MLA/MA Landscape Architecture Graduate Catalogue 2022 by ESALA.ECA

MLA

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

ESALA 2022

INDEX -

FROM THE PRO GRAMME DIRECTORS

R E T H I N K I N G T H E U R B A N PA R K

DEAR GREEN GLASGOW

ARCHIPEL AGO

ACKNOWLED GEMENTS

123

R OS S MCLEAN, MA (HONS) PR O GRAMME DIRECTOR FRANCISCA LIMA , ML A PR O GRAMME DIRECTOR

CHRIS RANKIN WITH SHEENA RAEBURN

A N N A R H O D E S W I T H M A R TA G U E R I N I & N O R M A N V I L L E R O U X

M I G U E L D O M I N G U E S W I T H C H R I S G R AY & H A Z E L M E I

This catalogue is a sample of the work produced by students graduating from the MA (Hons) Landscape Architecture undergraduate and the Master in Landscape Architecture postgraduate programmes at the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. Although this is just a glimpse into the vast amount of material that comes out of the year-long design studios in the final year, hopefully it manages to capture some of the diversity in approaches and methodologies.

The hybrid studio. (Photo: Francisca Lima)

FROM THE PRO GRAMME DIRECTORS

The MA (Hons) Landscape Architecture is a four year undergraduate taught programme. Students graduating this year began their studies in 2018, and since then the world has certainly changed in many challenging ways. These graduating students have negotiated the incredibly challenging times, having to adapt, improvise, and remain focused on their own development through turbulent shifts in both academic and personal life. In their second year all teaching suddenly switched to online delivery, while in their third year we entered a hybrid form of delivery. I had the pleasure of working with them in third year, where they demonstrated high levels of creative and critical practice to produce highly responsive projects to a complex landscape site. Across the MA (Hons) programme students are introduced to increasingly complex and challenging projects, always dealing with “real world” sites, while being asked to consider contemporary societal and environmental issues, such as social inclusion, climate change, ecosystem design and materiality. In their final year, students are asked to respond to an open brief, with the challenge of defining the relevance of a park, as a primary urban public space that serves both social and ecological values. The students responded in a diverse range of intellectually challenging ways; embedding ecosystem designs into city centres, reinvesting community parks with structures to support social interaction, mapping climate resilient frameworks onto urban spaces, amongst a range of socially and ecologically responsive ideas. 5

The graduates of 2022 should be congratulated on their own resilience and means to adapt to such challenging circumstances, which alongside their academic work, should be seen as highly valuable professional skills. Well done! Ross Mclean Programme Director, MA (Hons) Landscape Architecture

Student-led Climate Conversations. Photo Francisca Lima.

Our MLA class of 2022, whose work is presented in this catalogue, began its academic trajectory in September 2020 not knowing yet how Covid-19 would translate into their postgraduate education. They have faced numerous challenges: online lectures; invisible faces in screens; invisible hands in digital drawing boards, distanced or new fieldwork practices and improvised studios in their homes. The creativity and resilience demanded from these students has been inspiring in multiple ways from an even greater commitment to work, steady and enthusiastic, to strong friendships and peer support. Even amid so many challenges, our students still had time to organise and participate in events that added so much value to our school, namely, the Climate Action conversations, the ERSC Festival coinciding with COP26 Glasgow, and our Frictions and Landscape seminar series. This year, the graduating cohort was divided in two units dedicated to the territories of Glasgow and the archipelago of Azores. These two sites have provided relentless enquiry platforms for discussion, theoretical exploration, and both grounded and speculative design proposals. Our MLA programme endeavours to train individual practitioners with distinct modes of practice and fields of interest with the aim that graduates enter the profession with a sophisticated portfolio of skills and knowledge. Design teaching within the MLA programme is research-led and the programme benefits from the studio-based learning typical of an art-college environment. Physical model making persists. Photo: Francisca Lima.

Here at the Edinburgh College of Art we teach Landscape architecture as the combination of creative practice with intellectual rigour in the invention of landscapes for human occupation. Working across a range of scales, from the territory to the garden, it is a practice that draws on a deep understanding of material and cultural history, ecology, geography, climate, and the past and present uses of landscapes in the pursue of positive speculations for the future. I wish our 2022 MLA class a fulfilled professional path and a meaningful landscape-based daily practice. Francisca Lima Programme Director, MLA

Exhibition mockup on the studio floor. (Photo: Francisca Lima)

All graduating students’ work exhibited in the Open Studio. (Photos: Larry Huo)

Rowan Cunningham: Material and model studies for Jewel Park

N AV I G AT I O N R E T H I N K I N G T H E U R B A N PA R K

F R O M PA U S E T O P L AY

L O C H E N D C O M M U N I T Y PA R K

R E H Y D R AT I N G P R I N C E S S T R E E T G A R D E N S

A PL ACE TO BE

‘A L I V E LY & S W I T H E R I N G F O R C E ’

