Master in landscape architecture Academic Portfolio_UoE_Jiaqian Cao

Academic 2021- 2022

MLA YEAR2

JIAQIAN CAO

Portfolio

Turn to synergy

NARRATING

PEATLANDS

IN TERCEIRA

Re-examine the relationality between humanity and the environment in the process of discussing the peatlands transformation

CONTENS _ DESIGN BIOGRAPHY 01 RELATIONALITY 02 TRANSFORMATION 03 NARRATIVE 04 PEATLANDS IN TERCEIRA 05 TURE TO SYNERGY

CONCLUSION

DESIGN PROJECT

I am a naturalist who lives in the city, takes care of the plants around me, wants to go to the desert to see the baobab trees blooming in the night.

I am a sensual soul under the rule of reason, showing my uniqueness without disturbing the other.

I am an egalitarian who uses power, giving the other enough respect with my own perspective.

Pay attention to my own mind as well as to all living beings in this world.

The many parts of me are fighting with each other, impeding each other.

Tangled…Painful…Unstable…

I am trying to turn them into synergy, like boiling water that finally turns into mild steam.

DESIGN BIOGRAPHY

My focus and my personal ideology will lean towards respect for nature and human intelligence. For nature, I view it as the origin, the roots of the environment we live in, and her historical changes are very important. But on the other hand, I am also interested in human activity. As a member of humans, I can have intuitive feelings, while consciousness is the source of my perception of the world, that is to say, the way of the world formation, including what is about nature, is seen through the human perspective. My aims as a landscape architect are to create a better living environment for humans while respecting nature and designing spaces in consultation with nature.

The most pressing challenge facing humanity now is the deterioration of the environment, which is not a completely new issue, but has been accompanied by the progress of human society for centuries.

However, due to the belief in science, power, and humanities, human beings still take the attitude of withdrawing human beings from the whole system and using the landscape as a tool to deal with the problem of environmental degradation. By a sensibility of respect for the landscape, reconstructing and emphasizing the interrelated and dynamic systems of human and nature, and narrating in the medium of the landscape, can become a transition to a non-anthropocentric cognition.

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CONCEPT DEFINATION

Anthropocene Noun Period of time during which human activities have impacted the environment enough to constitute a distinct geological change.

The Anthropocene Epoch is an unofficial unit of geologic time, used to describe the most recent period in Earth’s history when human activity started to have a significant impact on the planet’s climate and ecosystems. The word Anthropocene is derived from the Greek words anthropo, for “man,” and cene for “new,” coined and made popular by biologist Eugene Stormer and chemist Paul Crutzen in 2000.

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https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/anthropocene/

Relationality Noun Relational means indicating relation(s) or relationship; concerning the way in which two or more people or things are connected. It would follow, therefore, that relationality means ‘being related to’; ‘in a relationship’; ‘connectedness’; but try Yeung (2005) TIBG 30, 1, who describes relationality as an ‘essential quality embedded in an iterative process of drawing interconnections between two or more discrete categories and phenomena that may not necessarily be binaries’.

Oxford reference from in A Dictionary of Geography

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Transformation Noun A complete change in the appearance or character of something or someone, especially so that that thing or person is improved

Cambridge dictionary

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Narrative Noun a story or a description of a series of events a particular way of explaining or understanding events

Cambridge dictionary

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Relationality

Human and the living environment?

The space you are living in?

Where does perception come from and where will it go?

ANTHROPOCENE “The Anthropocene” represents a point of view that humanity has affected the earth so profoundly that it has become a formidable geological force has gained considerable ground.

site and the surrounding landform fabric, I discovered the role of nature and society in the territory. I therefore see this as two interlocking layers that influence this site.

To begin, I would like to introduce the main issues facing the Anthropocene epoch.

Carbon emissions will rise as a result of economic and social progress, raising global temperatures. Controlling greenhouse gas emissions has become a big concern for everyone on the planet.

This is mutually balanced and inseparable.

In the Anthropocene epoch, humans are not outsiders to the ecosystem — rather, we are participants in its unfolding.

The site of the project is the Azores, the islands are more sensitive and vulnerable due to their isolation and remoteness from the mainland.

For global carbon accounting to remain balanced, peatlands need to function as carbon-capture systems. The peatland distribution of the Azores occupies a large proportion.

