Blue Bowl Remark

From a discussion at the cottage in Groningen after breakfast with the coloured bowls:

The way landscape architecture is practiced, particularly when dealing with plants, is extremely troubling. It is not much more than setting a table, arranging elements in a way to be beautiful or after an idea of function. Setting a table can be something quite elegant & beautiful, or something done at the last minute and random. Elements are used and judged based on need or their aesthetic combination, or both. When landscape architects use plants in design, they are not realizing the extended impacts of these organisms. Trees do more than cast shade and change colour, they are also shelters for birds, interact with insects, and are living organisms that produce O2 during the day and CO2 during the night. They are alive, and affect the environment much further than after the 1-year contract period is up. It’s a bit strange that we do not work with ecologists or attempt to understand much of anything of the functionality and interdependence of ecosystems we create, no matter the scale. Landscape architects need to understand the function of nature now on a range of scales, as it exists in places such as the urban friche in order to make places that will work, and not something that follows some sort of idealized view of nature. To keep such romantic visions of nature functioning, it requires some incredibly dominant management procedures, which are deterring landscape architecture's brightest potential, to work with change.