The Canary in the Mine: Wildfires and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland

Silvia Benedito

The Canary in the Mine:Wildfires and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland

Fall 2021

Studio Report

Silvia Benedito

The Canary in the Mine

The Canary in the Mine: Wildfires and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland Once a necessary disturbance for landscape management and economic growth, fire has become an ever-growing threat —a symptom of many damaging “fronts” accrued over decades in the rural hinterlands: ad-hoc forest governance, fast-growing monocultures, depopulated and aged communities, swelling temperatures, and the abandonment of hinterlands perceived to have low quantifiable “value.” However,the pressures imposed by the growing wildfire occurrences, climatic stress, unreliable food and energy security, bio-diversityloss, and the pandemic outbreak forced the national government and the European Union to act toward new economic and ecological paradigms.

Studio Instructor Silvia Benedito Teaching Associate Slide Kelly Students Ayami Akagawa, Tristan Battistoni, Echo Chen, Sarah Doonan, Kongyun He, Vardhan Mehta, Gena Morgis, Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham, Michele Turrini, Alysoun Wright, Jiani Zhang

In this context, Portugal’s rural territories are the canary in the mine. With approximately two-thirds of the country considered “rural,” the symptoms of current wildfires are a warning and a prospect of what the future holds for Mediterranean landscapes; and, potentially, a spring-board for new design principles in today’s challenges.

The Studio focuses on the municipality of Arganil located in the central region of Portugal severally affected by the wildfires of 2017. With approximately 2500 Ha, this area gathers community parcels (“baldios”) winding through small mountain and river villages. The Studio is a laboratory to explore questions about wildfires, rural stewardship, bio-economy, resilient landscapes, community built-up, and the cultural values associated with “working with the land.”

Conducted in Partnership with Arganil Municipality (CMA)

Projects

Introduction + Essays 14

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26

32

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THE CANARY IN THE MINE: Re-imagining the Rural Territory in Pyric landscapes Silvia Benedito CANARY IN THE MINE: Wildfire and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland Anita Berrizbeitia Landscape design: an experience of co-creation at Municipality of Arganil Nuno Santos, Abel Simões, Érica G. Castanheira

108

Future Flames Gena Morgis + Alysoun Wright

130

The Rosemary Province Echo Chen

142

Eat, Cultivate, Heal Kongyun He

154

Herbivores Estate Jiani Zhang

168

Garnet Ring Sarah Doonan

182 Thoughts on Landscape Restoration Stephen Pyne

The Circle of Fire Ayami Akagawa

192

Shared Steps Michele Turrini

Forensic Site Analysis Silvia Benedito + Slide Kelly

210

Migrations Tristan Battistoni

223

Biodiverse Corridors Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

231

Cork Valley Vardhan Mehta

244

Contributors

Research 54

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National Portrait: Geography + Enegy Gena Morgis + Alysoun Wright National Portrait: Demography + Economic Activities Kongyun He + Vardhan Mehta

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Fire Behavior + Anatomy Ayami Akagawa + Sarah Doonan

82

Policy Jiani Zhang + Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

94

Mediterranean Ecology Echo Chen, Michele Turrini, + Tristan Battistoni

Introduction + Essays “While rural concerns were central to the emergence of planning in the last century, during the second half of the twentieth century planning theory and practice have been dominated by urban challenges, with an increasingly unimaginative rural planning regime driven largely by a dominant agricultural agenda. This productivist agenda continues to relegate potentially progressive rural planning debates behind farmland preservation, amenity protection, and a minimal approach to socio-economic issues.

However, the continued impacts of urbanization, demographic changes, the decline of the traditional rural economic base, the emergence of multi-functional rural landscapes, and deeply contested new demands for rural space suggests an urgent need to reinvent rural planning for the twenty-first century.”[1] [1] In Scott, Mark; Gallent, Nick; Gkartzios, & Menelaos.

(2019). “New horizons in rural planning,” In The Routledge Companion to Rural Planning (1st ed.). Milton: Routledge. P.1

“Embora as preocupações rurais tenham sido centrais para o surgimento do planeamento no século passado, durante a segunda metade do século XX, a sua teoria e a prática foram dominadas pelos desafios urbanos, com um regime de planeamento rural cada vez mais sem imaginação impulsionado em grande parte por uma agenda agrícola dominante. Essa agenda produtivista continua a relegar os debates sobre planeamento rural, potencialmente progressivo, para a preservação de terras agrícolas, proteção de amenidades e uma abordagem mínima para questões socioeconômicas. No entanto, os impactos contínuos da urbanização, as mudanças demográficas, o declínio da base econômica rural tradicional, o surgimento de paisagens rurais multifuncionais e novas exigências profundamente contestadas por espaço rural sugerem uma necessidade urgente de reinventar o planeamento rural para o século vinte e um. ”[1]

Community engagement and Field Work in Benfeita. Fellowship between Câmara Municipal Arganil and Harvard GSD, with Silvia Benedito, Summer 2018 Students: Ines Benítez and Melissa Naranjo Barrientos

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THE CANARY IN THE MINE: Re-imagining the Rural Territory in Pyric landscapes

Silvia Benedito

“Fire is a phenomenon that derives from its circumstances... It synthesizes its surroundings.”

(Stephen J. Pyne, “The Element That Isn’t“. Fire Ecology, 2(1), 1-6.)

The well-known fire ecologist and historian Stephen Pyne reminds us that wildfires signal the multi-layered vulnerabilities of the territories in which they occur. Rather than thinking on “How to suppress the wildfires?” this observation triggers less easy questions to answer: “Why do they happen? And how can one imagine the landscape, and the rural territory, in the context of mounting vulnerabilities to wildfire occurrences?” Rather than focusing on fast fixes, Pyne’s statement encourages us to think about the roots of these occurrences and what can be done to address them. Landscapes are shaped by people, ecological processes, economies, and policies, and this is the site to reflect upon and act on changes.

The wildfires are not the result of climatic disintegration alone. Instead, they are rooted in interdependent territorial and social changes accumulated over time. The rural exodus, the modification of eating habits and diets based once on local markets to food processed globally, and policies suppressing cultural burnings performed by traditional and indigenous com-

O CANÁRIO NA MINA: Re-imaginando o Território Rural em paisagens píricas O CANÁRIO NA MINA, Option Studio na Harvard Graduate School of Design, é uma incursão nas causas dos incêndios em Portugal e um trampolim para novos cenários de planeamento e design realizados com e para as comunidades rurais. Nessa trajetória, CANARY repensa cenários que promovam a revitalização de territórios rurais através dos potenciais eco culturais, sociais e econômicos das suas paisagens. Com cerca de dois terços de Portugal considerado rural, os sintomas dos incêndios atuais são um aviso e uma perspetiva – tal como um “canário na mina,” o Studio revela as potencialidades do desenho e programação das paisagens Mediterrânicas em crise crescente de incêndios.

“O fogo é um fenômeno que deriva de suas circunstâncias ... Ele sintetiza os seus contextos.”