I focus on the site of my project from a natural point of view. In peatlands, a unique type of landscape, where human and non-human elements come together to form a “museum of nature”. After studying the

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“Living in the Anthropocene thus necessitates a fundamental shift in understanding relationality as destabilising (rather than as enabling governance as resilience) and thus elicits new non-anthropocentric approaches to knowledge and governance.”

“Relationality was previously understood to extend human knowledge beyond modernist linear and reductionist framings in island resilience. It is now increasingly clear that relationality cannot be contained within these anthropocentric framings.”[1] After reading some research on land use, I

[1]Chandler, D. & Pugh, J. (2020) Islands of relationality and resilience: The shifting stakes of the Anthropocene. Area (London 1969). [Online] 52 (1), 65–72.

Figure1. Climate change and CO2 emission Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 This collage selects elements such as industry, agriculture and animal husbandry, and reflects the impact of human activities on climate change. At the same time, it is a metaphor for the destruction of underground soil carbon storage.

Figure2. Satellite image of Terceira island Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 This satellite image has been processed by photoshop to remove specific landscape elements, and more clearly show the texture of the landform in the middle of Terceira Island.

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found that it is in the area of wetland by year, which is a natural environment

the scale of Azores, is decreasing year great threat to the of the island.

I was primarily inspired by the theory of landscape ecology, focusing on ecological corridors and patches, and prioritizing spatial conservation. The idea of ecology network can be traced to the work of Ian McHarg in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which showed that analysis and assessment of natural resources (geology, soils, water, habitat, etc.) could inform the best places and ways to develop land for social occupation.The way information is superimposed can provide connections between some elements, and plays an important role in interpretation or analysis of landscape at big scale. However McHarg’s work has been identified as lacking consideration of human and culture elements of the landscape.

According to Lefebvre, “on the one hand, space is a product of modes of production, arising from the process of social movement; on the other hand, space is the place where the evolution of social activity takes place, where it can

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nurture new factors that can change the social process and shape the shape of real society.”[2] What the landscape describes is also a space, this space contains both naturally formed and socially formed, in Lefebvre’s theory, nature create a space, this space is unique and does not have any purpose, it cannot be called a product. For example, in the Azores, the craters, cinder cones, lavas, etc. formed by volcanic activity.

Before the start of human production activities, space is only the trace left by natural time; while society product space, such as rural landscape (Farmland, pasture, afforestation), different urban landscapes, and cities, in purposeful landscapes, people’s social life, behaviours, and memory also change. Landscape can show the influence and feedback of society in natural space.

Relationality is like a transparent line connecting different objects, layers, dimensions.

With regard to the Anthropocene, anthropologists continue to explore underrepresented parts of nature and society.

[2]Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space [3]Latour, B. & Weibel, P. (2020) Critical zones : the science and politics of landing on Earth / edited by Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel. Karlsruhe, Germany: ZKM/Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany & The MIT Press.

Bruno Latour focus on the thin surface of the critical zone which is hardly visible at the scale of the typical planetary perspective, being only a few kilometres up and a few kilometres down at most. It’s only a varnish, a thin mat, a film, a bio film. Despite this, it is the only location that living beings have ever visited prior to the discovery and contact with other worlds. It encompasses the entirety of our finite world. We must see it as a skin, the Earth’s skin, sensitive, intricate, ticklish, and reacting. Cells, plants, bugs, creatures, and humans all exist there.[3] This expands my understanding of peatlands from a wetland landscape type to an entire system of zone from subsurface soil to surface organisms.

Figure 3 The Earth as a Network of Critical Zones Frédérique Aït-Touati, Alexandra Arènes, Axelle Grégoire

Deep from the surface, soil is a concept with rich meanings. Artists around the globe are using of soil to raise awareness for environmental and social issues, employing earth as an artistic medium for reflection.[4] In one of Lopez’s projects, she gathered and packed this material into one-centimeter-by-one-centimeter cubes, and arranged the cubes on the floor of a room at Havana’s First Alternative Biennial, to be stepped on and blended back to

[4]https://hyperallergic.com/487683/artists-find-common-ground-in-soil-fromaround-the-world/

Figure 4 Breaking Point _ The Earth Beneath Natalia Lopez 15

their original form by passerby. For the landscape field, soil is both the medium and the subject.It can be a problem that needs to be solved, or a tool to shape space, or it can be the storyteller of history.

