Overlook Field School 2019: Difficult Landscapes

D I F F I C U LT L A N D S CA P E S O V E R L O O K F I E L D S C H O O L 2 0 19

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DIFFICULT LANDSCAPES The theme of the 2019 Overlook Field School was Difficult Landscapes - those intractable spaces that we struggle to see, understand, manage, and design. Controversy often follows our loss of control as competing interpretations seek to explain what has happened and how we should act. These landscapes can be opportunities for landscape architects but are often outside of traditional practice, particularly when they fall outside of traditional landscape typologies.

Over the course of five weeks, program participants closely studied the difficult landscapes found on the Overlook property using a selection of historical and contemporary instruments.

Their observations were translated through drawings, photographs and temporary installations – design research for identifying what made their landscape difficult. Finally, they constructed an instrument which interpreted this difficulty for a larger audience.

Resident Artist Instructors: GwenDora Cohen, Isaac Cohen Field School Coordinator: Summer Young Overlook Field School Program Manager: Michael Geffel

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RESEARCH

DRAWING AS SCALE, DRAWING AS TYPE For the duration of the field school, students each focused on a selected area (1000’ x 1000’) of Overlook Farm; together creating a composite impression. During the research phase, they created a series of drawings at the microscopic, the object, and the site scales, for a total of 9 drawings. Simultaneously, each student selected an object on their site which they felt was representative of the entire quadrant and photo documented its daily change. While in New York and Philadelphia, they identified and photographed analogous objects. These observations informed a larger, sitescale drawing of each quadrant which expressed a “difficult” aspect of the site. Drawing became an instrument for understanding the seen and unseen qualities of the landscape. Finally, these drawings and observations were used to create a temporary on-site installation to make the invisible visible, bring attention to one specific element, or begin to frame a dialectic with a difficult landscape beyond the site.

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INSTRUMENTS

ACOUSTICAL ALIDADE

Installation: Stump Succession

Aaron Woolverton | MLA Overlook’s entry meadow is framed within a center surrounded by a rapidly decaying Ash Woodland threatened by Emerald Ash Borer and an encroaching invasive understory. This area of the property provides a gradient between meticulously managed and intensely invasive landscapes which challenge our faculties and experiences. How do we begin to interface our landscapes in new ways to develop a deeper understanding of the systems at play?

Through the continual mapping of forest densities and tree stump locations, a common thread revealed itself through the form of bird feathers and acorns. These objects, specifically belonging to the cacophonous Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus), were found within tree stumps and adjacent trails. Small and disparate discoveries like these led me to the realization that, although the surrounding ash woodland is almost completely dead, their snags provide essential ecosystem habitat and services for the existing wildlife. The sounds of the forest came alive.

The Acoustic Alidade was designed to assist surveyors in their efforts of understanding difficult landscapes through the process of listening by “line of hearing” versus traditional visual surveying. Through this process, listeners are asked what they hear, and more importantly, how those sounds are changing within a changing forest. Ideally, the instrument will be able to collect soundscapes over time, assisting surveyors in the everchanging relationships between forest densitiy and ecological presence.

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FUTROMETER

Installation: Keep Frozen

Annie Williams | BLA As the world grows increasingly aware of the threats of climate change, many are beginning to seek the means to visualize it in their own environment. Current climate change simulations are abstractions of numbers and computerized projections making them difficult to grasp and therefore easy from which to distance oneself and one’s actions. The futrometer is a small and simplified instrument which aims to make the effects of climate change more tangible and more personal.

While the traditional bell jar was once used to shelter newly planted seeds, this instrument aims to germinate thought.

Its glass is a lens through which to observe a slice of one’s individual environment under the stress of increased heat. It is not meant to reveal destruction, merely change.

This particular futrometer reveals a thriving nettle population surrounded by the decomposing leaves of the threatened sugar maple. Also symbolically, it boasts a large crack at its head inspired by the many broken bottles supporting thriving moss, fern, and nettle populations found on the far northern corner of the Overlook property. It has been mended with a needle and thread to represent how the broken climate can be salvaged, but can never be put back to how it was. It encourages one to look ahead to new solutions and steward the emerging novel biosphere.