CHRIS RANKIN

ROSIE BOOKLESS – MA

SUSANNAH HORTON – MA

EIRINI KOUMANOUDI – MA

K AT E M A C L E O D – M A

POPPY MAIN – MA

Charlotte Corbett: Sections through interactions

R E T H I N K I N G T H E U R B A N PA R K CHRIS RANKIN The Swiss landscape architect Günther Vogt has stated, “To this day creating a contemporary kind of park remains one of the most difficult tasks for our profession”. The great urban parks of the 19th and 20th centuries have their roots in a desire to positively affect public health through civic provision of access to open space and fresh air, combined with the promotion of an idealised vision of ‘nature’. The MA4 studio this year again asked how the urban park for the 21st century and beyond should be conceptualised and designed in the current context of climate breakdown, health inequalities and biodiversity loss. The student work developed in the Edinburgh Urban Parks studio demonstrated the vital role that landscape architects can play in reimagining both tired and often under used local spaces that nonetheless remain full of potential as well as some iconic city parks. In each case the projects sought to positively contribute to climate resilience and the physical and mental health of citizens. The students worked in groups initially to study the type and distribution of parks across Edinburgh; how they relate to the geology, hydrology and topography of the landscape and the communities within which they lie. The students then used this knowledge to categorise the parks into different typologies base on their potential for transformation.

With ideas deeply rooted in place, the students developed speculative and imaginative proposals during the second semester focussed focussing on both the regeneration and retrofitting of several existing parks and how under used spaces could be re-imagined as parks for the future. Examples of project this semester included the transformation of existing city golf courses into large public parks through considering both subtle and radical changes to spatial design, management and access; the re-imagining of two of Edinburgh’s ‘premier’ parks, West Princes Street Gardens as a contemporary ‘Nor Loch’ and Inverleith Park, to improve their resilience, access and usability; the redesign of several community parks such as Muirhouse Park, Lochend Park and Jewel Park; and projects that looked at the cumulative potential of working with spaces that might otherwise be overlooked but that can be repurposed as outdoor learning, gathering and social spaces.

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The design studio sought to emphasis and reinforce the relationship between conceptual design and technical design rigour. The role and skill of the landscape architect is founded on the ability to be both visionary, helping people imagine what a future landscape will look like; and pragmatic, developing the technical details that underpin the best designed landscapes. The strongest projects in this years MA4 studio show encouraging promise that this group of graduates contain these attributes and I wish them well in their future careers.

Lexvi Sanchez: Central Drylaw Park during dry time and an extreme flood event

01 F R O M PA U S E T O P L AY ROSIE BOOKLESS

Maintained in a fixed state for over 100 years, Kingsknowe Golf Course is a landscape on pause. What does it mean to press play? The extensive use of tools and chemicals to preserve the landscape in a synthetic state has harmful ecological repercussions. Kept for a single purpose and a single user group, the exclusivity of Kingsknowe cannot be justified. A process of liberating and nurturing encourages the landscape, wildlife, and people of Kingsknowe to thrive. This includes daylighting buried streams, allowing vegetation to colonise, and getting people immersed and excited. By allowing Kingsknowe to exist in playful flux, it will develop a resilience to ecological and social pressures. No longer restrained, Kingsknowe can become a space for all. ... so let’s play together.

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Preserved and exclusive vs. A playful space for all

Landscape in time

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02 L O C H E N D C O M M U N I T Y PA R K SUSANNAH HORTON

Lochend Park is classed as a community park, yet it does not serve the growing needs of its surrounding neighbourhoods. Situated near several new housing developments, the park will face increased pressure and use, so it must adapt. The 19th century railways surrounding the park were built to connect areas of the city – ironically, since their closure, they have cut off Lochend from its surroundings. A solution must be found to utilise these linear spaces, connecting Lochend to the local neighbourhoods as well as parks across Edinburgh. The design must be more sensitive to the site’s characteristics – notably a large water feature and exposed cliff face. Neglecting these features has caused accessibility issues, leaving Lochend neglected when flooded. The flux of the water’s edge can be re-imagined as an essential part of the landscape and a dynamic feature can be created from it.

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The park as connective tissue: A strategy

Top: New primary entrance to Lochend Park

Bottom: Connection to a linear path

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03 R E H Y D R AT I N G P R I N C E S S T R E E T G A R D E N S A N A D A P T I V E S T R AT E G Y EIRINI KOUMANOUDI

Cities are in need of new strategies to manage the influx of stormwater. Edinburgh has an extensive issue of surface flooding as the old city infrastructures fail to cope with the more intense and frequent precipitation rates, which due to climate change only continue to worsen. This project introduces the idea of working with water, restoring our relationship with this element while keeping it on site, using nature-based soft solutions allowing the water cycle to be maintained. Many areas within the urban fabric of Edinburgh used to be natural lochs or marshlands that first got drained to create land for agriculture, then built over as the city was developing. Their locations can be difficult to trace today, but there’s a strong correlation between them and areas at risk of surface flooding today. Princes Street Gardens are one those areas – in the past the site of the largest loch to exist in Edinburgh, Nor Loch, while today, they face significant issues with surface flooding. The site’s history and how it relates to the current issues it faces makes it unique. How can a place that once had the largest loch in the city, have zero water today? Does its relationship with the current flooding events suggest something needs to change? This project is inspired by this historic hydrological element and tries to reintroduce these past dynamics by bringing back the ‘Lochs’ through innovative design tactics to combat flooding and create future resilience. In addition it deals with more localised issues within the park that needed attention and care, such as Rethinking Ross Bandstand.