Figure 5 Landform fabric of Terceria island’s internal, Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022

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Draw with charcoal and design different strokes to express different landforms. The basemap processed with digital technology can better feel the difference between different landforms, including the vegetation on the surface, hydrological information, and the structure of artificial areas.

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“Since childhood, I have always had a hobby - admiring the peculiar shapes in nature... I mainly like the changes of water, fire, smoke, clouds and floating dust, but there is also something more special , that is, the stains that float and swirl on the eyelids as soon as you close your eyes... No activity can so easily make people discover that they are a creator, and recognize that their minds have been continuously participating in the concrete creation of the world.” _Hermann Hesse

Figure 7 Montagnola (1933) Hermann Hesse

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SPACE & PERCEPTION Based on the concept of Anthropocene, we view humans as an integral part of a complex system, and we are always immersed in a web of interactions that are at every instant the result of our biological and cultural histories.[5] This kind of ecological philosophy makes me struggle in the process of landscape analysis and design, thinking that the status of human beings is not dominant, but it is unavoidable to observe from the perspective of human beings.

From “outside”, I have been influenced by the literary works of Thoreau and Hesse.

In their literature there is often a celebration of nature and a genuine and moving sense of being in nature. This inclines me to listen to the whispers of nature, to hold an attitude of minimal interference with the state of nature and to add more metaphors and natural mappings to the limited space given to humans.

That feeling to nature inspired me to think about the connection between human and the environment, as Tim Ingold said, which I quote directly here:

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“Rather than thinking of ourselves only as observers, picking our way around the objects lying about on the ground of a ready-formed world, we must imagine ourselves in the first place as participants, each immersed with the whole of our being in the currents of a world-in-formation: in the sunlight we see, the rain we hear and the wind we feel in. Participation is not opposed to observation but is a condition for it, just as light is a condition for seeing things, sound for hearing them, and feeling for touching them”[6] Participating in this world requires a sensitive insight into natural spaces. In James Turrell’s artworks, the light is used to creat space. It’s light – the sensory manifestation of light’s physical presence.

Focusing on the change of light and shadow, Turrell seems to have continued the style of Impressionism. The material of the physical world represented by light, through the artist’s works, helps to connect human beings and the world through perception.

[5]Escobar, A. (2018) Designs for the Pluriverse : Radical Interdependence, Autonomy, and the Making of Worlds, Duke University Press, Durham.

[6]Ingold, T. (2011) Being alive : essays on movement, knowledge and description / Tim Ingold. London: Routledge.

Figure 7 Wedgework, James Turrell, 2022

“My work is more about your seeing than it is about my seeing, although it is a product of my seeing. I’m also interested in the sense of presence of space; that is space where you feel a presence, almost an entity — that physical feeling and power that space can give.”

[7]

_James Turrell

[7]Turrell, J. (2022) INTRODUCTION[Online]. Available at: https://jamesturrell.com/about/introduction/(Accessed: 3 May 2022)

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Figure 8 Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway, 1844, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London J. M. W. Turner

Figure 9 Norham Castle, Sunrise, c.1845, oil on canvas, Tate Britain J. M. W. Turner

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Dating back to the Impressionist period, a prime example of J. M. W. Turner’s style can be seen in Rain, Steam and Speed - the Great Western Railroad, where objects are barely recognizable. Intense tones and an interest in evanescent light ignited my observation of the landscape and felt the deep connection.

Figure 10 Imagine of Terceira island Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 I browsed the image about the island on the Internet, and then used toner and charcoal to draw the impression of the island of terceira.

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Transformation

What are the roles of human and nature in the landscape change?

How to experience the dynamic process of perception?

TIME Even if the concept of the Anthropocene is not fully defined today, such a perspective brings together many environmental crises in the world in which we exist to discuss them in one context. As a result, our perceptions of the past and the future are sufficiently influenced by such a concept to reexamine social and environmental changes based on a larger time scale.

As Vincent Ialenti writes in Deep Time Reckoning, “if humans are judged to be agents of geological change, then the value of better syncing our everyday thought patterns with deeper timescales may become clear”[8]

relationship between the historical element and the landscape? How should landscape design be treated? Is the status quo future history?

