Decolonizing Education to Meet Climate Change Demands: Landscape Design

Abstract

Landscape designs from LARC640, Graduate Studio, and LARC240, Graphic Communication & Design Studio, focused on a site at the northern edge of the University of Maryland College Park campus. The site is bounded by University Avenue to the north and Paint Branch Drive to the west. The LEAFHouse (2007 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon) structure is currently positioned at the southern edge of the site, and the site is bounded to the east by a small parking area. Elements of the unreconstructed reACT house (2017 US Department of Energy Solar Decathlon) currently occupy the parking area. Designs reimagine the landscape and living systems at the UMD Solar Decathlon site through the lens of using Indigenous knowledge (IK). The studio task was to build upon the Indigenous Knowledge and principles from the reACT House and utilize them for a regenerative design of the “Solar Decathlon Site.”

Learning Goals for LARC 240 and LARC 640: 1) Learn and investigate the meaning/s of a.Regenerative design, b.Indigenous Knowledge, c. Decolonizing education, d. Decolonizing design; 2) Employ facets of Indigenous Knowledge (IK) in research, programming, and design for the site (the site and all of its potential users: humans, trees and other plants, and the “four-legged, the winged, those that crawl and those that swim”); 3) Conduct and graphically represent site inventory and analysis and demonstrate its impact on the design; 4) Deepen and strengthen graphic representation skills with new techniques and tools.

Sections include: 01 Course & Project Overview; 02 Site Inventory, Data Collection, and Representation; 03 Storytelling; 04 Design: Concept Diagrams; 05 Design: Graphic Elements; 06 Design: Final Boards. Student work is illustrated. Graduate Students: Stephanie Cavanaugh, Lauren Hudson, Eve Josar, Elliott Kenney, Phoenix Morrison, Stephanie Pully, Dana Watkiss, Auran Zaman. Undergraduate Students: Caleb Austin, Juan Bajana, Isabella Barresi, Elia Choi, Bianca Darago, Lili Francisco, Grazelle Giray, Gracie Guerrero, Wyatt Howell, Calvin Hruby, Rachel Kinsey, Christina Le, Joe Mallow, David Phan, Tiara Rachman, Alan Shi, Nathan Temesgen.