Historical maps: 1690, 1804, 1822, 1840

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Informal amphitheatre overlooking the Ross Pavilion

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Dealing with flooding: Bringing back the marsh

04 A PL ACE TO BE K AT E M A C L E O D

‘A Place to Be’ envisions a future where the Braid Hills are a resilient landscape in flux, where an abundance of species can dwell and where Edinburgh’s residents can challenge the idea of what is ‘enough’ nature. The landscape responds to the climate crisis, biodiversity loss, and public health crisis by prioritising ecological health across a variety of scales. A lasting transformation is possible through a fundamental shift foregrounding multi-species needs. An adaptive ecological approach and sensitively considered infrastructure sets up the Braid Hills landscape to be complex, fluctuating, and un-prescriptive for all who need a place to be.

From hell-thscape to thirdscape

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Woodland Heart Heart Planting Planting Plan Plan CC Woodland WoodlandHeart HeartPlanting PlantingPlan PlanCC Woodland

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Planting in the walled garden

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Scale 1:100

Woodland Edge Planting Plan A

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Woodland Heart

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Woodland Heart Heart Planting Planting Plan Plan BB Woodland

Woodland Heart PlantingPlan PlanBB Woodland Heart Woodland Edge Planting Plan A Planting

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Woodland Heart Planting Plan C

Woodland Heart Planting Plan B

The greenhouse provides a place to start off young seedlings and to gather all year round

R E T H I N K I N G T H E U R B A N PA R K SCALE 1:250

The walled garden when first built (bottom), and in a 100 years (top)

05 ‘A L I V E LY & S W I T H E R I N G F O R C E ’ POPPY MAIN

This project is situated on a piece of land that has more or less been inaccessible to the public for centuries. It has a unique location beneath Arthur’s Seat, and a curious hydrological relationship with two neighbouring water bodies: Duddingston Loch and the Braid Burn. The project sees the transformation of this place into a public park that embraces its rich history whilst moving its story towards the future, all the while placing the dynamics of water centre stage. The point at which Duddingston Loch drains into the Braid Burn is redirected into the heart of the park. Where once the Reverend Robert Walker and others skated upon the loch, in the future the vanished ice is just a memory and in its place is ‘A Lively & Swithering Force’ that will flow through the park in an erratic and fluctuating manner.

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Liveliness, Theatricality, Place identity

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Dolomite boulders are revealed in the drought

Planting in grassy areas

Different species for the grassy areas The grass is to grow long everywhere except in the most popular or most-used areas, where it can be cut short, e.g. at the suntrap.

Dry

Andropogon scoparius Cynosurus cristatus Festuca ovina Panicum virgatum Phleum bertolinii Sorghastrum nutans Sporobulus heterolepis

Mesic

Andropogon gerardii Arundo donax Deschampsia cespitosa Miscanthus sinensis Molinia caerulea

Wet

Agrostis capillaris Alopecurus pratensis Carex ovalis Festuca rubra Glyceria maxima Glyceria occidentalis Juncus effusus Juncus inflexus Phalaris arundinacea Poa pratensis

Woodland planting

Different species for the proposed woodland block

* = North American or Asian origin. This is in order to help mitigate the spread of diseases that may become more prevalent in the future.

Dry

Mesic

Acer circinatum* Acer ginnala* Acer rubrum* Alnus cordata Amelanchier spp.* Betula lenta* Carpinus caroliniana* Chionanthus virginicus* Fraxinus pennsylvanica* Liquidambar styraciflua* Populus tremula Prunus padus Salix alba

Proposed specimen trees

* Wet

Alnus glutinosa Alnus incana Alnus rubra* Alnus serrulata* Betula pubescens Nyssa sylvatica* Salix fragilis Taxodium distichums*

Pinus sylvestris Proposed species for the fractured fairway – Acer rubrum* Aesculus octandra* Fraxinus pennsylvanica* Liquidambar styraciflua* Nyssa sylvatica* Salix fragilis Taxodium distichums*

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Aesculus octandra* Betula nigra* Cercis canadensis* Quercus phellos*

N AV I G AT I O N DEAR GREEN GLASGOW

THE NOMADIC LANDSCAPES

CITY WITHOUT BIAS

L E S O L V I VA N T

INTO DARKNES S

E D G E E C O LO G I E S

ANNA RHODES

CAMASSIA BRUCE – MLA

SIJIN CHENG – MLA

YU (LARRY) HUO – MLA

SHUAIDONG LIU – MLA

GIULIA MORRONE – MLA

Left: Ben Jones, Glasgow as Palimpsest - Overlaid maps 1870s onwards. Dear Green Glasgow 2020-21