Pushing back the time, starting from the historical dimension, the existing landscape was formed by natural factors or human activities. Here transformation will involve how the landscape has been transformed into what it is today and whether the history of the site is important. The mention of reductionism in landscape transformation in the article land to landscape is controversial in my opinion. In my study experience, historical elements are always emphasized in almost all design projects. However, questions often arise in my mind: what is the

In the process of landscape design, the intervention of unnatural elements is inevitable. I have always been cautious in understanding and facing the existing landscape. When I place my human perspective below nature, I often feel intimidated to change, and I want to leave the decision of the landscape to nature.

Moving forward in time, from a future perspective, the landscape needs to face the challenges of time. In today’s increasingly serious environmental problems, the landscape needs to consider changes in sea level rise, extreme climate, hydrology, etc., as well as the growth of vegetation in the landscape, the evolution of habitats, and the weathering of materials.

“Nothing is so plentiful as time.”

[8]Ialenti, V. & Bjornerud, M. (2020) Deep time reckoning : how future thinking can help earth now / Vincent Ialenti, Marcia Bjornerud.

Cambridge, Massachusetts ;: The MIT Press.

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Finnish proverb

Figure 11 Sketch-landform change, Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 Pastures, production forests, natural vegetation areas, and artificial areas are superimposed and intertwined.

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Figure 12 Terceira timeline, Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 Express the historical dimension of terceira island in a timeline.

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The High Line is a great example of incorporating timescales into the design.

Taking into account the history of the site, elements such as railway lines are retained, and attention is paid to the selection of landscape materials.

The detail design of seats, paving, and plants carefully balances the natural and artificial parts of the landscape.

Figure 13 The highline, James Corner 31

DYNAMIC The Anthropocene is not simply a new geologic epoch; it is an opportunity to embrace a new ontology.

adapting to each other, thus describing a world that is always moving and changing, rather than static and unchanging.

A mechanical perspective of reality is challenged by new materialism. The Newtonian Cartesian paradigm displays a belief in the knowability, predictability, and controllability of the universe and its operation. New materialists, on the other hand, contend that matter is not inert nor mechanical, but rather dynamic and connected.[8]

Different from architects or engineers, landscape architects pay more attantion to ecological system and land. Architecture and engineering treat soil/land as surface to be manipulated, while landscape architects should take into account the changes in the land that exist in the landscape, viewing soil as a design content, tool, or goal.

We are alyways lost in this globe, and dont know how to handle it. So there’s a very clear sense in which we need to have another imagination or anouther mythological imagination, and also scientific, to try to capture something.

We have to consider environmental science when solving problems in the landscape.

Biology and ecology are fields that are increasingly embracing the concept of dynamic complex systems. Complex systems theory emphasises the interactions between subjects within a system. Instead of a linear concept of cause and effect, it describes the relationships between elements that are always interacting and

In my project, peatlands are wetland ecosystems in which waterlogged conditions prevent plant material from fully decomposing.Large amounts of carbon, fixed from the atmosphere into plant tissues through photosynthesis, are locked away in peat soils, representing a valuable global carbon store.

Research studies show that it takes 5 to 20 years after stripping for harvested peatland to return to an ecologically balanced system. Peat itself forms a layer of an inch every 15 to 25 years.

Planting on peatlands can lead to an

[8]Benson, M. H. (2019) NEW MATERIALISM: AN ONTOLOGY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE. Natural resources journal. 59 (2), 251–280.

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initial loss of carbon, the export of nutrients and some sediment depletion.

And the agricultural drainage can lead the water table become low, which damages the peatland. Blocking drainage is necessary if the peatlands need to be restored.

Grazing will make the peatland be trampled and compacted, which can also lead to soil carbon losses. Grazing cessation induced the regenerative succession that could lead to self-recovery, which, in optimal conditions, could be an alternative to active restoration in Azores.

Regenerative succession reverses the state of degraded peatlands and returns them to nature through changes in landscape type and function as well as changes in human activities in the landscape.

In the previous stage, I work on identification of ecological networks for land-use planning with spatial conservation prioritization, evaluation the history and potential of different island industries, as well as peatland formation and restoration. Based on the previous analysis, I found that the peatland on Terceira Island is threatened due to agricultural activities and grazing. I hope to realize the regeneration succession of degraded peatland to prevent the deterioration of the ecological environment on the island and the carbon emissions caused by the degradation of peatland.

