Sympoietic City: a Forest of Plant/Human Kinship

Item

Title
Sympoietic City: a Forest of Plant/Human Kinship
Description
With the financialization of ecosystem services and putting forests to work, our relationship to the trees continues to be rooted in the design legacies of the botanic gardens, herbaria, and gridded property systems. Operating within these legacies perpetuates a land ethic that fosters inequality within our cities.

The thesis proposes a reorientation of Americans’ relationships with trees. Situated within the complex palimpsest of political, colonial, and activist histories within the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., this process begins with a constitutional amendment that defines the spatial, visual, and political rights of trees. Moving through spaces inhabited by D.C.’s emblematic trees - the Japanese Cherry, American Elm, and Scarlet Oak, these rights are manifested throughout the District.

By eschewing notions of ownership over nature and cultivating spaces that embody plant/ human kinship, Sympoietic City renegotiates Washington D.C. as a landscape held in tandem by humans and trees.
Creator
Gardner, Roxanne Marie
Subject
Forest
Rights of Nature
Urban Design
Washington D.C.
Landscape architecture
Environmental law
Ecology
Contributor
Monacella, Rosalea
Date
2024-05-21T12:12:39Z
2024
2024-05-16
2024
2024-05-21T12:12:39Z
Type
Thesis or Dissertation
text
Format
application/pdf
application/pdf
Identifier
Gardner, Roxanne Marie. 2024. Sympoietic City: a Forest of Plant/Human Kinship. Master's thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Design.
31298815
https://nrs.harvard.edu/URN-3:HUL.INSTREPOS:37378624
Language
en