Labor in the Landscape: Designing Responsive Time-Based Practices

Starting with an investigation of the management systems, techniques, and labor practices of four case-study landscapes, my research subverts the single-intervention model of landscape design by revealing each site’s ongoing formation through maintenance. This grant will specifically enable field work in Amsterdam at Bos Park (a recreational forest-park initiated in 1929). Bos Park uniquely foregrounds the material processes of its own production and evolution; processes such as forestry, grazing, hydrologic engineering, and horticulture. My analysis of Bos Park will help me articulate new methods for designing synthesized, flexible, and responsive stewardship systems to better engage the ecological and social aspects of landscapes.