Top: Glasgow Garden Festival, 1988 / Bottom: COP26 Street Protest, 2021 (Photo: The New York Times)

DEAR GREEN GLASGOW ANNA RHODES The Dear Green Glasgow studio examined the complex urban fabric of inner-city Glasgow. Two major events gave context to this studio: the Glasgow Garden Festival held in 1988 and the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) hosted by Glasgow in November 2021. As the largest international summit the UK has ever hosted, COP26 was hyped to be a huge moment both for the city of Glasgow and for international climate change policy. The Dear Green Glasgow studio was directly influenced by an opportunity to step up climate action in Scotland; to make our voices heard and to explore the roles Landscape Architects can play in a time of Climate Emergency. For a few weeks, the climate conference animated the inner-city banks of Glasgow’s River Clyde. An area of former shipyards once key to Glasgow’s identity and economy, the last event to activate this area was the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988. Conceived as a regeneration tool to encourage investment in the area and to ameliorate the negative impacts of de-industrialisation, the popularity and investment in the festival offered potential to resurrect Glasgow’s riverside heritage and reconnect the city to the Clyde. Though portions of the site are economically successful, now referred to as the ‘media quarter’, today the social and environmental legacy of this area is questionable.

Collectively the design studio considered a re-contextualisation of the Glasgow Garden Festival to align with COP26. The conference agenda, artist-led activism and satellite activities alongside contemporary landscape architecture discourse on degrowth, nature-culture, materiality and contemporary ruins informed the design of show gardens as platforms to test, challenge and communicate landscape design solutions to complex socio-environmental issues. Launching from the critical concepts, scale and locations of their show gardens, students grew their projects to define a landscape framework and strategic vision for the city. Shifting scales to ground proposals within the specificity of a site, or network of sites, the projects showcase critical thinking and innovative speculative designs that foreground and address pressures such as urbanisation; rising sea levels; flooding; contamination; loss of fertility; loss of biodiversity; resource exploitation and productivity.

Aerial view of the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988 (Image: Glasgow Live)

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View to Glasgow Media Quarter (Photo: Anna Rhodes, 2021)

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Groundwork and an ethos to engage with ecology and landscape processes to develop an understanding of the environment as a dynamic system has been fundamental to the Dear Green Glasgow studio’s design explorations. Walking the banks of the River Clyde and its tributaries we experienced the river’s morphology, encountered human and more-than-human communities, connected systems and discovered remnants of former and current industry. Making closeup observations of water, vegetation and soil revealed micro ecologies, indicated soil and water health and prompted discussions on how we can design to encourage respectful engagement with the critical zone which we inhabit. Reading interconnectivity and making interdimensional readings of Glasgow has informed responsive and bold speculative designs. Top: Jiawen Zhuang. River Clyde and Kelvin Field Walks, 2021 Left: Camassia Bruce, Clais Ju, Xiaowen Xiao, Yibo Zhao and Jiawen Zhuang. In Search of the Critical Zone, 2021 5 3

01 THE NOMADIC LANDSCAPES CAMASSIA BRUCE

Just like the instinctive wanderings of the human and the animal, our landscapes too have seen their terrain move with time. A terrain guided by what the human has inflicted upon it, where the animal moves in tandem, and where the human has been guided by the landscape once dictated by the human itself. It subtly shifts between land — plant — animal — human. A cyclical movement, this often goes unnoticed. As Scotland’s largest city, Glasgow has long doffed its hat to the River Clyde whose historic memories rest amongst industrial provenance. We bypass this, however, and take a fork in the waters, looking instead to the River Kelvin and a history within industry largely washed away. Representing a brackish reality, the saline waters of the Clyde intermingle with the fresh of the Kelvin’s, but go unnoticed from the vantage point of its surface. In this secretive balancing act amongst the flows, environmental responsibilities are equally juggled with social resonance, where, like the nomad, the spaces designed here are not to be tethered into defining roles, more so to be sought out as places accessible for councils projects, community groups, exhibitions, and recreational occasion. The thread of water is ultimately what links land, plant, animal, human. This instinctive sense that draws all four counterparts in their quest for survival, carefully sewn together in the complex web that is life. Nomadic Landscapes channels this guiding force to unearth the Kelvin’s future as a practitioner in a new industry: of culture, creativity, and a sensitivity to our landscape and its many inhabitants.

