Class Reflection November 13

McLaughlan's first portion of last week's lecture again inspired me by deepening my interest in landscape ecology. I found Nash's "Wooden Boulder" to be a beautiful study. The way that Nash placed the boulder in the river bed demonstrated the way that natural forms are shaped by water. McLaughlan also discussed the effect of climate change on landscapes, of how dry areas are become wet, and wet dry, and he, like Jae often has, seemed to encourage the class to really become sustainable. His juxtaposition of massive California sewers and bioswales made the later seem the only alternative. He also discussed more subtle features in our environments which need to be considered. He asked why an eaves trough would run off onto concrete pad when it could instead fall into a pond? These are solutions which seem obvious, but which often go overlooked. McLaughlan's presentation of case studies, and especially that of UBC's sustainable street gave me a vision of what a more sustainable future could look like. By incorporating native plants into a street-scape we can reduce storm water retention, but we will also give a new culture and identity to the community, who will be able to see themselves reflected in their native vegetation.

The second speaker was also from the Landscape Faculty, but his presentation of Garden's differed significantly from the first speaker. His presentation was equally engaging but it presented landscape architecture within the urban context, something we have not seen a lot of. I really enjoyed the narratives he and his colleagues created around gardens. Their abstraction of the context, in particular in Snow White and the Seven Gardens, created innovative gardens based on narrative themes, like Social Climbers and Jealous Neighbours. I also responded to his comment that garden's should contain things that are rare and precious, but that our notion of what are garden is can be expanded, even to include an entire landscape. The speakers projects succeeded at adapting landscapes in the urban setting by considering the cultural and social contexts of the environments.