(Stephen J. Pyne, “The Element That Isn’t“. Fire Ecology, 2(1), 1-6.)

O conhecido ecologista e historiador do fogo Stephen Pyne lembra-nos que os incêndios sinalizam as aglomeradas vulnerabilidades dos territórios em que ocorrem. Em vez de pensar “Como suprimir os incêndios?” essa observação desencadeia perguntas menos fáceis de responder: “Porque é que acontecem? Como se pode imaginar a paisagem, e o território rural, no contexto de crescente vulnerabilidades para incêndios? ” Em vez de se focar em soluções rápidas para apaziguar os sintomas, a declaração de Pyne incentivam-nos a pensar sobre as raízes desses sintomas e o que pode ser feito para evitar a sua expansão. As paisagens são moldadas por pessoas, processos ecológicos, economias e políticas, e este é o local para refletir e agir para mudanças.

A crescente crise global de incêndios não são

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The CANARY IN THE MINE Option Studio at the Harvard GSD is a foray into the causes of wildfires in Portugal and a springboard for new planning-design scenarios assembled with-and-for the rural communities. In this trajectory, CANARY re-imagines scenarios to promote the revitalization of rural territories through their landscapes’ eco-cultural, social, and economic potentials. With approximately two-thirds of Portugal considered rural, the symptoms of current wildfires are a warning and a prospect—likewise a “Canary in the Mine,” the Studio reveals potentials of designing the Mediterranean landscapes in the ever-growing wildfire crisis.

somente resultado da desintegração climática.

São especialmente o resultado de mudanças territoriais e sociais interdependentes e acumuladas ao longo de muitas décadas. O êxodo rural, a modificação dos hábitos alimentares e dietas (baseadas outrora em produtos locais para alimentos processados globalmente), e as políticas de supressão de queimadas culturais realizadas por comunidades tradicionais e indígenas em todo o mundo (e a renúncia do conhecimento local) levaram a profundas mudanças de regimes ecológicos. Essas condições, somadas ao desinvestimento político-económico nos territórios rurais, transformaram as paisagens propensas ao fogo em caixas de pólvora, esperando para serem catalisadas por condições meteorológicas oportunas. O aumento da temperatura global, as estações secas prolongadas e o número crescente de trovoadas ativaram tais vulnerabilidades presentes nas regiões de clima do tipo mediterrânico (MCRs) numa nova categoria de incêndios, os mega-incêndios. As causas dos incêndios, e possíveis soluções são, portanto, complexas.

Apesar dessa complexidade, duas evidências nos campos da economia e das ciências sociais tem vindo gradualmente a captar a atenção de muitos governos, prometendo caminhos alternativos. Por um lado, a abordagem tecnocrática (ou “reativa”) de combate e controle de incêndios, formalizada no início do século e reforçada após os avanços tecnológicos da Segunda Guerra Mundial, tem-se provado insustentavelmente cara e limitada; Por outro lado, o crescente reconhecimento de que políticas de combate a incêndios implantadas por regimes coloniais e mercados globais estão alinhadas com atos de marginalização social e cultural têm trazido à superfície práticas ancestrais comunitárias baseadas no fogo como distúrbio ecológico para a manutenção do equilíbrio da paisagem. Entre essas práticas e comunidades, estão as Primeiras Nações, povos indígenas e as populações rurais em todo o mundo. Tal promete o muito devido reconhecimento do uso do fogo e das práticas tradicionais no aumento da resiliência da paisagem pírica por ação do chamado “bom” fogo. Este, é uma queima prescrita de baixa temperatura aplicada em períodos selecionados para produzir rebentos ricos em proteínas para chamar herbívoros (i.e. caça), reduzir as cargas de combustível na paisagem, promover o crescimento de plantas medicinais ou materiais para artigos tradicionais, e fornecer fertilizante ao solo. A reavaliação da primeira evidência (“reativa”) e a integração do conhecimento tradicional (“ativa) parecem conduzir a práticas mais

THE CANARY IN THE MINE: Re-imagining the Rural Territory in Pyric landscapes

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munities worldwide (and the relinquishment of local knowledge) have led to profound shifts of social-ecological regimes. These conditions, coupled with economic-political disinvestment in the rural territories, have transformed fireprone landscapes into tinderboxes, waiting to be ignited by catalytic meteorological conditions.

The increase of global air temperature, prolonged dry seasons, and the growing number of lighting events have ignited such vulnerabilities into a new category of wildfires in the Mediterranean-type climate regions (MCRs), namely, the mega-fires. The causes of and possible amendments to wildfires are, therefore, complex.

Despite this complexity, two pieces of evidence, from the economic and social fields of knowledge, gradually come to the attention of many governments, promising alternative paths.

On the one hand, the technocratic (or reactive) approach of wildfire combat-and-control, formalized at the beginning of the century, and reinforced after World-War II’s technological advances, which has proven unsustainably costly and limited. On other hand, the growing recognition that policies of wildfire combat deployed by colonial regimes and globalizing markets are aligned with acts of social marginalization and cultural disempowerment have brought attention to community-based fire practices and related landscape stewardship. Amongst these communities are the First Nations, Indigenous, and rural people worldwide. Such recognition promises the time-honored role of traditional fire knowledge and local-based practices in land stewardship with the so called “good” fire--a low temperature prescribed burn applied in selected periods to yield protein-rich sprouts for herbivory, reduce fuel loads in the landscape, promote medicinal plants or regalia materials, and provide fertilizer to the soil. The re-consideration of the first evidence (or “reactive”) and the integration of community stewardship (aka “active”) seem to lead to more resilient and integrative procedures in the context of climatic pressures. However, the mediatization of pyric disasters through their destructive power does not help to support the argument that “good” fire is a productive disturbance in the landscape.

Thus, addressing the crisis of wildfires also implies a change in the perception of what fire IS and how it may contribute to the ecological, productive, and cultural domains. Instead of demonizing fire—usually from populations living in urban centers—one must critically recall the long history between humans and fire in its symbolic, spiritual, nurturing, and revitalizing

resilientes e integradoras no presente contexto de pressões climáticas. No entanto, a continuada mediatização dos desastres píricos e seus efeitos destruidores através de notícias televisivas não ajudam a sustentar o argumento de que o fogo “bom” é um distúrbio produtivo na paisagem.

Assim, enfrentar a crise dos incêndios também implica uma mudança na perceção acerca do que o fogo É e como pode contribuir para o equilíbrio dos sistemas ecológicos, produtivos, e culturais. Em vez de demonizar o fogo - geralmente por populações que vivem em centros urbanos - deve-se relembrar criticamente a longa história e relação entre a sociedade e o fogo na sua capacidade simbólica, espiritual, nutritiva e revitalizadora.

