Material Culture : Assembling and Disassembling Landscapes

Fifth instalment in Landscript architecture series. Explores the intersection of landscape and material culture. Studies the arising aesthetic implications and opportunities for design. Landscript 5 examines material culture in landscape architecture theory and design. Designed landscapes are temporal assemblages of extant and introduced materials, constructed and maintained through the efforts of human labour, mediated through non-human forces, and shaped by constantly changing cultural relations. Sites are bounded by property lines, yet their material relationships - from the transport of construction commodities to global water cycles - extend to untold limits. Designed landscapes are models of human-nature relations, at the same time they are human-nature relations, simultaneously representing and actualising the co-production of the world. Landscript 5 looks at aesthetic implications and design opportunities that engage with the material culture of the landscape.