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1 : 200

EXERCISE 2 : DYNAMIC SYSTEMS

1 : 200 Scale Model, 1 : 200

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EXERCISE 2 : DYNAMIC SYSTEMS

River Kelvin Weir, 1 : 200 1The : 200

The Kelvindale Paper Mill, 1 : 200

Week 6

The River Kelvin catchment observed over periods in geological time

Sloping garden

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02 CITY WITHOUT BIAS C I V I C S U B N AT U R E I N G E O R G E S Q U A R E SIJIN CHENG

Birds coexist with humans on this planet in a complex and diverse relationship. On the city scale, they may be the living monitors of the ecological environment, a crucial node in a small landscape system, working partners of humans, or objects that are hated or need to be managed – for example, pigeons. Birds live in the corners of buildings, and will be expelled for soiling or damaging them. Meanwhile, other undesirable by-products of urbanisation such as waste, polluted soil, and crowds are deliberately ignored. We often don’t think about these subnatures, these troubles that civilisation nevertheless has to deal with. If they were discussed in a wider social and ecological context, would we still insist on the inherent bias toward some and against others? Would we still be so negative when it comes to some non-human urban lives? This project takes birds as its lens and uses the string figures game as model for methodology, to envision a flourishing multi-species Glasgow. Through extensive and in-depth research on subnatures, such as waste, pigeons, polluted soil and crowds, the proposal tries to find their value. First in order to coexist with them, and then to transform them into sustainable landscapes, so as to weaken bias and create a more equitable landscape.

The bird

Past

Research process

Present

Site key elements

Zoom in to the George Square 1:1500

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Solution/Future

The waste facility 1:500

The underground structure

The underground garden 1:200

Concept model

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What happened to Block C?

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03 L E S O L V I VA N T S T O P T R E AT I N G S O I L A S D I R T YU (L ARRY) HUO

My graduation project is called “Le Sol Vivant”, inspired by a French exhibition and the book of the same name. This project is about soil. To save the soil and in response to the climate crisis, I have proposed a restricted forest where people are not allowed to enter during the first 18 years, in order to protect saplings and show respect towards nature. I also want to take this as an opportunity to educate people about soil and make them aware of its importance. As Leonardo DaVinci said “we know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot” – Thus, I have designed a community garden where people can test the local soil and have some soil-related activities. We all know that people make Glasgow, so if they knew better, Glasgow would become better. Materiality has been an elemental part of this project: I have been switching between digital and analogue, working on different surfaces. I’ve experimented and articulated my understanding of the two sites and design concepts through dynamic experiments, sketching, photography and even papermaking. In addition, instead of making a traditional digital master plan, I embroidered my site plan on organic cotton fabric.

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Experimentation using ink

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Left: Masterplan for site one – Restricted Forest / Right: Embroidered masterplan

Top: Pond and allotment

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Middle and bottom: Site two – The Soil Station

04 INTO DARKNES S GUIDANCE FOR REWILDING GL ASGOW AIRPORT S H UA I D O N G L I U

In the context of global warming, the relationship between humans and more than humans is changing. Cities all over the world are seeking ways to create better living environments by developing ecological networks. But most existing urban blue-green infrastructures today tend to favour human over the more than human. Artificial light—light pollution—at night encroaches on the lives and habits of nocturnal animals and increases pressure on urban biodiversity. Glasgow airport, banded by the Black Cart and White Cart rivers, is the focus of this research by design project. The proposal imagines the scene a 100 years from now, rethinking the connection between the airport, the rivers and the city, from the perspective of night. Released from its original function, the site of the airport will return its natural state. At the urban scale, a dark ecological corridor is created. The project proposes a dynamic construction and management solution to face current and future problems caused by climate change. It also rethinks interaction between humans and nocturnal species and designs a new pattern of sharing landscapes by looking into the activities of both.

Creating dark space over time: year 0, year 20, year 60

Top: Human and non-human activities

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Bottom: Airstrip plaza with projection show

05 E D G E E C O LO G I E S GIULIA MORRONE

‘Edge ecologies’ is a theoretical and speculative design-research project that explores the wasteland ecologies prototypical of post-industrial cities through the typological morphology and materiality of the edge. Artifacts of its industrial history, of both its connection and disconnection to a global system of trade and commerce, these edges reveal a physical manifestation of the liquid dynamics of the city—highlighting both its ruination and resiliency. Wasteland ecologies rebound and fill a void when the human element is removed but the infrastructure remains. Typically villainized as nonnative invasive species, they can also be interpreted as critical elements of a biologically rich open mosaic habitat that has the capacity to survive in the novel urban environment. Simultaneously, wastelands formed along this edge feature a unique social element. They are devoid of cultural contracts to which members of our society hold one another. In short, edges transcend eco-centric perspectives of the science to incorporate the human element. They are constantly in flux, evidentiary of the play between human and more-than-human actors—both those present and those long gone but who have left their mark within the hereand-now, created through then and theres. They are illusive, malleable, and dynamic and offer a plethora of opportunities for the designer but are incredibly difficult to design for or within without facilitating their complete erasure. To this end, design had to mirror these non-ecocentric edges in their

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dynamism. This intention realized itself in the development of malleable models that could project and combine edge ecologies within specified future-post-industrial sites (or, sites that will one day be obsolete): Glasgow Airport, Clyde Shopping Centre, and the Douglasmuir Quarry. Making speculative cuts to propagate edges, I create the basis for multiscalar fissures across the landscape, the unique, geometries for each site (ever-expandable by nature of their tessellate geometries) tested by imposing waste-metal constructed trellises to subvert or encourage the ‘wasteland’ ecologies of Glasgow, manifesting in real-life these speculative futures. In my final exhibition, these tested models sat rusted, stained by the hyperlocal ‘wasteland’ foliage of the edges of present-day Glasgow, next to speculative malleable models that showcased a series of imagined, sublime futures. Through radical architectural intervention, this design-research project seeks to reject a practice of erasure through determinate design and challenge preconceptions of the capitalistic valuation of space—a protest against the eye of the designer and a stagnate evolution of place.