Essa reflexão traz outros atores para a equação, tal como a decisão do consumidor e seus efeitos colaterais na paisagem e robustez ecológica, nas economias locais e políticas territoriais. Por exemplo, a decisão de comprar produtos alimentares importados de outros lugares (iogurtes, carne, frutas, vegetais, etc) terá um efeito colateral nas paisagens e economias locais. Essas trocas de capital trans-localizadas podem resultar em maior vulnerabilidade dos territórios locais, pois as paisagens píricas não usadas estarão sujeitas inevitavelmente a incêndios. Em suma, cada hectare de pasto perdido para a sucessão natural da floresta (e não mantida), cada hectare de terra cultivada abandonado, e cada parcela de aldeia rural levada ao esquecimento são hectares disponíveis para queimar todos os anos. A crise climática aumenta estas perdas em novas escalas de ocorrências e magnitudes píricas. Enfrentar o desafio dos incêndios implica encontrar um esboço nos domínios culturais e econômicos, no qual a educação e a conscientização centradas nos potenciais sociais e ecológicos das aldeias rurais, e suas paisagens, são componentes cruciais.

O CANÁRIO NA MINA, Option Studio na Harvard Graduate School of Design, é uma incursão nas causas dos incêndios em Portugal e um trampolim para novos cenários de planeamento e design realizados com e para as comunidades rurais. Nessa trajetória, CANARY repensa cenários para promover a revitalização de territórios rurais através dos potenciais eco-culturais, sociais e econômicos das suas paisagens. Com cerca de dois terços de Portugal considerado rural, os sintomas dos incêndios atuais são um aviso e uma perspetiva – tal como um “canário na mina,” o Studio revela as potencialidades do desenho e programação das paisagens mediterrânicas em crise crescente de incêndios.

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Silvia Benedito

capacities.

This reflection brings additional actors to this equation, such as the decision of the consumer and its collateral effects on landscape management and ecological strength, local economies, and associated policies. For instance, the decision to buy food products imported from elsewhere (yogurts, meat, fruits, vegetables, etc.) will have a direct impact on the local landscapes and local economies. These trans-localized capital exchanges may result in increased vulnerability because unmanaged pyric landscapes will be subject to inevitable wildfires. In sum, each hectare of pastureland that is bewildered, each hectare of cropland that is lost, and every parcel of rural villages brought to abandonment are hectares available to burn every year. The climatic crisis boosts these losses into news scales of pyric events and magnitudes.

Tackling the wildfire challenge implies finding a roadmap in the cultural and economic domains, in which education and awareness centered on the social and ecological potentials are crucial components.

The CANARY IN THE MINE is, therefore, a foray into the causes of wildfires in Portugal and a springboard for new planning-design scenarios built with-and-for the rural communities. In this trajectory, CANARY re-imagines scenarios to promote the revitalization of rural territories through their landscapes’ economic, socio-ecological, and cultural potentials. With approximately two-thirds of Portugal considered rural, the symptoms of current wildfires are a warning and a prospect—likewise a “Canary in the Mine” for the future challenges and potentials of the Mediterranean landscapes in the ever-growing wildfire crisis.

The CANARY IN THE MINE is a pedagogical expedition through the challenges and potentials of the rural landscape in Portugal, where communities have learned to live with the “good” fire for millennia. The Studio focused on revealing other realities beyond the “usual suspects” regarding wildfire discussion: climate change, lack of sufficient combat means, monocultures, and land ownership. Therefore, it aimed to situate the fire not as an institutional or technocratic problem but as a social and cultural element. The area under scrutiny is within the municipality of Arganil located in the central region of the country, severally affected by the wildfires of 2017. The site of study includes the community parcels (“baldios” da Serra do Açor of approximately 2500 Ha) winding through small mountain and valley villages.

Here we explore questions about wildfires, rural

The following pages will showcase in more detail the projects that, individually, have explored each of these topics through the disciplines of landscape architecture, architecture, and urban design. Every project is distinct, but all share the same objective, i.e., to re-imag-

O CANÁRIO NA MINA é uma expedição pedagógica pelos desafios e potencialidades da paisagem rural em Portugal, onde as comunidades aprenderam a conviver com o “bom” fogo durante milénios. O Studio concentrou-se em revelar outras realidades para além dos “suspeitos do costume” em relação à discussão sobre incêndios florestais: mudança climática, falta de meios suficientes de combate, monoculturas e cadastro. Pretende assim situar o fogo não como um problema institucional ou tecnocrático, mas como um elemento social e cultural. A área em estudo situa-se no concelho de Arganil localizado na região centro do país, gravemente afetado pelos incêndios florestais de 2017. O local de estudo inclui as parcelas comunitárias (“baldios” da Serra do Açor com cerca de 2500 Ha) serpenteando através pequenas aldeias de montanha e vale. Aqui, exploramos questões sobre incêndios, gestão rural, bio-economia, paisagens resilientes, envolvimento da comunidade e os valores culturais associados ao “trabalho com a terra”. Existem dois objetivos de projeto: 1) visão de longo prazo para 2050 na escala de infraestrutura paisagística para maior resiliência, biodiversidade e viabilidade econômica; 2) proposta localizada numa aldeia (ou rede de aldeias) para alavancagem cultural e ofertas para turismo local, saúde e serviços ecológicos, produção de produtos locais e experiências culinárias para sustentar a ideia de “territórios vivos.”

O Studio desenvolveu estratégias de planeamento e design que reúnem vários objetivos de cariz econômico, social e ecológico. Os projetos resultantes podem ser resumidos em seis premissas: 1. Produtos locais, tradições culinárias e práticas regenerativas: para criar um senso de experiência holística, estimular as tradições locais e apoiar as economias em associação com os objetivos “Farm-to-Fork”; 2. Faixas de Gestão de Combustíveis (Infraestruturas Corta-Fogo): para reformular as infraestruturas corta-fogo existentes para aumentar os benefícios ecológicos e valores turísticos, como recarga de aquíferos, apoio à biodiversidade e rotas exploratórias de elevado valor estético; 3. Economias de saúde e bem-estar: para apoiar as comunidades locais e catalisar o retorno de novos residentes nas aldeias rurais como motores econômicos e plataformas sociais atualizadas para uma melhor qualidade de vida dos grupos da terceira idade; 4. Papel dos herbívoros: para reativar as

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stewardship, bioeconomy, resilient landscapes, community engagement, and the cultural values associated with “working with the land.” There are two scopes of design: 1) long-term vision for 2050 at a scale of landscape infrastructure for increased resiliency, biodiversity, and economic viability; 2) localized proposal in a village (or network of villages) for cultural leveraging and local tourism offerings, health and ecological services, and food production and culinary experiences to sustain the idea of “living territories.”

The studio follows a 12-week foray into the complexities and possibilities of the wildfire crises and emerging land stewardship procedures in the Mediterranean landscapes. Here, the students explored the questions Why? What?