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FIELD OF VIEWS

Installation: Clear Look

Ashlyn Tahlier | BLA Grids have always had a place in both art and science as a way of understanding and representing nature. In forestry, a densiometer is a handheld mirror with a superimposed grid used to determine the percentage of canopy in an overhead plot. In art, a horizontal grid is used to aide in understanding perspective and composition, or is drawn on paper to translate scale cell by cell.

This instrument allows a new way of observing the landscape by borrowing from these simple ways of breaking nature down into more discernible and quantifiable pieces. The action of framing desirable views distorts and highlights the peripheral landscape, while the reflective material brings forth the surroundings which may otherwise go unnoticed. In certain environments and configurations the observer may also be reflected, in an attempt to question your occupancy within the landscape or involvement as scientist or artist in place.

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CYANO-SUBMERGER

Installation: Outflow: Movement Studies 1-4

Carolyn Corl | MLA Looking out over scenic Lily Lake, one may not consider the maintenance that we as humans put into keeping the underwater systems of a lake functioning. Without regular dredging and water flow manipulation, small lakes like these would fill with algae and sediment and the soggy, vegetated edges that encompass the water body would encroach to form a bog. For this underwater world to provide habitat for fish, plants, birds and amphibians, as well as recreation for humans, it is important to monitor how sediment like algae and eroding soil are building up below the surface.

One way of monitoring sediment and productivity in a lake is by looking at the water’s turbidity at different depths with an instrument called a Secchi disk. This white disk attached to a rope is lowered into water until the white disk disappears. The disk disappears into darkness when light is no longer able to pierce through the sediment to refract off of the disk’s white face, showing the the water’s turbidity levels. Another instrument that we use through filtering sunlight to record information is the cyanotype.

My instrument, the Cyano-Submerger, combines the sediment data-gathering intention of the Secchi disk with the twodimensional image recording of the cyanotype print, to create an instrument that allows us to peer underwater and see the textures and patterns found in Lily Lake, as sediments fog the water over time. The deeper the instrument is lowered, the less light will expose the paper, showing us a new way of seeing the various depths of Lily Lake’s waters through these abstracted cyanotype images of the lake’s contents.

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TROUIJA BOARD Elizabeth Koonce | MLA A forest shares a history, which each tree remembers even after it has been felled.” - Anne Michaels. The Ouija or Talking Board is a historical instrument for “contacting” the spirits of loved ones. As part of the Spritualist movement, these boards became most popular after the American Civil War, when mourners used them as a means for exploring their grief and coming to terms with the deaths of their loved ones.

This Talking Board is designed specifically to connect users with the memory and “spirits” of deceased trees, and to allow human beings to understand the processes at work in the death of trees and to mourn the decline of North American forests. While the board includes the traditional “yes”, “no”, “goodbye”, and alphabet as a means of communication with the tree, it also lists the most common causes of tree mortality in North America. Place your hands on the planchette and focus on your memories of trees. Remember the feeling of a walk in the woods, the roughness of bark under your fingertips and the rustling of leaves overhead. Let the spirit of a tree take control and guide you across the board in an exploration of blight, disease, and pests, and allow yourself to grieve for what has been and what will be lost.

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SEEING ALLELOPATHY

Installation: Understory Vacancy

Erica Andrus | MLA Allelopathy is a phenomenon by which certain plants and trees release a toxic chemical into the soil through their roots or via the decomposition of their leaves, preventing plants from growing beneath them. The first step for testing a tree for allelopathy is through seeing. The groundcover in the Overlook forest is predominantly ferns and the bare areas from allelopathic trees create a mosaic that is easy to miss and hard to understand. The purpose of this instrument is to take the time and see the extent of a barren understory made by an allelopathic tree. The fabric, tied to the trunk of a beech tree, is unfurled to the edge of the drip line which correlates to the edge of the allelopathic impact. The user can then walk the circumference of the canopy, an intentional march that reveals this unique pattern in the landscape. The end of the fabric which is translucent red, allows the user to see the transition between lack of growth and healthy vegetation. If this fabric was left suspended during fall to catch toxic leaves of a beech tree, over time the soil beneath would be free of toxins and plant growth may appear. Allowing new growth to emerge layers an intentional mosaic on the allelopathic pattern for the reader to understand.