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1 | figure name and description - including credits

N AV I G AT I O N ARCHIPEL AGO

T U R N T O S Y N E R GY

D I S A P P E A R I N G I N T O T H E D I S TA N C E

IN TIDES, IN FUTURE

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ISLANDS IN ISLANDS

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L A U R I S I LVA !

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MIGUEL DOMINGUES

JIAQIAN CAO – ML A

TOM STERLING – ML A

Y U WA N G – M L A

M I C H A E L WAT T S – M L A

XIONGXIN XIAO – ML A

“Insulae Azores”, Luis Teixeira (1584) Atlas Van der Hagen, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague

Photo from Duarte Belo’s book Fogo Frio, 2008

ARCHIPEL AGO | THE AZORES ISL ANDS MIGUEL DOMINGUES Island territories are historically places of bewilderment and mystery, enthusiasm and fear, promises and disenchantment, and in a certain way they condensate all the complexity of Human endeavour. These fragments of Earth’s core that emerge from the watery layer of our planet’s oceans and seas still draw upon us all those contradictory feelings. From Literature through Art, humanity has consistently put Islands in the centre of its confrontation with natural elements and the forces of nature. This apparent contradiction hits its highest peak in volcanic islands, such as the Azores. While being a safe haven for humans travelling the rough high seas, they are also these constantly menacing entities ready to start trembling at any moment, revealing in the strongest manner their explosive nature. From the tropical desert island of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe to the fictional islands in William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” and Thomas More’s “Utopia” to the volcanic setting of Rossellini’s “Stromboli” and the idyllic island in Michelangelo Antonioni’s “Red Desert”, islands have been central to narratives of all kinds and populate our imaginary. In sixteenth century Europe the Atlantic islands were the stepping stones into what was believed to be the “New World” and since antiquity fed numerous myths and legends surrounding lost continents and places like Atlantis or Thule. Fifteenth-century Italy saw a new genre in cartography publication with Benedetto Bordone’s Isolario where the promise of showing all the islands in the world represented an anxious way of affirming the world’s domination by old European kingdoms. 87

Corvo Flores

Graciosa

S. Jorge

Terceira

Faial Pico

S. Miguel

S. Maria

This design studio proposes to address the challenges faced by the ultraperipheral region of the Azores Archipelago and through the lens of Landscape Architecture find ways to improve the resilience of this fragmented territory helping it to cope with an array of complex problems, from the impacts of climate change to economic and social deprivation or a growing pressure from the tourism sector. This Archipelago, situated in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in the Macaronesian bioregion, is composed of 9 islands divided in three groups, the oriental group (S. Miguel and S. Maria), the central group (Faial, Pico, Terceira and Graciosa) and the occidental group (Flores and Corvo). The biogeographical region of Macaronesia is known to contain several biodiversity hotspots which are home to over 5,300 endemic species. The term Macaronesia was first used in 1830 by the English geologist and botanist Philip Barker-Webb to refer to a biogeographical area comprising the archipelagos of the Azores, Madeira, the Canary Islands, and Cape Verde in accordance with the richness and uniqueness of their botanical resources and specific climate. Azores map by Miguel Domingues

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Laurisilva - macaronesian relict laurel forests - photo by José Luís Ávila Silveira/Pedro Noronha e Costa

Attesting this, Azores holds four Unesco Biosphere Reserves (Flores, Corvo and Graciosa islands and the Fajãs of São Jorge, two Unesco World Heritage sites (the Central Zone of the Town of Angra do Heroismo and the Landscape of the Pico Island Vineyard Culture) and 13 Ramsar sites.

One of the Azores’ inherent conditions derive from its position in a very particular point of the Earth’s crust. Set precisely in the crossing of the three main tectonic plates of the Atlantic (Eurasian, North American and African plates) between 36°55’ and 39°43’N in latitude and 24°46’ and 31°16’W in longitude, it is the only place where these three plaques touch each other creating a unique tectonic dynamic. Being a relatively young archipelago, the youngest in the Macaronesia region, its formation dates from 8 million years ago with the youngest island (Pico) being only 250 000 years old. Its volcanic origin is intrinsically linked to the continuous formation of the Atlantic Ocean. Oceanic islands, as opposed to continental islands, are “originary, essential islands: sometimes they are formed by corals, they offer us a veritable organism, sometimes they surge up from under the sea, they bring to the open air a movement from the lower depths; some emerge slowly, others disappear and come back, they can’t be annexed” as expressed by Gilles Deleuze in his 1950’s text “Causes and Reasons of Desert Islands”.

