Didactic Landscapes

A mixed methodology analysis on how climate resilient landscape design seeks to educate and break the scale of ecological phenomena.

Abstract

Design requires a balanced judgement, with different needs weighed amongst each other according to their significance. In the realm of climate resilient landscapes, a key element in the design is the shaping of sensorial experiences that connect people with their environment. This connection can generate a public understanding of how these natural systems perform within the urban context. Furthermore, this connection and awareness of environmental phenomena can catalyze a community’s regional expression, including fostering social resilience and raising the collective climate consciousness. This research begins with a literature review of three separate projects that demonstrate how landscape can become an educational tool by shifting the scale of these environmental phenomena to a more palatable, human scale. The research is then shifted to further focus on one of the three precedents. Qualitative data analyses, including interview transcripts and an open-ended questionnaire, were used to further this research. The overall research aims to underline the universal role that all designers are tasked with expressing a complex system in an elucidating manner to the public.