This Land
Niki Kreynus
To my Dad, the farmer
Table of Contents Thesis Abstract + Early Conceptions
6 - 13
Ten Different Versions of the Same Scene: Quotes and Diagrams
14 - 25
Agricultural Scenes through Collage
26 - 33
The Numbers: A Look at America’s Agriculture
34 - 39
Design Work: Adaptive Reuse Architectural Proposal
40 - 61
Horseshoe Farm
62- 69
Acknowledgements
70
Works Cited
71
Thesis Abstract Existing in an industrialized society, agriculture is just another field that invites new growth and advancement through mechanization. Unable to follow pursuit are the endless fields of crumbling silos, roofless barnes and overgrown pastures across the country; once existing as family farms. Furthermore the inability for generational family farms to stay afloat lies within the power and commoditization of agriculture by large corporations. The relationship of commerce and community that was held together by small family farms can no longer survive without adaptation. The stewardship and husbandry on family farms disappears when there is no longer a need to occupy the land being cultivated; the economic gain becomes an economic loss. Instead, the symbiotic relationship that exists between people, agriculture and industrialization now results in the abandonment of rural communities and its people. Rural today primarily means agriculturally and economically distressed. One solution is to blend an urban community program with rural characteristics through a design that is in harmony with the land. An intricate understanding of the role agriculture plays in the United States combined with the knowledge of family farms and their collapse throughout the country serve as the catalyst for This Land.
What is needed are designed landscapes that provoke those who experience them to be more aware of how their actions affect the environment, and care enouvgh to make changes to their actions. -Elizabeth Meyer
Elizabeth K. Meyer. Beyond “Sustaining Beauty”: Musings on a Manifesto pg. 31
Within the knowledge of a cultural landscape we are able to see through a new lens; a lens of understanding, one that creates [promotes] ambiguity and awe and reveals the sublime. We can see the past, the present and the future in trajectory that is not always horizontal, but vertical. We see an autobiography unfold in the horizon as they serve as the supporting backdrop for the built environment to push through the earth and reach for the sky or the horizon.
“ The Signal of the Silo”
And whether made of concrete, or stave, or iron, or tile, Or woods of all creation, from up Maine ways to the Nile, Or whether concrete fellers get the local upper hand, God bless ‘em –they’re all silos, for the better of the land. A munch of tasty silage, makes the dairy records grow; Who gives a hand for feed bills and a winter full of snow
The herd is plump as butter – and if folks have cause to thank It’s because each farmer’s silos is a sort o’ savings bank -W. Livingston Larned
Nature
Habitat
Artifact
System
Problem
Wealth
Ideology
History
Place
Aesthetic
Nature “Amidst all this man is miniscule, surficial, ephemeral, subordinate. Whatever he does upon the surface of the earth, even his greatest skyscrapers, dams, and bridges, are, by comparison, minute, feeble, and transitory; mere scratchings on the skin of Mother Earth.”
Habitat “The basic patterns in the landscape, the patchwork of fields, pasture and woods, of homesteads and villages, the plan of cities and suburbs, all reveal man’s conscious selection of soils and slopes, elevations and exposures, sites and routes provided in the beginning by nature.” “It is the ideology of the harmony of man and nature, of the earth as the garden of mankind, of man as the steward, the caretaker, the cultivator.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 34
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 35-36
Artifact “Nature is fundamental only in a simple literal sense: nature provides a stage. The earth is a platform, but all thereon is furnished with man’s effects so extensively that you cannot find a scrap of pristine nature. The soils, trees, and streams are not “nature” as distinct from man, they are profoundly human creations: soils altered by plowing, cropping, burning, mulching, fertilizing, draining... Nature is an Artifact.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 36-37
System “His [man’s] more obvious structures and movements in the landscape are most likely to be seen as “functions,” that is, as processes undertaken for rational purposes. Houses, garages, barns, offices, stores, factories are all “service stations” and “transformers,” and may be regarded as crude, imperfect, outward expressions of abstract social and economic systems.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 38
Problem “To such a person the evidence looms in most any view: eroded hills, flooding rivers, shattered woodlands, dying trees, dilapidated farms, industrial pollution, urban sprawl, neon strips; garbage and grit, smog and sewage, congestion and clutter, and amidst it all, people impoverished in body or spirit.” “-- every landscape evokes wrath and alarm, it is a mirror of the ills of our society and cries out for drastic change.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 39-40
Wealth “This view of landscape as wealth is of course strongly-rooted in American ideology and reflective of our cultural values. It represents our general acceptance of the idea that land is primarily a form of capital and only secondarily home or familial inheritance; that all land, all resources, are for sale at any time if the price is right; that speculation in land is a timehonored way to wealth.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 42
Ideology “Those who see it as ideology may see distinct manifestations of American interpretations of freedom, individualism, competition, utility, power, modernity, expansion, progress.”