How? The studio develops planning and design strategies bringing together economic, social, and ecological goals. The resulting projects can be summarized in six premises: 1. Local food, culinary traditions, and regenerative practices: for creating a sense of holistic experiences, booster local traditions, and support economies in association with “Farm-to-Fork” objectives; 2. Fire-Break infrastructure: for re-tooling existing fire-break infrastructures for increased ecological benefits and touristic values, such as aquifer recharge, bio-diversity support, and exploratory routes; 3. Health and well-being economies: for supporting local communities and catalyzing the come-back of new residents in the rural villages as economic drivers and updated social platforms for better quality of life within the aging population groups; 4. Herbivores’ agency: for re-activating the agro-silvo-pastoral activities in close contact with the land, to promote regenerative practices and to support local breeds; 5. Brushland ecosystems: for promoting fast post-wildfire recovery and regeneration with economic, ecological, therapeutic, and aesthetic values.

6. Cultural/ educational program with fires as an agent: for catalyzing the integration of fire as a necessary ecological and cultural process into the Mediterranean landscapes.

atividades agro-silvo-pastoris em estreito contato com a terra, promover práticas regenerativas e apoiar as raças herbívoras nativas; 5. Ecossistemas de pastos e arbustos: para promover a recuperação e regeneração rápida pós-incêndio com valores econômicos, ecológicos, terapêuticos e estéticos.

6. Programa cultural/educacional com o fogo como agente: para catalisar a integração do fogo como um processo ecológico e cultural necessário nas paisagens mediterrânicas.

As páginas seguintes mostrarão com mais detalhe os projetos que, individualmente, exploraram estes tópicos através das disciplinas de arquitetura paisagista, arquitetura e desenho urbano. Cada projeto é distinto, mas todos compartilham o mesmo objetivo, ou seja, repensar possíveis estratégias de desenho para atenuar uma crise pírica que se espera intensa por meio dos potenciais da paisagem rural - suas economias, comunidades e ecologias locais.

Agradecemos a colaboração de vários participantes e suas contribuições durante o desenvolvimento dos projetos: Prof. Stephen Pyne, Prof. José Gaspar, Prof. Alexandra Aragão, Prof. Xavier Viegas, Prof. Pedro Bingre do Amaral, Dr. Tiago Oliveira, Prof. Helena Freitas, Pastor Luís Fontinha, Arq. Paisagista Henrique Pereira dos Santos, Prof. Cláudia Taborda, Prof.

Steven Handel, Prof. Jeremy Russell-Smith, Prof.

Bibiana Bilbao, Prof. Paulo Martins Fernandes e à Arq. Ana Fróis. Agradecemos também à Camara Municipal de Arganil com o Presidente Sr. Dr.º Luís Paulo Costa, Sra. Dra. Vereadora Érica Castanheira, Eng. Nuno Santos e Eng. Abel Simões. E também às estudantes Inês Benítez e Melissa Barrientos que desenvolveram trabalho de base a este estudo durante a sua Fellowship na Benfeita no Verão de 2018.

Por último, e importante, agradecemos a inspiração que cada aldeia e comunidade rural nos trouxe. Este trabalho é para eles/ elas: Aveleira, Casal Novo, Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal, Cepos, Torrozelas, Salgueiro, Nogueira, Porto Castanheiro (concelho de Arganil), Adela, Açor, Soito (concelho de Góis), e Fajão (concelho da Pampilhosa da Serra).

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ine possible design strategies to counteract the ever-growing wildfire crisis through the potentials of the rural territories—their local economies, communities, and ecologies.

We heartfully thank the collaboration of several participants and their important contributions during the development of the projects: Prof. Stephen Pyne, Prof. José Gaspar, Prof. Alexandra Aragão, Prof. Xavier Viegas, Prof.

Pedro Bingre do Amaral, Dr. Tiago Oliveira, Prof.

Helena Freitas, Pastor Luís Fontinha, Landscape Architect Henrique Pereira dos Santos, Prof.

Cláudia Taborda, Prof. Steven Handel, Prof.

Jeremy Russell-Smith, Prof. Bibiana Bilbao, to Prof. Paulo Martins Fernandes and Architect Ana Fróis. We also thank the Municipal Chamber of Arganil with the President Mr. Dr. Luís Paulo Costa, Mrs. Councilor Érica Castanheira, Eng. Nuno Santos and Eng. Abel Simões. And also, to the students Inês Benítez and Melissa Barrientos who developed the base work for this studio during their Fellowship in Benfeita during the summer of 2018.

Finally, and importantly, we are grateful for the inspiration that each village and rural community has brought to us. This work is dedicated to them: Aveleira, Casal Novo, Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal, Cepos, Torrozelas, Salgueiro, Nogueira, Porto Castanheiro (County of Arganil), Adela, Açor, Soito (County of Góis), e Fajão (County of Pampilhosa da Serra).

Aveleira, Arganil, Portugal

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CANARY IN THE MINE: Wildfire and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland: Preface

In the summer of 2017 the deadliest wildfire in Portugal’s history spread over 45,000 hectares of land, including 20,000 hectares of forest, causing 66 human deaths and hundreds of injuries, at a cost of 31 million euro.1 Officials cited ‘natural causes’ such as lightning in dry thunderstorms and heat waves as the likely reason for the wild fires. However, as is the case with most environmental calamities today, many things converge to provoke such events, including human-induced changes to the local ecosystem, including those that are epiphenomena of shifting economies and dwindling labor, loss of traditional know-how in landscape management, and the introduction of protocols and technologies that are not specific to the characteristics of the region.

Occurrences of wildfires such as the one in Portugal are increasingly common around the world, in effect constituting a global threat to ecosystems, human lives, and economies.

In 2017, insured losses from wildfires totaled more than USD14 billion, injuring nearly 349,000 people annually.2 Between 1997 and 2016, wildfires emitted a net average of 2 billion tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.3 A recent study projects an increase in days conducive to extreme wildfire occurrences by 20% to 50% by the end of the century in disaster-prone landscapes due to climate change, emphasizing the need to revisit the processes that lead to them as well as normative and un-questioned responses to fire management.4 The “Canary in the Mine: Wildfires and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland” option studio directed by Associate Professor Silvia Benedito during the fall of 2020 provided the intellectual context for revisiting the history of fire management practices in the municipality of Arganil--in the Coimbra region of central Portugal--and exploring reconstruction strategies and alternative future practices to address the prevention and management of wildfires in the future.

Anita Berrizbeitia

CANÁRIO NA MINA: Incêndios e Comunidades Rurais do Mediterrâneo Interior No verão de 2017, os incêndios mais mortais da história de Portugal espalharam-se por 45.000 hectares, incluindo 20.000 hectares de floresta, causando 66 mortes humanas e centenas de feridos, a um custo de 31 milhões de euros.1 Agências do governo citaram “causas naturais”, como raios em tempestades secas e ondas de calor, como ativadores prováveis dos incêndios violentos. No entanto, como é o caso da maioria das calamidades ambientais hoje, muitos fatores convergem para provocar tais eventos. Nestes incluem-se mudanças induzidas pela sociedade no ecossistema local, e outros efeitos secundários de economias em mutação, disponibilidade de trabalho cada vez menor, perda do conhecimento tradicional na gestão da paisagem, e introdução de protocolos e tecnologias não específicas das características da região.