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Figure 14 Peatland as a carbon storage - formation & deterioration Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 Two consecutive drawings are used to express the formation and degradation process of peatland, reflecting the dynamic changes of peatland. The analysis of environmental science on soil uptake and emissions of greenhouse gases is presented with text and icons.

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Narrative

How to narrate through landscape design?

How to perceive space and time?

TIME & SPACE IN LANDSCAPE I am personally influenced by existentialism and am concerned with the senses, perception and experience.

Phenomenology continues to intervene in my analysis and site perception process.

“Natural objects, for example, must be experienced before any theorizing about them can occur.

Experiencing is consciousness that intuits something and values it to be actual; experiencing is intrinsically characterized as consciousness of the natural object in question and of it as the original...”[9] Based on Sartre’s phenomenology, it is valuable to focus on the scale of the human body and describe the landscape from a human perspective. Take Maya Lin’s 11 Mintue Line as an example, which created in a cow pasture near the Wanås Foundation in Sweden, time and space can be experienced by people when they go through it.[10] This is an important guide for my design process.

Looking back on my previous statement, I found that the flow of my thinking is inseparable from perception, which is the

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[9]Edmund Husserl (1917) Pure Phenomenology [10]Susan Herrington (2017) Landscape theory in design. Routledge, New York, NY.

only thing I can be sure of, real, and confident as a human being. I decided to continue to design in depth in the aspect of spatial perception, so that the landscape can be used as a narrative medium to show people various elements of nature and humanity.

Figure 15 11 Minute Line(2004)

by Maya Lin, image courtesy of The Wanås Foundation, image by Anders Norrsell, Wanås, Swe

After dealing with the perspective of my design intervention, I still dare not easily change the existing landscape. I found that “Landscape Syntax” emphasize respect for the site itself and its structural relationship to the outside. The “fragments” such as the existing elements

and information of the site are integrated to achieve an inherent logical correlation, and then these fragments are combined with the least intervention to make them appear flexible and uncertain.[11] This design method provides a reference for functional or production landscape.

Although the site of my design project is not a post-industrial landscape, it has been affected by human activities, forming a surface such as pastures and production forests, and the combination has formed its strong structure. At first I was very struggling, should the design change the existing structure, or keep the status quo?

If the existing structure is retained, how can the role of landscape design be reflected? “Landscape Syntax” inspired me to re-analyse and organize the existing elements of the site and will drive my next design phase. The superposition of the existing structure and the designed landscape structure can bring more potential.

Figure 16 Overlay of conceptual layers and structural elements, Peter Latz, Duisburg Nord Landscape Park, 1990

[11]Weilacher, U. (2008) Syntax of landscape : the landscape architecture of Peter Latz and Partners / Udo Weilacher. English edition. Basel ;: Birkhäuser.

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LANDSCAPE AS MEDIUM Landscape is a result of cultural interpretation and the buildup of representational sediments throughout time.

In a period of climate change, art is connected with nature, which lead that many artist turn to focus on landscape.[12] “Like any text, landscape architecture is conceptual, schematizing Nature and humankind's place within it, but at the same time it differs from other landscape representations in that it operates through and within the medium of landscape itself.”

During design process, the drawing and expression of the landscape can still be emphasized as a narrative. This reminds me of the need to pay attention to the expression of time and space in the drawing of landscape architecture.

Making and designing the landscape, I want to creat spaces represent various element of nature and huminity. Let landscape narrate itself to visitors, which requires a close connection of perception in design.

"From a landscape architectural point of view, a major aspect of landscape is that it is not only a phenomenon of analysis, but is more significantly something to be made, or designed"[13] Landscape is also an integrative medium, and landscape narrative has potential in landscape architecture practice in the pre-design phase. By condensing complex vision and analysis into understandable and engaging storylines, explicit consideration of different landscape narratives can inform the design process.

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[12]Miles, M. (2014) Eco-aesthetics art, literature and architecture in a period of climate change / Malcolm Miles. Bloomsbury Academic, New York.

[13]James Corner (2920) Representation and landscape: Drawing and making in the landscape medium. Word & Image. 8 (3), 243–275. doi:10.1080/02666286.1992.10 435840.

Figure 17 Experimental music notation William Engelenr

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Figure 18 Movement/experience notation Lori Cockerham, 1991.

Figure 19 Metaphorical/analogical drawing-Development drawing for a ‘weather garden’ Chris Zlocki, 1991.