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DETRITUS CATCHMENT

Installation: Detritus Network

Hana Ketterer | MLA The Detritus Catchment is an instrument used to track and record the debris quantities that come from varying ecosystems of the Overlook property. The debris piles located near the entrance of the property bring all the different managed landscapes together in a unique way. Using seven glass tubes to represent each site, this instrument looks at how these sites are connected through waste. These sites include: the Cottage, Meadows, Northwoods, Barn, Lake, Overlook, and Boardwalk (descriptions of each site can be seen on the first page of the ledger).

This instrument may be used by the maintenance team in order to track which parts of the property contribute most to the debris piles. When a load of debris is brought to the piles from a particular site, the tube is filled with one scoop of sand that will fill it to the next measurement marker. When the piles are burned one scoop of ash is added to the tube.

Once a site’s tube is filled to the top of the eighth section, it is emptied and recorded in the ledger as being emptied on said date.

The process of recording how much debris accumulates from different sites around the property can provide insight into where these materials come from and as a result end up. It also shows the frequency of burnings and what parts of the property contribute to the recycling of energy and carbon through the burns and in turn, new plant life thriving in the debris.

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INDETERMINATE EDGE (I.E.)

Installation: (A)proximate Edge

Nancy Silvers | BLA Edge can be defined as the outside limit of an object, or, to move gradually in a particular direction. In the landscape we are continuously encountering spaces which interact with one another along edges, yet when we look closer those edges can become indeterminate. In the field of ecology an increased edge habitat often signifies greater biodiversity.

In residential areas, property lines can be identified through differences in maintenance regimes. In the field of Landscape Architecture, designing the edge of a site can prove to be an exciting challenge. How do we create spaces that are comfortable, unique, and engage with their surrounding areas?

The i.e is an instrument designed to be used in the field and allows users to explore edges in qualitative or quantitative ways. The i.e. is constructed of lightweight wood and outfitted with a carrying strap, dual latches and a mounting piece for attachment to a tripod. When opened, the top piece attaches securely to a tripod and can be rotated 360 for viewing and the bottom piece holds the viewing frames not in use. The viewing frames vary from patterned and colored screens to metered lines. Up to three screens can be layered at a time.

When looking through the screened viewing frames of the i.e. the appearance of the landscape is altered through texture. When using the lined frames, the landscape can be quantified for sampling or measurements. The i.e. is an instrument that allows for new exploration of edges. It can be used by ecologists, trail designers, architects, botanists, foresters, and anyone who wants to look at these spaces in a novel way.

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HYGROMIRROR

Installation: Jewel Hunt

Sophia Lui | BLA Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) is a common plant which often grows in moist, semi-shady forested areas. Jewelweed is easily recognizable by its bright orange, droopy cone-shaped flowers. The underside of its leaves beautifully glimmer silver under water.

Located in the Northern tip of Lily Lake is The Spring of the Overlook Farm, which is the site I have been exploring for my project. Jewelweed is extremely prevalent in this area of the property, especially where there are water sources.

Due to its intense need for hydration, Jewelweed oftentimes is found in high moisture areas. My instrument, The Hygromirror is an interpretation and abstraction of the relationship between water and the plant.

The Hygromirror is used to measure the humidity of a place; modeling a greenhouse, the orange mirrors are used to reflect heat, and capture condensation. The trapped moisture from the air will drip down the sides of the mirror, into a glass flower-shaped funnel and onto a piece of watercolored paper. The dilution of watercolor underneath the funnel is used as a visual measurement to see how much humidity is in the air.

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BEACONS

Installation: Fields of #4

Taylor Bowden | MLA Natural barriers are always present in the landscape. Water, mud, tall grass, or bramble on a trail are enough to make one turn around. Many of the overgrown natural areas at Overlook are habitat for creatures that can spread disease, notably ticks and their deer hosts. Blazing through dense underbrush is risky and requires thorough preparation before venturing out. It is in these inhospitable landscapes we look for markers warning of danger and suggesting safety.

Beacons speaks to the language of way-finding, offering illumination and indicating the proximity of a trail. The cylinder cages trap difficult elements of the landscape and put them on display to warn of the barriers found on site. These gabion pieces are modular and can be assembled to fit each site’s difficult features when placed in new locations. The barriers collected at Overlook were stone, water, thicket, fern stands, solidago walls, and grass fields. Stacked together with the way-finding light on top, Beacons prepares the trail-goer where to begin and what to expect.

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Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes Department of Landscape Architecture University of Oregon landarch.uoregon.edu fuller.uoregon.edu 2019