As ocorrências de incêndios florestais como os de Portugal são cada vez mais comuns em todo o mundo, constituindo, com efeito, uma ameaça global para os ecossistemas, vidas humanas e economias. Em 2017, as perdas em incêndios totalizaram mais de US $ 14 bilhões, ferindo cerca de 349.000 pessoas anualmente.2 Entre 1997 e 2016, os incêndios florestais emitiram uma média líquida de 2 bilhões de toneladas de dióxido de carbono equivalente (CO2-e) gases de efeito estufa na atmosfera.3 Um estudo recente projeta um aumento de dias propícios a ocorrências extremas de incêndios em 20% a 50% em paisagens sujeitas a desastres devido às mudanças climáticas até o final do século. Este estudo enfatiza a necessidade de revisitar não só os processos que levam a estes eventos píricos como também as respostas normativas, e não questionadas, no controle e combate do fogo.4 A cadeira de projeto “Canário na Mina:

Incêndios e Comunidades Rurais no Território Mediterrâneo” dirigido pela Professora Sílvia Benedito durante o outono de 2020 proporcionou o contexto intelectual para revisitar a história das práticas de gestão e cultura do fogo no município de Arganil, no Distrito de Coimbra e centro de Portugal, explorando estratégias de reconstrução e práticas alternativas futuras para lidar com a prevenção e gestão dos fogos nas paisagens do futuro.

Além de abordar a crise ambiental causada por incêndios espontâneos, a cadeira de projeto abordou uma questão simultânea e igualmente crítica do futuro das paisagens rurais no mundo, suas economias, as vulnerabilidades de suas comunidades, e os riscos de que a exclusão do fogo como instrumento de gestão da paisagem significaria para o ambiente ecológico e estabilidade de regiões.

Por outras palavras, aqui colocou-se a questão mais ampla: dadas as grandes extensões de territórios rurais, não só em Portugal mas no mundo em geral, qual é o potencial não reconhecido desses territórios no contexto da crise climática? Como podem estes territórios contribuir para mitigar as suas vulnerabilidades e em que escalas? Como se pode re-imaginar a reabilitação de pequenas cidades e/ou aldeias à luz da persistente perda de população e contínuos desafios econômicos?

As cadeiras de projeto na Universidade de Harvard/ Graduate School of Design (Harvard GSD) são oferecidos a cada semestre para alunos em seu último ano de mestrado. Estas cadeiras ambicionam integrar tópicos emergentes, como mudança climática, justiça social e ambiental, territórios urbanos abandonados, comunidades rurais, paisagens pós-extração, para citar alguns. Sob a orientação da sua professora e feedbacks de membros da comunidade quando possível, os alunos expandem as potencialidades das disciplinas de “desenho” que desenvolveram durante o currículo básico para um problema do mundo real. Assim, os incêndios são um exercício pedagógico digno: são o resultado de múltiplas forças que, ao convergirem com as condições ambientais degradadas, produzem crises a vários níveis, desde o humano ao económico e ao ecológico. Exigindo abordagens interdisciplinares e complexas em várias escalas, a cadeira de projeto Canário na Mina foi um cenário perfeito para testar novas estruturas e possibilidades do desenho da paisagem; também foi uma oportunidade para testar as fronteiras disciplinares da arquitetura paisagística, uma vez que necessariamente se

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In addition to addressing the environmental crisis posed by spontaneous wildfires the studio addressed a concurrent and equally critical question of the future of rural landscapes in the world, their economies, the vulnerabilities of their communities, and the risks that their loss would mean to the ecological stability of regions and territories. In other words, this asked the broader question: given the great extensions of rural territories not only in Portugal but in the world generally, what is the unrecognized potential of these territories in the context of the climate crisis? How could they contribute to mitigating its multiple effects and at which scales? How can you reimagine the rehabilitation of small towns and villages considering persistent population loss and continuing economic challenges?

Option studios at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design are offered every semester for students in their last year of study. Option studios typically engage with timely topics such as climate change, social and environmental justice, fallow urban land, post-extraction landscapes, to name a few.

Under the guidance of their studio critic, and feedback from members of the community, when possible, students expand the design skills they developed during the core curriculum to a real-world problem. As such, wildfires are a worthy pedagogical exercise: they are the result of multiple forces that, when they converge with degraded environmental conditions, produce a crisis at many levels, from the human to the economic to the ecological.

Demanding interdisciplinary and complex approaches at multiple scales, the Canary in the Mine studio was a perfect setting to test new frameworks for design, to explore the frontiers of landscape architecture as it necessarily engages with allied fields such as planning, forestry, and conservation biology, ethnography, and sociology, to name a few.

This report registers the outcomes of fifteen weeks of intensive exploration by 11 students representing all three departments in the school: architecture, landscape architecture, and urban planning and design. Like the studio, it is organized around two pillars of academic inquiry that come together in the formulation of a landscape architectural project: research and design. Cartographic analysis at the territorial, regional and local scales, policy diagrams and timelines, and comparative analysis of traditional fire prevention and management, plus studies of the ‘anatomy’ of fire and its cultural associations, among others,

1.

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4.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-eu rope-44438505 accessed June 27, 2021 https://www.swissre.com/media/news accessed June27, 2021 Van Der Werf, G., Randerson, J., Giglio, L., Van Leeuwen, T., Chen, Y., Rogers, B., . . . Kasibhatla, P. (2017). Global fire emissions estimates during 1997-2016.

Earth System Science Data, 9(2), 697-720.

Bowman, D., Williamson, G., Abatzoglou, J., Kolden, C., Cochrane, M., & Smith, A. (2017). Human exposure and sensitiv ity to globally extreme wildfire events.

Nature Ecology & Evolution, 1(3), 58.

envolve com campos aliados, como planeamento, silvicultura e biologia da conservação, etnografia, sociologia, para nomear alguns.

Este relatório compila os resultados interdisciplinares de quinze semanas de exploração intensiva por 11 alunos que representam os três departamentos da Harvard GSD: arquitetura, arquitetura paisagística, planeamento, e design urbano. Tal como um atelier, organiza-se em torno de dois pilares de investigação académica na formulação de um projeto de arquitetura paisagística: a investigação e o design. A análise cartográfica nas escalas territorial, regional e local, diagramas de políticas e cronogramas, e análise comparativa da prevenção e gestão de incêndios (segundo métodos tradicionais de gestão da paisagem), além de estudos da ‘anatomia’ do fogo e suas associações culturais, entre outros, revelam a inter-relação de um uma miríade de fatores que, ao convergir com condições climáticas específicas, resultam em catástrofes píricas tal como as que ocorreram há quatro anos.