Figure 20 Multiscale landscape narrative Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022

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This is a sketch about the design idea, the different perspectives in the background represent the spaces on different layers of the landscape, and the pencil sketch in the middle expresses the design proposal. The different landscape spaces travel through different layers to form a series of narrative spaces to understand peatlandfrom different perspectives .

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Design project

Peatlands in Terceira

FIELDWORK

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Figure 21 Mapping the Azores Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 Collect information about the archipelago in a collage and focus on the connections between the islands.

Figure 22 Territorial analysis_Field trip Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021 Because there is no field trip physically, it is necessary to use Google Maps to visualize the fieldtrip to create an impression of the island’s space.

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Figure 23 Peatland habitat Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 It is very important to perceive the site and perceive the space. Although I could not go to the project site, I found a peatland in Edinburgh and had a fieldtrip.

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Figure 24 Landscape facilities Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022

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Figure 25 Spatial thinking _ Existing landscape drawings Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 The space on terceira island is drawn with charcoal, which expresses the atmosphere of the space better than the photo.

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Figure 26 Landform fabric change of Terceria island’s internal, Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022

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Draw with charcoal and design different strokes to express different landforms. The basemap processed with digital technology can better feel the difference between different landforms, including the vegetation on the surface, hydrological information, and the structure of artificial areas.

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TRANSLATION My aim is to propose a landscape intervention design for the conservation of peatlands, wild pastures and spatial narratives of peatlands, based on a strategy of progressive restoration of degraded peatlands. The project focuses on the peatlands themselves as a carbon store to combat the climate crisis caused by greenhouse gas emissions, and the protection and restoration of peatland ecological habitats to avoid the loss of more organisms from their homes.

The content of the drawings will be both scientific and humanistic, showing ecological and geological related research while at the same time focusing on human perception. I will use symbols and metaphors to show the interconnectedness of various elements and the atmosphere of the space.

As a landscape designer, one learns to work with nature and synergy, not trying to grab all the power and avoiding an anthropocentric perspective. Interventions (reversals) in the destruction of the natural landscape create new peatland networks, and minimal new human landscape interventions create narrative spaces that

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bring about social and environmental change in response to the challenges facing the Anthropocene.

Figure 27 Social and environmental system: from contradiction to oppotunity Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 The drawings use grids and perspective to express the space, the elements of the hand to express the design intervention, and the contradiction of the current situation of the site. At the same time, the natural and social elements appearing in the picture show the mutual relationship and the complex system .

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STRATEGY In this landscape design project, a sequence and network of peatland landscape parks will be implemented to deal with the above problems. The basic strategy of the project is regenerative succession of degraded peatland, which is promoted by creating ecological corridors and patches, improving pasture landscape and low-carbon tourism. The existing landform fabric originates from natural or intense activities or long evolution and is also closely related to the activities of social human beings. The landscape formed under the historical background of human activities and the landscape formed by nature are intertwined, and the transformation and protection of this dual subject requires careful analysis and trade-off.

In the first strategy, I was primarily inspired by the theory of landscape ecology, focusing on ecological corridors and patches, and prioritizing spatial conservation. The idea of ecology network can be traced to the work of Ian McHarg, which showed that analysis and assessment of natural resources (geology, soils, water, habitat, etc.) could inform the best places and ways to develop land for social

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occupation.Peatlands lying between Serra de Santa Bárbara and Pico Alto are highly disturbed, mainly by agricultural use.

It is important to evaluate the peatland ecosystems located between the two natural patches and eventually create conditions to establish connectivity between them by peatland restoration. This strategical plan of ecological network is intended to define priority areas for restoration.

The second and third strategies incorporate social dynamics, focusing on the human-land relationship.

Peatland restoration formed an ecosystem approach to the alignment of biodiversity conservation with landscape management and sustainable use. The tension between farming/stock raising and peatland on Terceira is evident. I think the challenge is about the combination of pasture and peatland. Combine the production and living activities of residents and the required space, exploring targeted agrirewilding methods will not only improve the stability of the environment, but also take measures in advance for predicted future environmental changes. The proposed low-carbon tourism strategy based on the peatland network help promote wellbeing

for humans and create economic interests to negotiate the rewilding of agricultural and pastoral land.

