with Juhani Pallasmaa)

Discussion Following a thorough literary review and design methodology of a measurably significant breadth and depth, one can deduce that two key global problems have been manifesting themselves gradually since the turn of the 21st century at an alarming rate: the overcrowding of our increasingly unsustainable urban centres and a radical change in the physical properties of our environments as climate change drastically redefines biogeoclimatic zones through numerous means, such as the potent force that wildfires have in reshaping the entire structure of vulnerable forested ecosystems. The common factor in all of these prevailing issues is humanity itself; if we collectively continue to follow this path and “obsessively manifested” attitude towards mass consumerism, not only will our “natural” counterparts become heavily altered, yet a repercussive scenario develops where the consequences felt throughout the globe’s rural areas will gradually “spill” its “side effects” onto the ways we live in our seemingly protected and isolated “concrete fortresses” of incessant productivity and commercialism. In turn, these two primary factors of “Total Urbanization”—as Rem Koolhaas coined the term— and climate change—particularly felt through the presence of wildfires due to the sheer volume of forest cover worldwide—have an undeniable impact on the future identity of the countryside repeatedly outlined throughout this book. In short, as our daily lives become evermore governed by the all-encompassing “magnetic pulse” of everything digital, we have become increasingly aware of the numerous ways in which we may be able to carry out our daily routines in a more flexible, malleable, and multiversed manner. As such, due to the global issues mentioned above, an increasing amount of young professionals, in addition to other demographic groups in search of a more “introspective” approach

towards balancing the overall “live, work, and play” mantra of modern society, have begun shifting back towards the countryside in search of a reformed amenities-based—as opposed to an economically oriented—lifestyle. However, as an increasing amount of eager individuals begin to undertake this projected migration towards the world’s rural areas, the overall wildland-urban interface reaches a high level of wildfire threat, thus placing future rural residents at great risk in a territory gradually turning into a “firescape” where ‘meagfires’ vastly alter the geomorphological, socio-cultural, ecological, and economic identity of woodlands across the globe. In response to these interdependent factors which are beginning to “threaten” the foreseen self-sustaining properties of the countryside, this thesis attempts to explore a hypothetical rural archetype, the District of Lillooet, as a local, and perhaps even global model of “rural survivability” through a mosaic of interwoven urban, architectural, and landscape scenarios that aim to rebrand, reinvent, and make the general framework of rural areas a highly adaptive successional model capable of an “artificially natural metamorphosis” guided via anthropogenic measures in a world where the future wellbeing of our planet lies in our hands—a different situation in comparison to our early ancestors where the “power dynamic” was reversed. Consequently, through the multilayered use of the three overarching tools that supported this thesis project’s research and design rhetoric—scale, time, and place—a balance of dualities, especially that of the often convoluted interchangeability between the natural and artificial, ensures that the future prospects of a spontaneously unpredictable countryside leans towards a path of self-dependancy, proactiveness, prosperity, and malleability instead of external dependency, stagnation, disappearance, and rigidness.

235. Peter Zumthor, interview by Juhani Pallasmaa, The ‘New Nordic – Architecture & Identity’ exhibition, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, May 7, 2012, https:// wiac.info/doc-viewer.

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Vision The future of the countryside remains unpredictable—it may face the unfortunate destiny of self-extinguishing itself if our pollution levels continue to follow current rates of progression, or with a growing collective understand of our immensely influential ability to surgically alter and even invent new forms of nature at unprecedented levels of accuracy and complexity, we may be able to slowly begin the “reversal process” of inverting the “climate curve” towards manageably sustainable levels, while in the meantime, we globally rewrite our common belief and value systems based on new knowledge bases and data sets. In other words, the future of our immensely vast ‘terra incognitas’ lies in the hands of the inhabitants in a world dictated by data sets, codes, coordinates, and invisible forces. Now more than ever, a radicalization of the ways in which we identify ourselves within an artificially constructed digital realm, in addition to the ways in which we relate to vast reaches of rurality’s “emptiness,” is of upmost importance in ensuring a future model based on freedom of expression, thought, and innovation with the eventual aim of transforming a uniformly mandated global network into a heterogenous collection of diversification, creativity, and curiosity. Revisiting the highly dynamic radical age of expressivity that prevailed through the rapidly evolving social fabric of 1960s, a visionary project stands out as a tangibly real manifestation of the ways in which we may entirely reconfigure how we relate to ourselves, the environment, and beyond:

and probably unconsciously—one of the few realizations of those visions that…developed some completely re-written city and territory, challenging rules and conventions until then globally accepted.236 The “Isola delle Rose” stood as an architectural manifesto masked as a complete urban entity situated within an isolated rural landscape of water; through an igneous outlook that strived to challenge the ways in which we think, interact, mold, and value our core belief systems with respect to our built environments, the “elevated pier structure” directly and indirectly removed the boundaries which we consciously or subconsciously have allowed to overtake our collective vision of a remodelled lifestyle. Likewise, the key to ensuring an “optimistic” scenario developing through the unstructured rural territories of the world is precisely this critical ingredient: freeing ourselves from this “daydream” of hypnotic digitization by reaping the untaped potential of the digital realm’s abstraction in order to create an equally provocative vision of the countryside’s future originating from those that dwell, rather than dictate, within it.