Utilizando a pesquisa como trampolim, as propostas de projeto concentram-se em redor dos baldios, associados às diversas aldeias dos concelhos de Arganil, Góis e Pampilhosa da Serra, e na transformação da paisagem através da integração do fogo assumindo a sua recorrente presença. Estas propostas também examinaram a possibilidade de práticas regenerativas por meio da agro-silvicultura, explorando alternativas para reabilitação econômica no futuro destas paisagens e comunidades. Se a pesquisa produzida revelou as múltiplas conexões entre ecologia, diminuição da economia e população, e perda de valor na paisagem produtiva, então a principal tarefa das propostas era reconstituir sistemas pré-existentes e novos - de silvicultura, agricultura, agro-silvicultura, turismo, e subsistência e consolidação populacional - de forma integrada, de modo que o todo se torne maior do que a soma de suas partes, incorporando a resiliência e a contribuição das comunidades locais como estruturas de orientação para esta região.

CANARY IN THE MINE: Wildfire and Rural Communities in the Mediterranean Hinterland: Preface

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unveil the inter-relatedness of a myriad factors that, when converging with specific climate conditions result in the catastrophic fire events, we witnessed four years ago.

Utilizing the research as springboard, the design proposals focus on the baldios associated with different villages in Arganil, Góis and Pampilhosa da Serra, and their transformation from fallow lands to a system of productive landscapes that work with fire by anticipating it will occur, regenerate the land through agricultural practices, and explore alternatives for economic rehabilitation in the future. If the research produced unveiled the multiple connections between ecology, dwindling economy and population, and loss of value in the productive landscape, then the proposals’ main task was to reconstitute pre-existing and new systems—of silviculture, agriculture, agroforestry, tourism, and human livelihood and settlement—in an integrated way, such that the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts by embedding resilience and the contribution of the local communities as guiding frameworks to the development of this region.

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Anita Berrizbeitia

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Landscape design: an experience of co-creation at Municipality of Arganil

Arganil is a territory characterized by a vast number of family farming and smallholdings properties. It is also characterized by the presence of extensive communal lands, the baldios. During the second half of the 20th century, the State Forestry Services implemented a wide plantation program in the baldios with undeniable impact in this territory. This program included the introduction of forestry production. In these communities, the use of fire as a tool for landscape management was common, including the renewal of pastures or for the clearing of new arable land. Collection of wood for fuel or harvesting non-woody forest resources were vital for families. The introduction of large areas dedicated to forest production forced these uses to change in many ways. In this context, free grazing, and the use of extensive burning for pastures, was no longer an option. Thus, the rebalancing of these different perspectives of fire was, and still is, difficult and complex to manage.

The progressive abandonment of agricultural and pastoral activities is both a cause and an effect of the rural exodus and emigration. This populational flux caused important changes at the ecological level leading to the evolution of spontaneous vegetation and a consequent challenge that forest management could no longer solve. Forest fires grow every year and their consequences have changed over time. And as these fires have grown, so have the tools and resources used to combat them, such as bigger fire-fighting devices, additional firefighters, machinery and airplanes.

But these tools and resources have proven increasingly costly and ineffective. This reality persists, constituting what we called the “Fire Paradox”, the greater the success of combat today, the greater the destruction potential of tomorrow’s fire.

The tragic events that took place in June and October 2017 in Central Portugal severely hit the municipality of Arganil. It burned 69% of the municipality’s area, around 23,000ha, and

Nuno Santos*, Abel Simões*, Érica G. Castanheira* *Câmara Municipal de Arganil

O desenho da paisagem: a experiência do processo de co-criação no concelho de Arganil “Canário numa mina de carvão” (“canary in the coal mine”) é uma expressão idiomática utilizada para se referir a qualquer sinal que indique a iminência de um perigo.

Arganil é um território caracterizado por muitas e pequenas propriedades rústicas (minifúndio) e simultaneamente, por extensas áreas de terrenos comunitários, os baldios. Durante a segunda metade do século XX, os baldios foram alvo de trabalhos significativos por parte dos Serviços Florestais do Estado, que tiveram uma presença e uma importância indiscutível neste território, nomeadamente na introdução da produção florestal. Uma vez que os incêndios florestais já eram uma preocupação, esta introdução de grandes áreas dedicadas à produção florestal provocou uma alteração naquilo que era o uso do fogo na agricultura familiar e na pastorícia, quer para o arroteamento de novas terras aráveis ou para renovação de pastagens. O reequilíbrio das diferentes perspetivas sobre o fogo foi, e é até hoje, um problema difícil e complexo de gerir.

O abandono progressivo das atividades agrícolas e pastoris, simultaneamente causa e efeito do fenómeno demográfico da emigração causaram também alterações importantes ao nível ecológico, com a evolução da vegetação espontânea a criar problemas que a gestão florestal já não conseguia solucionar. Os incêndios iam acontecendo, as suas consequências iam-se alterando, os seus impactos iam-se agravando e o seu combate foi sendo feito com cada vez mais recursos, homens, maquinaria, aeronaves, aumentando gradualmente os custos e as perdas. Esta realidade perdura, constituindo o que chamamos hoje de “Paradoxo do Fogo”, quanto maior o sucesso do combate hoje, maior o potencial de destruição do incêndio de amanhã.

Os trágicos acontecimentos ocorridos em junho e outubro de 2017 no Centro de Portugal atingiram severamente o concelho de Arganil, queimando 69% da área do concelho, cerca de 23000 ha, causando a morte de duas pessoas, a destruição de centenas de habitações e empresas, infraestruturas, estradas, comunicações e a perda de património natural e arquitetónico. Com o intuito de inverter esta espiral de destruição, a Câmara Municipal de Arganil apresentou em 2018 o Plano de Ação para o Ordenamento e Revalorização do Território – Uma Estratégia para Arganil, consciente de que só uma mudança ao nível da gestão da paisagem tornará viável viver no meio rural, particularmente num país em declínio demográfico e num tempo de alterações climáticas, em que este tipo de eventos mostram tendência para se tornarem mais frequentes e mais graves.

Tendo presente que não existem soluções simples para problemas complexos e de dimensão supra municipal, o objetivo principal da estratégia definida pelo Município de Arganil é o de definir um conjunto de ações que permitam aumentar a resiliência do território face aos incêndios rurais através do ordenamento e valorização do paisagem nas diversas vertentes e serviços prestados, nomeadamente ambientais, sociais, culturais e económicos. Este plano foi estruturado tendo em vista a (1) recuperação da área ardida e a caracterização do território pós-incêndios de 2017; (2) redefinição de medidas de prevenção estrutural e autoproteção; (3) implementação de projetos e medidas de ordenamento e valorização territorial e; por fim, transversalmente a todas estas ações, (4) a implementação de modelos inovadores de transferência de conhecimento e I&D. O reforço da colaboração com instituições de ensino superior e centros de investigação, quer ao nível da participação em projetos de I&D, quer ao nível da transferência de conhecimento, nomeadamente nas áreas estratégicas relacionadas com o ordenamento do território, gestão da paisagem, modelos de ordenamento e silvicultura preventiva, foi definido desde logo como uma prioridade. Consideramos que é essencial identificar modelos de desenvolvimento inovadores e criativos, adaptados à realidade e identidade local, e baseados numa visão transdisciplinar e complementar dessa realidade.

