David Buckley Borden’s LAF Fellowship Proposal

Emergent Mutualism; Closing the Science-Communication Gap through Collaboration between Science and Design

As ecological challenges become more acute, environmental scientists are increasingly thrust into the spotlight to communicate vital practical knowledge to landscape architects, policy makers, government agencies, community groups, and individuals. The need for motivating a population of non-scientists to both understand and care about ecology is essential. The urgency of transforming this ecological understanding to direct action is vital. Long-term sustainable practice depends on a heightened ecological awareness. I believe that environmental-communication collaborations between landscape architects and environmental research scientists can foster cultural cohesion around ecological issues. Ultimately, an informed public will become their own empowered advocates and are more likely to collaborate with landscape architects to support long-term landscape stewardship, land planning, and conservation practice. To that end, I would argue that the planet’s climate-crises demands new education models, communication methods, and fluid interdisciplinary models that fill the gap between design and science. Given landscape architecture’s new designation as a STEM industry by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the timing could not be better for forging new collaborative relationships with the hard sciences. I agree with ASLA President, Emily O’Mahoney, that “The STEM designation will be an additional tool in helping decision-makers understand the rigor this discipline demands” (ASLA, 2023).

In order to produce ecologically sensitive design and foster environmental stewardship, landscape architects must be educators. The designer’s role as an educator is certainly nothing new. I agree with Paulo Freire, the Brazilian philosopher, that education is the most transformative value-producing system in society (Freire, 1970). In this ethos, I would say that education is the most far-reaching investment of our collective design effort as landscape architects. Landscape architects have made remarkable investments in meaningful community engagement, education, and empowerment in recent years. However, I would argue that how the profession engages the scientific community and then collaboratively educates the general public is worthy of research, critical review, and the dissemination of evidence-based practice models. Through my own creative practice, working with scientists, and design teaching, I have actively researched and applied communication theory through the development of novel science-communication projects with research forests. To be clear, science-communication is generally defined as activities that communicate scientific information to non-scientists for the sake of knowledge, awareness, and decision-making (Burns, 2003). My own science-communication projects have taken many forms, ranging from environmental art on urban campuses to an art-based interpretive trail. Arguably, many of these media, cultural platforms, and engagement strategies exist on the margins of landscape architecture practice. However, I believe that we need new interdisciplinary methods of communication. To that end, I started collaborating with ecologists in 2016 as a Bullard Fellow in Forest Research at the Harvard Forest. This creative-research driven fellowship produced a series of science-communication based landscape installations, art exhibitions, public talks, and peer-reviewed publications. This watershed opportunity opened the door to other collaborations within the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, including my current projects at the HJ Andrews Experimental Research Forest. The LTER Network is a largely untapped collaborative opportunity for landscape architects as the collection of 27 NSF-funded programs are engaged in researching every type of North American ecosystem. The LTER’s mission “is to provide the scientific community, policy makers, and society with the knowledge and predictive understanding necessary to conserve, protect, and manage the nation’s ecosystems, their biodiversity, and the services they provide” (LTER, 2023). The LTER mission squarely aligns with that of LAF and ASLA.

While my design-research with LTER sites has been productive in terms of creating physical objects, installations, exhibitions, and public events, my teaching schedule has left little capacity for critical reflection, writing, and peer-reviewed publication. I believe that this knowledge can contribute to the growing field of design-based science communication. I am also confident that it will develop new insights to strengthen landscape architects’ ability to communicate ecological issues with the rigor of hard science and the cultural nuance of artful design-thinking.

I envision the LAF Fellowship as an opportunity to research and share the theory and diverse practice of science communication with both landscape architecture and research science communities. Central to my proposed research is a deep dive into past practices and current trends of environmental communication by landscape architects with science research communities, specifically ecology and forestry at LTER sites. This research includes a historic survey of past practices for context, but privileges an exploration of new ideas, communication models, and practice modes to move science communication forward within the realm of environmental design practice. In particular, I am interested in answering the question, “How can landscape architects contribute to science-communication projects in order to foster cultural cohesion around ecological issues and help inform ecology-minded decision making.”