I believe that my projects so far have been heavily weighted towards the natural dimension and have lacked research and site studies related to the social structure of the context. Because there is no way to go to the site and research it, I can only build my mental image of the site through information gathered remotely, which often carries a high risk of being wrong. Also, as I focused on a specific landscape type (peatland) and chose the central natural area of Terceira Island as my scope, which is far from the human habitat (urban, residential area), this left the site less connected to the local population.

The physical and cognitive distance makes it difficult for me to make an accurate analysis and interpretation based on the historical social culture and the collective memory of the local population.

This has led me to be on the side of conservatism and will not to intervene too much in this area.

Apart from the limitations due to objective factors, this stems from the viewpoint

oflandscape anthropology: it does not support the analysis of the environment in terms of culture, which is considered a homogeneous and static concept. The anthropology of landscape practice values the diversity of inhabitants and the temporary, fluid nature of the relationship between inhabitants and the landscape. The landscape constructed through the cultural intentions of the other (the external landscape) is often in conflict with the landscape spontaneously formed by the local inhabitants (the internal landscape).

The site is confronted with unfamiliar, diverse groups of people, so instead of putting an othering emphasis on existing human elements, I turn to creating new landscapes that interact with people.

I therefore plan to experiment with the human-social aspect of the project, where the strategy of tourism is another layer of network superimposed on the existing natural social system, based on design proposals that explore its impact on the social aspect. What I want to do is to design landscapes for people, but at the same time allow them to understand nature beyond the usual perspective.

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Figure 28 Strategic framework Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 1, Archipelago studio, 2021

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DESIGN INTERVENTION The design proposal is to establish a peatland natural park in this area to protect and restore peatland, and provide space for scientific research, education, entertainment.

At the beginning of the design, the principle of putting ecological

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restoration first and “park” attributes second. That is to reduce the human damage and disturbance to the peatland, restore the vegetation, and create a suitable habitat for all kinds of wetland organisms, especially birds, so that they can live and reproduce here. The second is the needs of people, that is, to increase

park facilities on this basis to meet the needs of public activities and science education.

Interventions (reversals) in the destruction of the natural landscape create new peatland networks, and minimal new human landscape interventions create

narrative spaces that bring about social and environmental change in response to the challenges facing the Anthropocene.

Figure 30 Peatland natural park section Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 The perspective visual of the site and a long section together represent the different habitats of the site after the design intervention, as well as its potential as a carbon storage.

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The natural park can be divided into three levels of protected areas according to the degree of protection and the intensity of human intervention, of which: The first-class protected area covers the main peatland, and the existing features are completely preserved without

Figure 31 Peatland natural park plan Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 64

intervention, and tourists are not allowed to enter.

The secondary protection zone mainly focuses on creating artificial low land to collect water and restoring vegetation. Except for some elevated trestle bridges, there are no ground

roads and activity venues, and there is less human intervention.

The third-level protected area is located at the outermost periphery and is the main activity area of the peatland park.

In this area, natural methods are used to sort out the terrain, create green space,

set up garden roads and activity venues, etc., and arrange a small number of service buildings, and the overall development intensity is low.

Figure 32 Peatland natural park strategy Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 Demonstrate strategies for design interventions on different existing landscapes.

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Figure 33 Peatland natural park_Protection zone visuals Jiaqian Cao, LA Design exploration Part 2, Archipelago studio, 2022 The combination of hand drawing and digital technology, perspective and section, show the spatial relationship and at the same time show the structure and soil.

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Conclusion

Turn to synergy

THE END, A NEW BEGINNING

As a landscape architect, I have mainly looked at the relationship between people and the environment, establishing a nonanthropocentric perspective, acknowledging that human beings are part of nature and that there is a strong connection between them. Humans and the environment exist as a complex dynamic system. This is reflected in my projects by focusing on the transformation of existing landscapes due to human activities. Focus on the main issue facing the Anthropocene - carbon emissions, and then focus on the impact of human activities on peatlands in the Azores. From the perspective of human perception, focusing on the synergy of various landscape elements in the dual context of society and nature, create space to narrative peatlands on the island. The inner struggle is mainly because there is still a huge gap between what I want to do and what I can do. When I weigh the elements and come up with a design result, all the chaos in my mind also turns to synergy. I value it all and will keep struggling, keep thinking, keep doing.

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JIAQIAN CAO Master in Landscape Architecture Academic Portfolio 2021-2022