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A telluric landscape

This set of circumstances explains the geomorphology of the islands where old volcanic cones and “caldeiras” are the result of a landscape in transformation where water and erosion shape the volcanic landforms: water and earth in a continuous battle through time with moments of particular intensity played by eruptions and earthquakes or smaller volcanic phenomena such as fumaroles or hot water springs.

Capelinhos Volcano eruption (1957). Photo by Robert F. Sisson, National Geographic Creative.

01 T U R N T O S Y N E R GY N A R R AT I N G P E AT L A N D S O N T E R C E I R A I S L A N D JIAQIAN CAO

In the unique type of landscape that is peatlands, human and non-human elements come together to form a ‘museum of nature’. While studying the peatland sites and their surrounding landform fabric on Terceira island, I discovered the roles of nature and society in the territory: two interlocking layers that influence this site mutually balanced and inseparable. In the Anthropocene epoch, humans are not outsiders to the ecosystem—rather, we are participants in its unfolding. Peatlands cover just 3 % of the Earth’s land, but are responsible approximately 30 % of the carbon stored in soil. However, peatlands face many threats, and on Terceira agricultural activities and intensive grazing have led to peatland degradation, which in turn leads to a decline in island soil carbon storage and the destruction of natural habitats. Terceira’s existing landform fabric has evolved from both natural or intense activities over a long period of time, and it is also closely related to the social activities of human beings. The cultural and the natural are intertwined in the landscapes, and transforming and protecting of both requires careful analysis and negotiation. Turn to synergy proposes a sequence and network of peatland landscape parks aiming to deal with the above problems. The basic strategy is regenerative succession of degraded peatland, which is promoted by creating ecological corridors and patches, improving pasture landscape and low-carbon tourism.

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Peatland management: Implementation and stewardship

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Top: Protection zone, basin peatland / Bottom: Soft landscape

02 D I S A P P E A R I N G I N T O T H E D I S TA N C E TOM STERLING

Disappearing into the Distance proposes a synthetic ecological and economic model for rewilding San Miguel Island by re-claiming disused architectural, industrial, and infrastructural landscapes and harnessing their unique microclimates for the cultivation and propagation of native and endemic Azorean species. The project ties the island’s burgeoning ecotourism industry to its ecological improvement and cultural preservation by weaving a 75km trail through its historical, cultural, and natural landscapes. The project uses agent modeling to simulate growth and spread of native and endemic species along with microclimatic analysis to determine the best locations to reestablish native vegetation. In exchange for access to the trail infrastructure, hikers provide labor to maintain and expand the rewilded landscape. Over time a new, synthetic form of Azorean ‘wilderness’ emerges that at first resemble the forests of the past but represents something new—a dynamic and projective hybrid ecology that adapts the conditions of a posthuman landscape and a changing climate for the benefit of humans and more than humans. The proposed trail crosses four distinct topographic, climactic, and cultural regions of San Miguel and follows water infrastructure across a central ridgeline—from a hydrological tunnel in the east to the trail’s terminus at a geothermal power station in the west. Each of the four distinct regions host a variety of programmatic nodes that either support the social and leisure activities of the hikers or provide necessary infrastructure for the rewilding campaign and its ongoing maintenance.

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Simulating plant growth and spread

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Top: Hydrological channes / Bottom: Aqueduct / Right: Construction and evolution over time

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03 IN TIDES, IN FUTURE 220 YEARS OF VIRTUAL HISTORY OF L AJES VILL AGE Y U WA N G

The proposal is set in the village of Lajes on Pico island. The year 2132 divides the proposal into two parts, acting as the Time-node – this is when sea level rises over the land and causes the “ownership” of Lajes to change. Prior to 2132, the proposal primarily serves humans, the original inhabitants of the site. After 2132, the focus shifts to the ocean and marine ecology. Before 2132: The proposal is meant to reduce the impact of tides and storms, thus providing better living conditions for the residents of Lajes. As we approach the year 2132, buying time for humans to evacuate the village is essential. A buffer system is proposed to achieve this. This buffer system consists of a slope buffer zone and a ground buffer system called the “dune”. The buffer system can effectively reduce the energy of tidal and storm impact, while providing good drainage conditions for the nearshore area. After 2132: When sea level rises over the land, buildings will be removed and the “pit” system will be implemented. This system effectively stores water carried by tidal waves, providing a suitable environment for intertidal plants to grow. Thus, the marine habitats begin to form, and perform. Without the pit system, no vegetation would be able to grow in the village washed by repeated waves. This design change is for the prosperity of longer term marine ecology.