My LAF Fellowship project builds off my experience working with research scientists within the LTER network. This primary, practice-based, research would leverage collaborative experiences with the Harvard Forest and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. My critical reflection process would be characterized by post-project documentation, evaluation, internal critique, and partner feedback from LTER collaborators. I see the LAF Fellowship as an opportunity to evaluate these science-communication collaborations, and situate them in design practice, communication theory, and strategic direct-action environmental campaigns.

Through research into other LTER sites and current science-communication trends in landscape architecture I will conduct a literature review and informational interviews with practitioners. This new knowledge would then be synthesized with my past collaborations as case studies to illustrate a variety of science-communication models in terms of their functionality and successes, not to mention limitations and constraints. The studies would include a diversity of recent project types: site-specific landscape installations; narrative-driven exhibitions; art-based interpretive trails; community design-build projects; public art collaborations for direct-action campaigns; tactical pop-up installations for educational community events; and mentored MLA student science-communication collaborations with community conservation partners. These are all project types I’ve developed with scientists in recent years, several of which are featured in my portfolio submission.

The case study method would help answer the driving research question of “How can interdisciplinary science-communication be re-imagined as a collaborative design process for landscape architects and scientists?” However, I do not see these case studies as the final outcome, but a prompt for the development of a series of concise, accessible project-specific “How-to” booklets that combine design thinking, communication theory, experiential design, and public-engagement practice into a free publication to inspire others to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration with science research communities. The closest aspiration that I have found for the final products is perhaps Anne Godfrey’s Active Landscape Photography book series from Routledge. Godfrey’s series presents photography methods and case studies to interrogate relationships between landscape architecture and photography, and ultimately present a variety of creative methods that elevate photography into a rigorous design-research tool for understanding, planning, and designing landscapes. The ultimate outcome of the design-research is a road map to help inspire and instruct allied designers and scientists in collaborative science-communication.

The primary stakeholders for this work would initially be the LTER Network and landscape architects. The general audience is divided into two distinct professional groups, scientific research communities, and landscape architects along with allied environmental designers and planners. The allied design group would include national, regional, and local environmental and planning policy makers and of course members of APA and ASLA. In terms of the scientific community, the LTER Network occupies a rich research niche in a vast constellation of academic institutions and government agencies including NSF, NOAA, NEON, NPS, and other federal agencies working on climate security issues such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Interior. I imagine communication professionals at these organizations to be part of the larger target audience beyond the immediate LTER communities.

Although my Fellowship program is proposed as a design-research project, it is also a communication campaign, and ultimately an educational initiative for landscape architects, scientists, and the communities they both serve. My LAF program vision employs a model of stewardship that merges aesthetics, community interaction, environmental awareness, and communication media (examples of this model can be seen in my portfolio). Similar to my other public-facing projects, my Fellowship program would include integrated outreach and an ongoing shared narrative to illustrate the research issues at hand. A combination of traditional offline media and social media would promote reflection, critical thinking, and creativity among both scientists and designers. To that end, I look forward to working with LAF staff to coordinate these engagement efforts. I am also privileged to receive dissemination support, including additional matched funding from the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest LTER program to help the promotion and community-building around this research proposal.

David Buckley Borden

Eugene, Oregon

9/15/23

Works Cited:

ASLA News. Department of Homeland Security Designates Landscape Architecture a STEM Discipline, American Society of Landscape Architects, https://www.asla.org/NewsReleaseDetails.aspx?id=63963. July12, 2023.

Burns, Terry W. Science Communication, a Contemporary Definition. Sage Publishing, 2002.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1970.

Godfrey, Anne. Active Landscape Photography Methods of Investigation. Routledge, 2022.

Landscape Architecture Foundation, LAF Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership,https://www.lafoundation.org/what-we-do/leadership/laf-fellowship. September 13, 2023.

LTER Vision. Long-Term Ecological Research Network, National Science Foundation, https://lternet.edu/about/. September 14, 2023.