History “The physiognomy of a house, its size, shape, material, decoration, yard, outbuildings, and position, tells us something about the way people lived.” “In any case, whether the historical view is meant to serve curiosity, reflection, or instruction, the landscape provides infinite possibilities.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 42
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 43 + 45
Place “It is landscape as environment, embracing all that we live amidst, and thus it cultivates a sensitivity to detail, to texture, color, all the nuances of visual relationships, and more, for environment engages all of our senses, the sounds and smells and ineffable feel of a place as well.” “To him a place is at once a location, an environment, and an areal composition, and the last is best expressed on a map, a symbolization of the spatial arrangement of the elements of the locality.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 45
Aesthetic “But the ‘purest’ form of landscape as aesthetic is a more comprehensive abstraction in which all specific forms are dissolved into the basic language of art: into color, texture, mass, line, position, symmetry, balance, tension.” “Landscape becomes a mystery holding meanings we strive to grasp but cannot reach, and the artist is a kind of gnostic delving into these mysteries in his own private ways but trying to take us with him and to show what he has found.”
D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene. pg. 46
The silo is the skyscraper of rural America, breaking the horizon of the cultivated landscape. It gently redirects one’s gaze away from the horizon and up towards the sky.
Competition + Parasitism In the last century a grasp on the agricultural market and national affairs has pinned rural and urban communities against each other, creating a competitive market where success is at the expense of the opponent. Government regulation, environmental degradation and mechanization in the early 20th century sparked a shift of urban migration away from a depleted agricultural landscape.
Competition + Parasitism Agricultural production has resulted in a lack of diversity due to centralized regulation and control by large scale corporations and government. The rural landscape once consisting of vibrant communities now lies in a state of decay. An unstable economy leads to more promising opportunities in urban areas and thus a place of stewardship and husbandry to the cultivated land is left eroded and monopolized for mass industrialized production.
Mutualism The powerful hold of industrialized agriculture on smaller, familial farming practices suggest that a new method of approach to renew a mutual relationship of people to land is needed. A feeling of ownership but also unity can create a perspective which will provoke change to care for and understand the impact of food production on a community scale to a national scale. A series of programs ranging from educational to recreational can invite outside engagement and can inform the unique and valuable qualities of the rural and agricultural landscape.
Median Household Income by Farm Type 2018
800
Median self-employment income in U.S. households $86,401 (2018)
700
746
Median income in all U.S. households $63,179 (2018)
600 500 400
335 300 200
IO AT IZ AL RI ST E DU UR IN F LT O CU RI
AG
N IO AT N LIZ TIO A IA EC NIZ ION SP HA AT C N ID ME SOL ATIO N TR CO CEN N CO
100
167 100 53
Retirement
90
72
47
Off-farm Occupation
Low Sales
Small Family Farms
N USDA ERS - Farm Household Income and Characteristics
Moderate Sales
Mid-size Family Farms
Large
Very Large
Large Scale Family Farms
All farms
GRASSLAND PASTURE/ RANGELAND
FOREST-USE LAND Grazed Forests Unprotected forest Timberland
69 Million Acres
CROPLAND Land planted for crops Crops for pasture Idled cropland
SPECIAL USES National Parks Wildlife Areas Highways Railroads
69 Million Acres
2019
2.2 Million Farms
Graphic representation of major land uses in the United States in acreage
6.3 Million Farms
1930
Six Major Land Uses of the United States
MISCELLANEOUS Cemeteries Gold courses Marshes Deserts
URBAN LAND
654 Million Acres
539 Million Acres
392 Million Acres
169 Million Acres
F
arm: Any place that, during a given year, produced and sold—or normally would have produced and sold—at least $1,000 of agricultural products.
