FIELD NOTES: READING THE LANDSCAPE An introductory field guide to site opportunity Rick Cobb HS 590 Permaculture - Spafford Spring 2014 My travels across the continent have taken me as far north as the winter ice-packed edge of the Arctic Ocean pressing into Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. This is the arctic inland tundra where I lived and worked for five months in a remote mobile cat-train camp. Professionals mixed with the fringe of employable society as we surveyed and mapped the subsurface geology. In tracked vehicles we quaked the earth to project frequencies legible to geophones laid in grids and sold the corresponding data to the petroleum industry. Our machines sustained our lives in this dark inhospitable winter environment. On the north slope of this continent it was plain to see how far humanity’s habitat has expanded well beyond its natural range thanks to our leverage with ancient hydrocarbons. Further south, I have explored and guided tourists by kayak among the bespeckled islands of Bocas del Toro Panama, where indigenous tribal villages coexist with open water resort palapa lodges housing the sun seeking vacationers of greater privilege. Among the tropical maritme forests I realized, as I did in the arctic, that like plants, humanity is comprised of both pioneers and stayers, and in both places mankind vies for site opportunity, both as transient migrants and indigenous locals. As a builder, explorer and dreamer I catch my mind wandering in each new place I experience. Questions such as “if this were my land, what would I do with it?” seem ever present. Between the arctic and the tropics I have been fortunate to see opportunities and constraints produced on many small scale sites. Prior to the design or construction of any new projects I am asked to consider, I take time on the site to observe all that I can with careful consideration to my natural instruments of sense and intuition. Rarely do we have the opportunity to spend an entire cycle, or a whole year to observe the site (as suggested by Mollison) to form truly robust ideas that inform our designs. More often, I am often asked to come out with a friend or client and offer my suggestions about their site over an afternoon or weekend. These rapid assessments lack comprehensivity and the thorough analysis only time can provide, but I’ve often felt that educated assessments can be made in compensation. Such is the root interest of this paper, Field Notes: Reading the Landscape, and is taken from the point of view of the permaculturist landscape architect (aspiring). It can be said that everyone has a perspective on site opportunity. To a hammer everything is a nail, to a developer perhaps a new strip mall, to a landscape architect perhaps an award-winning place-making feat of incredible creativity and ingenuity, but what to the permaculturist? Several books were explored under this consideration and will be condensed to establish a primary checklist for anyone seeking to understand site opportunity from a whole systems design vantage point. I will subcategorize areas of interest into history & culture, geography & location, geology & soil, hydrology, climate & microclimate, vegetation, wildlife, and risk assessment. There are four primary ways to go about reading the landscape. They are 1) Science, 2) Field Naturalism, 3) Contemplative Awareness, and 4) Indication / Rules of Thumb. Prior scientific knowledge offers direct advantage to the permaculture observer. Such knowledge can be based in description, classification, and explanation. Field naturalism “involves the skills of careful observation and recording of the landscape, the intention being to experience the diversity of nature first hand, learning to move carefully, patiently watching (listening, feeling, tasting, and smelling) to objectively record” {Holmgren, David. 2002;} Contemplative awareness is similar to mindful meditation “where the mind is out of gear, but the senses are fully attuned” {Holmgren, David. 2002;}. A periphery of focus is a good example. This mode enables observing undistracted by form and bias. And fourth, interpretations based on existing conditions and remnant signs of past events serve as indicators and rules of thumb. This paper will primarily focus on field naturalism with a bit of indication on the side.
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