Em 2018 foi implementada uma residência formativa com o envolvimento da comunidade científica nas comunidades locais, em

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caused the death of two people, the destruction of innumerous homes and businesses, infrastructures, roads, communications, and the loss of natural and architectural heritage. In 2018, with the aim of reversing this destructive spiral, the Municipality of Arganil presented an Action Plan for Land use Planning and Development, aware that only a change in the landscape management would make it viable to live in a rural area. This is particularly relevant considering the country’s continuing demographic decline and the growing pressures from climate disruption—with more frequent and dramatic climatic events.

Bearing in mind that there are no simple solutions to complex problems, the main objective of this Action Plan is to define a set of actions that allow increasing the territory’s resilience against rural fires through landscape planning in its various services, namely environmental, social, cultural and economic.

This Action Plan was structured to (1) recover the burned areas and survey the land after the 2017 fires; (2) redefine structural prevention and self-protection actions; (3) implement projects, landscape planning and territorial improvement measures; and across all these actions, (4) implement innovative models of knowledge transfer and R&D. The collaboration with higher education institutions and research centers, both in terms of participation in R&D projects, and in terms of knowledge transfer in strategic areas related to spatial planning, landscape management, planning models and preventive forestry, was defined as a priority. We believe that it is essential to identify innovative and creative models, adapted to the local reality and identity, and based on transdisciplinary and complementary visions.

In 2018, an International Community Fellowship Program was implemented with the involvement of the local communities and the Department of Landscape Architecture at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD) under the guidance of Prof.

Sílvia Benedito. Inês Benítez and Melissa Barrientos developed their community project, “Terraced landscapes: Retrofitting agricultural communities affected by wildfires in Portugal” at Benfeita-Arganil, which aims to present the historical, landscape and sociocultural potential of terraces, as well as to present some ideas about their rehabilitation and potential future uses of these terraces. The students lived, studied, and recorded the dynamics of the rural population based on the experiences of

parceria com a Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD)/ Departamento de Arquitetura Paisagista e sob orientação da Professora Sílvia Benedito, no âmbito do programa de Bolsas Internacionais de Serviço Comunitário.

Inês Benítez and Melissa Barrientos desenvolveram o seu projeto comunitário “Terraced landscapes: Retrofitting agricultural communities affected by wildfires in Portugal” na freguesia da Benfeita, com o objetivo de apresentar o potencial histórico, paisagístico e sociocultural dos socalcos, bem como apresentar algumas ideias sobre a sua reabilitação e potenciais usos futuros. As alunas residiram, estudaram e registaram a dinâmica da população rural, a partir das vivências dos residentes na Benfeita, da arquitetura tradicional, da alteração dos espaços rurais e do impacto dos incêndios de 2017. Devido às suas perguntas simples, de quem pela primeira vez visitava o Portugal rural, interior e recentemente devastado pelos maiores incêndios de que havia memória, permitiu um “mergulho social” que levou a uma profunda reflexão sobre o potencial dos socalcos na proteção das populações e na proteção do solo e da água, num contexto de alterações climáticas, e acima de tudo, fez com que a comunidade local olhasse para estas infraestruturas com uma nova perspetiva. Para os gestores autárquicos, esta experiência social permite que o conhecimento empírico e científico se complementem, auxiliando na definição de soluções e abordagens que vão de encontro ao que melhor se faz em termos académicos, respeitando os saberes tradicionais e culturais da região.

Em 2020, a Prof. Sílvia Benedito expandiu o programa de Bolsas Internacionais de Serviço Comunitário centrado na Benfeita em 2018 na forma do curso Option Studio “Canary in the mine: Wildfires and rural communities in the Mediterranean hinterland.” Neste curso, e ao longo de quatro meses, os alunos foram desafiados a apresentar propostas para o desenvolvimento de uma paisagem rural mais eficiente, sustentável e resiliente; com especial enfoque em aldeias junto às áreas comunitárias, os baldios, integradas no Projeto “Floresta da Serra do Açor”. Este projeto, financiado pelo Grupo Jerónimo Martins em cerca de 5 milhões de euros, consiste na implementação de um modelo de gestão plurianual (40 anos) dos diversos espaços que constituem as nove áreas de baldios do concelho de Arganil associadas, abrangendo uma área total de 2.500 hectares. O modelo de

Landscape design: an experience of co-creation at Municipality of Arganil

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Benfeita residents, documented the traditional architecture, the changes in rural spaces, and recorded the impact of the 2017 fires.

From the simple questions that they raised, having never visited rural Portugal before and following the devastation by the biggest fires ever in memory, a unique “social immersion” was possible and led to a deep reflection on the potential of terraces to protect populations, soil, and water in a context of climate change.

Importantly, it made the local community look at these infrastructures with a new perspective.

For local government actors, this social experience complemented empirical and scientific knowledge in support of solutions and best approaches in academic terms, respecting the region’s traditional and cultural knowledge.

In 2020, Sílvia Benedito expanded the 2018 International Community Fellowship Program, focused in Benfeita, into the Option Studio “Canary in the Mine: Wildfires and rural communities in the Mediterranean hinterland.” In this Option Studio, and throughout 4 months, the students were challenged to present proposals for the development of a more efficient, sustainable, and resilient rural landscape—with special focus on villages next to the baldios land and integrated in the “Floresta da Serra do Açor” project financed by Jerónimo Martins Group. Estimated in 5 million euros, the “Floresta da Serra do Açor” project consists of implementing a management model of the baldios land, of approximately 2500 hectares, in the municipality of Arganil for a 40-year period. The management and ecological recovery model developed in partnership with the Escola Superior Agrária de Coimbra, is being implemented through a multifunctional reforestation based on native species. This aims at producing wood resources, reestablishing ecological and landscape balance, and enhancing soil and water in the context of projected climatic developments. Furthermore, the recovery of these common lands seeks to create conditions for activities that allow new sources of income for the local populations including biodiversity preservation.

The starting point for all the projects developed under the Option Studio “Canary in the Mine: Wildfires and rural communities in the Mediterranean hinterland” was rethinking the rural landscape from a mountain or valley village. This approach in which the rural landscape is redesigned from the built-up space to the outside, in some ways complements the work developed under the “Floresta da Serra do Açor” project centered on a land-

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Nuno Santos, Abel Simões, Érica G. Castanheira

scape model conceived by forest, agricultural and pastoral spaces. These complementary approaches make it possible to define a set of development strategies for the territory, considering rural communities, their resilience, and their adaptation to the effects of climate change and desertification. Thus, it intensified the presence of the natural and cultural heritage, and their socioeconomic potential. Certainly, this is one of the greatest contributions of this Option Studio—a comprehensive, integrated, and creative perspective for Arganil’s rural landscape.