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Left: Year 2202 / Right: Pit and dune – landform and vegetation

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04 ISLANDS IN ISLANDS T H E S H I F T I N G L A N D S C A P E O F A N I S O L AT E D C O M M U N I T Y M I C H A E L WAT T S

Islands in Islands is a project which reimagines the vulnerable, vernacular landscape of the Fajã da Caldeira de Santo Cristo on the north coast of the island of São Jorge in the Azores. The fajã is a small piece of land formed over two centuries ago when a violent earthquake caused the land to slip into the ocean. It is constantly changing, both physically due to erosion, and culturally - recently the inhabitants of the small village have started to abandon their pastures in the fajã, and production on its once fertile soils has been in decline. Islands in Islands introduces a bold programme for protecting the landscape, testing new agricultural techniques and construction materials, reusing waste materials, and creating habitat and connections, which promises to stimulate a new phase of economic and ecological progress. Its emphasis on adding nutrition back into the soil ensures that the fajã’s historical role as a place to plant, sow, and harvest, and the seasonal congregation of families and wildlife which this supports, can continue and thrive for as long as the land itself does. New paths, some making use of waste materials, improve connectivity along the coast and across the unique ecosystem of the lagoon, itself monitored by new testing equipment which will improve understanding of the effects of sea level rise, acidification, contamination, and temperature change. The ocean further supports and connects to the land through a marine permaculture site which produces natural fertiliser, animal feed, biofuel, jobs, and habitat.

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Alternative concrete using waste materials

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Masterplan for the fajã

Trees provide shade and shelter for the animals and act as nutrient pumps

A species-rich mix of grasses and other plants provides a more varied diet for grazers and more biomass than regular pasture.

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Dense root systems and groundcover make the field more productive, allowing it to provide a large proportion of grazing animals’ dietary needs without addition of synthetic fertilisers

Native lowland forest regeneration provides sites where fajã residents can observe the stages which natural vegetation goes through in forming a plant community. CO2

Dense groundcover and root systems allow the vegetation to better intercept and retain water

Habitat

Soil microbes and worms, fed by an abundance of decaying roots and leaves, produce nutrients

Connected root systems allow plants to communicate and share resources

Tree roots act as nutrient pumps

Shelter from winds

Multistrata agroforestry imports the strengths of natural plant communities into agricultural production. Better water management and nutrient availability makes the plants stronger, more resistant to pests and droughts, and less in need of synthetic fertilisers.

Managed grazing and multistrata agroforestry

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Bu t t r e s s Fo r e s t

SEA

En v i r o n m e n t a l In t e r p r e t a t i o n Ce n t r e M u l t i s t r a t a Ag r o f o r e s t r y Te s t Si t e

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M anaged Gr a zi n g Te s t Si t e

LAND Br i d g e Bo a r d w a l k

De s i r e Li n e Pa t h

M a r i n e Pe r m a c u l t u r e Pr o c e s s i n g

Se n s o r y Ex p e r i e n c e

St o n e Sc u l p t u r e s

Br e a k w a t e r N. 0

10 0

20 0 m

Left: Marine permaculture / Top: Fajã breakwater / Bottom: Connections – land and sea

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05 L A U R I S I LVA ! XIONGXIN XIAO

Laurisilva, or the laurel forest, is an important element in the landscape identity of the Azores. After the 1800s, much of the original native vegetation has been displaced due to human activity, including felling forests for timber and firewood, clearing vegetation for grazing and agriculture, and introducing foreign plants and animals. The endemic Laurisilva habitat, made up of a wealth of species, has been reduced to small, disconnected pockets, and is even endangered on some islands. Not only do Laurisilva help increase biodiversity, but they also contribute to replenishing aquifers. In the future, due to booming tourism, more groundwater will be overdrawn to meet development needs. At the same time because of climate change, sea level rise increases the intrusion of seawater into the groundwater to salinize the drinking water. Compared with monoculture invasive forests, the complex vertical plant structure of laurel forest traps more precipitation, moderates surface runoff, inhibits evaporation, improves water quality and replenishes groundwater. Experiments have shown that the increase in groundwater content will significantly reduce the adverse effects of seawater intrusion in coastal areas. This project is a plan to restore the ancient native habitat of laurisilva, recover the ecological functions of laurisilva for landslide mitigation and seawater intrusion adaptation, and introduce a network of community engagement spaces that magnify the immediate experience and perception of regional landscape identity, and reclaim the laurisilva as a place for people.

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Territorial analysis and the four subareas of design

Tidal change in the ‘Resilient Barrier’

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Using log piles to slow down water and shape drainage lines.

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Physical experiments: log piles and saltwater intrusion.

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AC K N O W L E D G E M E N T S Tutors | RETHINKING THE URBAN PARK Chris Rankin and Sheena Raeburn Tutors | DEAR GREEN GLASGOW Anna Rhodes, Marta Guerini and Norman Villeroux Tutors | ARCHIPELAGO Miguel Domingues, Chris Gray and Hazel Mei Other visiting tutors | Rhys Williams, Annacaterina Piras, Elise Campbell and Ecologists | John Darbyshire and Leonie Alexander All the ECA support staff

Catalogue designed by | Kate Le Masurier and Eireann Iannetta-Mackay The format of the catalogue has been developed and extended from the catalogue series for the ESALA MArch studios 2017–18, designed by Emma Bennett and Rachel Braude with support from Adrian Hawker Printed by | J Thomson Colour Printers Ltd. Cover Image | Milja Tuomivaara

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE | MLA MA | ESALA ‘22

ISBN 978-1-912669-30-1