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We share innovative investigations and strategies in our Landscape Urbanism section of TPJ.
In the article “The Adaptive Island: Proving Ground for Temporal Awareness in the Anthropocene,” the authors Dalia Munenzon and Kayci Gallagher explain:
“Peddocks Island is a 200-acre [80.9 ha] island which is part of The Boston Harbor Islands National Recreation Area (US). The island has limited public transportation and is rarely visited by humans. Its use and ecology has transformed throughout history and it is now positioned to transform again with climate change and rising sea levels. This article suggests that the island’s history, geology, mythology, and ecology situate it perfectly to experience climate change’s temporal and spatial impacts.”
Finally, we share information about a Brave Green World.
>> We encourage you to browse The Plan Journal and explore for yourself
In, “The Adaptive Island: Proving Ground for Temporal Awareness in the Anthropocene,” the authors Dalia Munenzon and Kayci Gallagher wrote:
“In an effort to legitimize the potential of the Peddocks landscape, the living laboratory aims to unveil the inherent qualities of the site utilizing a type of ‘casco’ approach.”
Framework for an Intervention Strategy.
(a) Small Scale: there are strong existing pathways, but they need to be made accessible. The pathways have a solid presence in the island’s identity: how users view the surrounding landscape, interact with the wild flora, and move from one drumlin to the next. By emphasizing these pathways and making them accessible to the public, they will have a participatory role in how the island changes over time. Each pathway currently extends to the shoreline, offering opportunities for researchers to observe how the pedestrian circulation will be affected by rising seas.
(b) Medium Scale: The existing drumlin land masses are shrinking, so there needs to be a structural framework. As sea levels rise and the effects of climate change have their inevitable impact on nature, this island will become a shrinking land mass. By recognizing which areas of the island will disappear first, we can begin to understand where research and education can physically occur. As a research site, the island will serve as a field for monitoring, testing, and observing through shifting conditions. Identifying the drumlin framework allows us to choose zones of physical intervention.
(c) Large Scale: there is only one threshold to formally enter the island, so there needs to be more access points. The ferry trips from Boston are scarce, and if you have your own personal boat, there’s nowhere to dock it. By employing additional modes of entry, visitors will be able to access the island from several different directions and methods of transportation. The existing pathways will become the “plug-in” moments for the new threshold conditions, allowing the island to become an accessible rural outlet. Photographs by © Kayci Gallagher.
Munenzon and Gallagher conclude:
“To adequately narrate the complexities of the environment and the climate crisis, designed objects should be explored, as the stage, latent in the background, provides access to view and experience the reemergence of Peddocks Island. With the increasingly shifting landscape of the Anthropocene, design has to assume a new role. We must frame the relationships between the environment and our interventions as a synergetic narrative.”
>> The abstract for the article is available in THE PLAN Journal vol. 7/2022, no. 1 (in English)
In Brave Green World: How Science Can Save our Planet (2021), the authors Chris Forman and Claire Asher describe artificial intelligence (AI):
“as the magic ingredient that can create advanced automated systems that generate the molecular, nanoscale, and macroscale tools designers need to fabricate a circular economy, and they argue that emerging new forms of computation in smart materials could be the backbone of our future infrastructure.”
Paperback
$29.95
ISBN: 9780262044462
256 pp.
6.5 in. x 9 in.
March 2021
To learn more, check out: Brave Green World
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