Regional Landscape Analysis & Planning

Today’s world is increasingly interconnected and managing socio-ecological systems to increase sustainability and resilience is a complex endeavor. This complexity necessitates planning and design work on many different and interlinked scales. This studio encouraged the students to think about ways to integrate natural environments into the built environment. It also asked the students to consider how sustainability is evaluated at a city scale.

The class this year was intentionally designed to promote these three primary learning objectives:

Professionalism – Develop the ability to produce high quality materials while working remotely and collaboratively with team members who bring both a diverse set of skills and diverse perspectives to the table.

Analysis – Learn to break a complex topic into smaller parts to gain a deeper understanding of local contexts, intertwined systems, and the levers of change.

Synthesis – Discover how to put concepts together by present your plans, designs, and proposals through oral, written, and visual communications.

In this context, in the early weeks of the class, the students wrote their own proposals for projects and were able to opt into one of the two winning proposal. Then the rest of the semester the students were guided by a series of small deliverables that provided them with creative freedom and a structured timeline. The two projects are further described below.

Project 1: Proposing a Greenway Network

In this project a team of 7 students used a two-phase planning process to create and design the Oquirrh FourCities Greenway. In the first phase, the students used spatial data to analyze Salt Lake County and identify the region with the greatest need for a greenway network. Focusing on a combination of equity, culture, habitat, accessible transportation, and future development, the students homed in on the northwestern part Salt Lake County, which includes Magna, Kearns, West Valley, Taylorsville, and part of the Oquirrh Mountains. This area possesses tremendous potential for a new greenway network to connect through areas of underserved communities, joining the Jordan River and the Oquirrh Mountains. In the second phase the students, thinking through an ecosystem services lens, proposed a greenway network plan that provide places for interaction with nature, a connection system to bring people to their local parks, and habitat for species. Specific ecosystem services and details about the proposal can be found on the students’ website: https://sites.google.com/ view/oquirrh4citygreenway/home?authuser=0

Project 2: Learning from a sustainability rating system

In this project a team of 4 students questioned the applicability of the LEED for Cities and Communities Program to both Logan, UT and other small to medium sized cities. The LEED for Cities and Communities Program specifically operates at the city scale and is designed to help local leaders evaluate the sustainability of their systems and plan for future improvements. The rating system operates on nine intertwined systems, including, but no limited to natural systems, energy, water, waste, transportation, and quality of life. The students used a rigorous data gathering and analysis process to evaluate Logan, UT’s potential score in the quality of life and transportation categories. Their findings show that Logan, UT is on track to get certified and could even score a gold certification. Looking beyond Logan, the students interviewed sustainability leaders to learn about the stumbling blocks and the benefits of using LEED in a municipal planning context. To learn more about their work you can access the video they produced here: https://youtu. be/zJIThigqXlE

In one student’s own words regarding what they found best about the class it was: “Self-guided learning, lots of exposure to field professionals, clear expectations, good critiques, and help was available when needed, good opportunity to expand group-working skills.” In the end, the students overcame the obstacles of remote collaborative work. They learned to use technology to create shared products, analyze complex situations, and develop high quality final deliverables.