*Land use map does not include Alaska and Hawaii in acreage Data compiled from USDA 2012 Land Use Census Report
USDA Classification
5.5
2.1
2018 Agricultural Research Survey
89.7
Family Farm: Any farm organized as a sole proprietorship, partnership, or family corporation. Family farms exclude farms organized as non family corporations or cooperatives, as well as farms with hired managers. USDA Classification
Large Family Farms 50,043 $1,000,000+
Very Large Family Farms 5,420 $5,000,000+
98%
2,204,792 farms in the U.S. are considered family farms.
Land Operated
F
Mid-size Family Farms 111,486 $350,000 and $999,999
19.6
12.4
21.1
47.7 45.9 21.0
USDA Research + Data Base
20.6
Value of Production
11.7 Small Family Farms 1,812,428 <$350,000
Number of Farms
2.7
Small Family Farms
Medium Family Farms Large-Scale Family Farms Non-family Farms
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Stan·chion /’stan(t)SH(ə)n/ noun An upright bar, post, or frame forming a support or barrier. A frame that holds the head of a cow in place, especially to facilitate milking.
te ier. lita barr faci tor lyto al ppor
ci asu espe n e, ing hio rm / plac efo win n·c(ə)n sttaan(t)SH st,orframdofaco /’s
ea r,po eh tba dsth un no righ hol up at an eth am afr
. king mil
Plywood ‘Hay’ Bales Two-string dimensional hay bales (18x36x14) are modeled by corresponding plywood boxes serving as flexible seating
Glass Boxes Trap doors line the edges of the barn for entrance to hay attic. A glass encasement covers the open holes to below
Gallery Room Modeled to represent the existing parlors adjacent to the main barn used for milk refrigeration and storage
Stand-Alone Gallery Wall A lightweight wire frame supports a 60 foot long panel for hanging works in line with the existing hay trolley track system that stretches horizontally at the peak of the rafters from each end of the barn to the outside
18 Stanchion-Trough System Lining the the horizontal axis through the barn an exisitng stretch of troughs remains in its original state
self supporting steel ramp set into existing feeding trough. removed stanchion piping connected and filled with glass as railing
extruded cold-formed metal piping laid over existing feeder trough
new lumber floating staircase with mounted stanchion railing
wood-framed herringbone studios with opaque glass overlay
self supporting steel ramp set into existing feeding trough. removed stanchion piping connected and filled with glass as railing
extruded cold-formed metal piping laid over existing feeder trough
new lumber floating staircase with mounted stanchion railing
wood-framed herringbone studios with opaque glass overlay
Acknowledgments
Works Cited A. Elizabeth Watson and Samuel N. Stokes, Saving America’s Countryside: A Guide to Rural Conservation. 1989
Firstly, my thanks go to my faculty advisors, Edward Becker and Terry Clements whose expertise was invaluable in formulating my research questions and design approach. Your insightful feedback pushed me to sharpen my thinking and brought my work to a higher level. Thank you for a year of valuable mentorship, support and encouragement.
Charles Sheeler, Midwest. 1954
I would also like to acknowledge my friends and colleagues for five years of unforgettable memories at Virginia Tech.
Christopher Tunnard, Man-Made American: Chaos or Control. 1963
To my parents, Tim and Laura Kreynus, thank you for the life-long support and contributions to my education and beyond and creating an environment for me to grow.
Daniel Bigelow and Allison Borchers. “Major Land Uses.” USDA ERS. 2017
To my aunt and uncle, Nancy and Jeffrey Weil, thank you for the gratifying experiences you’ve given me and the generous contribution of printing my thesis books.
Christopher Burns and James M. Macdonald, America’s Diverse Family Farms. 2018 Edition
Dorothea Lange and Paul Shuster Taylor, An American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion. 1939 D.W. Meinig. The Interpretation of Ordinary Landscapes: The Beholding Eye - Ten Versions of the Same Scene Elizabeth K. Meyer. Beyond “Sustaining Beauty”: Musings on a Manifesto Marc Treib, Doing Almost Nothing: The Landscapes of Georges Descombes. 2019 Pierre Belanger, Landscape as Infrastructure: A Base Primer. 2016 USDA, Farm Typology