During 1967, Italian engineer Giorgio Rosa developed and financed the construction of “(…) a hybrid project of marine engineering and political experimentation”, in a 20 x 20 metres square stretching above international waters…this island could represent since the beginning—undeclaredly

^Fig. 183. “Isola dell Rose,” envisioned by Giorgio Rosa in 1967, redefined how we may interact with and shape our surroundings. “Speciale Isola delle Rose,” Biblioteca Civica Gambalunga.

236. Giovanni Comoglio, “Isola delle Rose: an Esperanto republic,” Domus, published January 31, 2020, https://www.domusweb.it/en/from-the-archive/ gallery/2020/01/29/isola-delle-rose-an-esperanto-republic-on-domus.html.

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List of Authors: The Noun Project (listed in alphabetical order) Adam Zubin / Adriana Danaila / Adrien Coquet / Aina / Aleks / Alena / Alena Artemova / Alex Arseneau / Alex Bu / Alex Muravev / Alex Tai / Alice Noir / Aline Escobar / AliWijaya / Alsalman / Amanda / Andreas / Andrew Lynne / Angriawan Ditya Zulkarnain / Annette Spithoven / Anthony Ledoux / Anton / Anuar Zhumaev / art shop / Arthur Lacôte / B Barrett / B. Agustín Amenabár Larraín / Bambaleq / Batibull / Ben / Ben Didier / Blaise Sewell / bmijnlieff / Bombasticon Studio / BomSymbols / Cara Green / Catehrine Please / Chris / Claire Jones / clckw / Clément Thorez / Cono Sutdio Milano / Dalpat Prajapati / Daniela Baptista / Danil Polshin / Daria Szymonowicz / Denis Sazhin / designvector / Diego Aguirre / Dong Ik Seo / doni / Douglas Santos / Emily Tang / Eunji Kang / Evan Bond / Evgeni Moryakov / Evgeny Katz / Felipe lvarado / fibo junior / Flatart / Floret B / Franc / Francesco Cesqo Stefanini / Franck and fjopus7 / Free Icons / Fuse Studio / Gan Khoon Lay / Gentry Griffin / Gianne G / Gonza / Grace Mitchell / GREY Perspective / gufron m / Guilhem / Gustavo Brado / gylph. faisalovers / Généreux / Hea Poh Lin / helgamalandesign / Hulstaert / Iga / il Capitano / ImageCatalog / Isabel Martinez Isabel / Ivan Becerra / jabbar / James Cottell / Jamie Carrion / Jamie Yeo / Jhonatan / Jhun Capaya / Jocelyn / Joel Wisenski / John Burraco / jon trillana / Julia Amadeo / Juncker / jyothi / Kaito Bakunetsu Bakunetsu / Karina / Karla Design / Karthik M / Kieu Thi Kim Cuong / Kulikov / Kyle Tezak / Lance Hambly / Landa Lloyd / Laura Breier / Laura H / Laurent / Laymilk / Lero Keller / Linseed Studio / Liv Iki / Lluisa Iborra / LOISIL Charline / Loren Klein / Maciej Świerczek / Malinna San / Manuela Buccé / Marcel Dornis / Marco Livoisi / Maria Zamchy / Mark Claus / Martínez Gerardo Martínez / Megan Mitchell / Michael T / mikicon / Milinda Courey / Mohit Arora / Multiply Graphics / Mundo / Nastja Vivod / Nocionist / Norbert De Graaff / Olga / OneShoot / Parkjisun / Petai Jantrapoo / Postcat Studio / ProSymbols / R. Diepenheim / Ranah Pixel Studio / Richard / Rohan Gupta / Romain Potier / Sam Horner / Sausage / SBTS / scribble.gylph / Setyo Ari Wibowo / Shashank Singh / Simon Mettler / Sophie / Steve Morris / Stevie Bifen / Sumhi_icon / Tanuj Abraham / Tatyana / Ted Grajeda / Tedy Bears / Thays Malcher / Tinashe Mugayi / Tokka Elkholy / Tresnatiq / Vadim Solomakhin / Valeriia Vlasovtseva / Valeriy / vectoriconset10 / Vectors Point / Veremeya / Victor Llavata Bartual / Victoria Codes / Victorruler / Viola, James / Vladimir Belochkin / Wahab Marhaban / Waitala / Wenjie / Woodroffe / yanti / Yasser Megahed / Yazmin Alanis / Yugudesign / Yun Jeong Hong / Yuvaraj / Zahi Asa.

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