tools for drawing the land emily bowerman - nadia amoroso - nathan perkins
Landscape architects explore landscapes through a variety of means: how we see a landscape and consequently understand it is the product of familiar tools and processes that too often are habitual, influenced by expectations of production efficiency. Here, we examine landscape forms, patterns and materiality through aerial photography and maps to visually document and understand a place. We have developed a set of tools and processes, influenced by MacLean’s and Corner’s 1996 publication, Taking Measures: Across the American Landscape , that lead us to different ways of seeing the land and its identity. 1 It is a product of our evolutionary heritage to seek information from our environment for the very real rewards of finding shelter and security, and the penalties of not doing so. We start with aerial photographs that tell a story about patterns and form not normally experienced from ground level. Aerials and maps reveal site history — occupation, forms and paths that have left their traces. Form and material are not static elements within a landscape, rather they are dynamic processes. Our maps illustrate aggregates, crops and plant species not only as elements, but as processes of materialisation on the land — planting, harvesting, extraction: identified land use operations that have caused habitat loss, exploitation of resources and the overuse of agricultural plots. Structures, materials and landscape forms will persist until urban encroachment absorbs agricultural and rural land. While extraction and cultivation are necessary to sustain human life, they irreversibly impact rural landscapes and their communities. A reconsideration of the relationship of landscape to human industries is required as extraction and cultivation processes render irreversible impacts to geographies, ecologies and sociocultural dimensions of landscape. Marc Antrop, in his 1998 essay ‘Landscape change: plan or chaos?’ states that ‘landscape holism is closely related to structural aspects, which reflect order and chaos’, and that the main force behind change is ‘the reorganisation of the existing structures to optimise their functioning’. 2 Separate landscape components are not representative of overall change within the landscape; small changes within the
landscape do not necessarily alter its holistic appearance, its type or identity. If the reorganisation is how change happens, then structural changes to existing frameworks are necessary. The reconfiguration and repurposing of site features leads to emergent paradigms that operate beyond site features themselves. The dissection of landscape features reveals fragmentation to be a persistent characteristic. Our use of collage in this project illustrates contrasting landscape features, materials and functions between seemingly unaltered natural areas and the meticulously managed areas of landscapes and waterscapes. The hay fields map shows the scale of forest patches that offer refuge to migrating animals. Expanding extraction and cultivation processes render irreversible impacts to ecologies. These maps re- envision existing site conditions to prompt rehabilitation and reconfiguration at a territorial scale. Neil Brenner observes that maps unveil operations within the hinterland, areas beyond the city, that support ‘putatively front-stage operations of large population centres’. 3 The formation of patterns within the landscape, Brenner believes, reveals the true impacts of industrial supply and demand continuums. Measured features include spatial analyses, cyclic processes, coordinates, volumetric data, private and public boundaries, and cultural elements intended to inform design and planning agendas. Identified elements offer grounds to compare and contrast forms and conditions. Cartographic patterns and textures animate landscape features that speculate on the larger landscape system and extract data to support reconfiguration, reclamation or adaptation for the future. Existing site conditions, conceptually re-envisioned, prompt rehabilitation and reconfiguration at a territorial scale. For example, the pollutive impacts of quarries permeate watersheds beyond the quarry site itself. To identify characteristics, materials and structures within the quarry site prompts questions about how these elements influence the larger water system. These maps reveal past histories, current site conditions and the larger systems, institutions and territories in which the mapped landscape exists.
While aerial images present physical facets of landscape, maps are agents of deconstruction, extraction and emergence. The aerials serve as the operative imagery whereby measurements, patterns, colours and textures emerge as landscape conditions: the grounds from which cartographic observations are made. These maps do not render rigorous landscape decision-making, instead they are an interpretive medium for the narration of constructed, ecological, socio-cultural and historical facets of a site. Narratives emerge through the identification and mapping of site features, coupled with archival investigations and external research of site geographies, history and cultural constructs. To respond to current site conditions, there is value in understanding the progression of space and time, from past to present. Cyclic patterns within the maps correlate to natural landscape processes that inform future approaches to adaptation, development and manipulation that suits site contexts. The aerials and maps expose patterns and textures of the residual landscape as a means of marking the past which will persist into the future.
Drawings by Emily Bowerman, BLA and MSc Rural Planning, supervised by Nadia Amoroso, both of University of Guelph, School of Environmental Design and Rural Development. Aerial photographs capturing the visual elegance of farm-lands and industrial sites surrounding Guelph, rarely seen from the ground, were taken by Nathan Perkins, University of Guelph School of Environmental Design and Rural Development, from his gyroplane (C-GNHP).
1 Corner, James and MacLean, Alex S. Taking Measures Across the American Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Foreword by Michael Van Valkenburgh. 2 Antrop, Marc., 1998. ‘Landscape change: plan or chaos?’ Landscape Urban Planning . 41. pp155–161. 3 Brenner, Neil. (2016), ‘The Hinterland Urbanised?’. Architectural Design, 86: 118-127. doi:10.1002/ad.2077
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on site review 36: our material future
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