Tourism based on the eco-cultural values, the experiences of “working the land”, the rural architectural heritage, health, ecosystem services, local products and culinary experiences were identified as critical factors for the territory development. Is it new? No, it is not. However, it is relevant because they were identified by students from different areas of knowledge, from different nationalities and by individuals who never been to Portugal. The importance of an external view regarding the territory’s challenges and possible solutions was also confirmed by the various points of view regarding “fire” - “good” vs “bad”, “controlled” vs “uncontrolled”, “disaster” vs “management tool and a sociocultural element”.

For the municipality of Arganil (and we believe for everyone in Portugal), this compi-

gestão e recuperação ecológica, desenvolvido em parceria com a Escola Superior Agrária de Coimbra, está a ser implementado através de uma rearborização multifuncional baseada em espécies autóctones, de forma a produzir não apenas bens lenhosos, mas principalmente orientado para a recuperação do equilíbrio ecológico e paisagístico, a valorização do solo e da água, sempre tendo em consideração os cenários de evolução climática. A recuperação destas áreas comunitárias e da floresta está pensada de forma que sejam também criadas condições para a instalação de atividades que permitam novas fontes de rendimento para as populações locais, enquanto a biodiversidade é preservada.

Um dos pontos de partida de cada um dos projetos desenvolvidos no âmbito do Option Studio “Canary in the mine: Wildfires and rural communities in the Mediterranean hinterland” foi repensar a paisagem rural a partir de uma aldeia de montanha ou vale. Esta abordagem em que a paisagem rural é redesenhada a partir do espaço edificado para fora, veio de alguma forma complementar o trabalho desenvolvido no âmbito do Projeto “Floresta da Serra do Açor”, em que o modelo de desenho da paisagem foi concebido a partir dos espaços florestais, agrícolas e silvo-pastoris.

Estas abordagens complementares permitem

definir um conjunto de estratégias de desenvolvimento para o território, considerando as comunidades rurais, a sua resiliência, o combate aos efeitos das alterações climáticas e da desertificação, o património natural e cultural e os seus potenciais socioeconómicos. Este foi definitivamente um dos maiores contributos deste Option Studio, o de alargar a perspetiva da paisagem rural de Arganil.

O turismo associado aos valores eco-culturais, ao “trabalho com a terra” e ao património arquitetónico rural, a saúde, os serviços dos ecossistemas, os produtos locais e experiências culinárias foram identificados como fatores críticos para o desenvolvimento do território. É uma novidade? Não, não é. Porém, é relevante pelo facto de serem identificados por alunos de diferentes áreas do conhecimento, de diferentes nacionalidades e que nunca estiveram em Portugal. A perspicuidade com que se abordou o tema do fogo - “bom” vs “mau”, “controlado” vs “não controlado”, “catástrofe” vs “ferramenta de trabalho e elemento socio-cultural” – demonstrou também a importância da visão exterior sobre os problemas e as soluções do território.

Os trabalhos apresentados neste livro representam para o concelho de Arganil, e julgamos que para todo o interior de Portugal, um conjunto de visões fora da perspetiva tradicional da gestão florestal ou da política agrícola, que muitas vezes ignora as comunidades locais, ainda que todos eles tenham incorporado as características técnicas e sociais do terreno que moldaram o seu estado atual. O “Canary in the mine” representa ideias e caminhos novos que implicam o uso do território pela comunidade, a criação de “territórios vivos” como forma de garantir a sustentabilidade do modelo de ordenamento e gestão da paisagem. O debate com os alunos e especialistas de diferentes áreas sobre os desafios e potencialidades da paisagem rural em Arganil tem um valor indiscutível e deve ser alargado de forma a incluir outras regiões e as comunidades locais.

Landscape design: an experience of co-creation at Municipality of Arganil

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lation of projects showcased in the following pages represent a new set of ideas and scenarios outside the traditional perspective of forest management and agricultural policy normally characterized by excluding the local communities—even though incorporating the technical and social characteristics of the land that shaped this territory’s current state.

The “Canary in the Mine” represents new ideas and pathways, i.e., the use of the territory by the community and the creation of living-territories through sustainable model of managing the landscape. The debate with students and specialists from different areas about the challenges and potential of Arganil’s rural landscape had an undeniable value and should be extended to include other regions and local communities.

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Nuno Santos, Abel Simões, Érica G. Castanheira Community engagement and Field Work in Benfeita. Fellowship between Câmara Municipal Arganil and Harvard GSD, with Silvia Benedito, Summer 2018. Students: Ines Benítez and Melissa Naranjo Barrientos. Above: Models of the “Socalcos” walls, made of Xist stone in collaboration with the local community of Benfeita.

Thoughts on Landscape Restoration

Stephen Pyne

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Reflexões sobre a Reabilitação da Paisagem Most landscape restoration projects with which I’m familiar involve ecologists. Their objective is to return a scene to its natural or at least pre-settlement state – to reinstate species, to restore lost processes, to remove noxious invasives. The CANARY IN THE MINE project proposes something very different. It seeks to restore a built environment, much as might restore a heritage building, but one built out of natural materials such as trees, shrubs, grazers, water, and fire. It seeks to keep the original structure but update its materials and outfit it with more modern furnishings.

This makes sense in Europe, and especially in fire-prone landscapes like Portugal’s.

A basic matrix of fields, pastures, orchards, and villages has been present since at least Roman times. Close cultivation, assisted by small fires, kept both wild nature and wild fires at bay.

Historically, large fires followed breakdowns in the social order caused by plagues, wars, and famines. More recently, the induction of Portugal into the EU and a modern economy has prompted a more benign breakdown characterized by land abandonment. This, plus climate change, has encouraged horrendous fires. Efforts to suppress the problem through aggressive firefighting, assisted by science and technology, have failed, and in fact, have made the scene worse.

Restoring the basics of the ancient matrix would go a long way toward dampening the cycle of conflagrations. It could also express social solidarity, remind citizens of their cultural heritage, and offer employment in ways that can complement (not compete with) modern economies. Such landscapes could be visited by tourists, much as they might visit museums, for the sculpted land is a work of artifice, and often of art.

Thanks for the opportunity to learn how landscape architecture and design can assist in coping with the land use component of our era of feral flames.

A maioria dos projetos de reabilitação de paisagens com os quais estou familiarizado envolve ecologistas. Seu objetivo é repor uma “cena” no seu estado natural ou, pelo menos, pré-povoamento - para restabelecer espécies, para restaurar processos perdidos, para remover invasoras nocivas, etc. O projeto CANARY IN THE MINE propõe algo muito diferente. Ele busca restaurar um ambiente construído, da mesma forma que restauraria um edifício histórico, mas construído com materiais naturais, como árvores, arbustos, pastos, água e fogo. Ele busca manter a estrutura original, mas atualizá-la com materiais e tecnologias mais modernas.

Isso faz sentido na Europa e especialmente em paisagens propensas a fogos como as de Portugal. Uma matriz básica de campos, pastagens, pomares, e aldeias está presente pelo menos desde os tempos romanos. O cultivo adjacente às aldeias, assistido por pequenos fogos, mantiveram a natureza selvagem e os incêndios longe das populações.

Historicamente, grandes incêndios seguiram-se a ruturas de ordem social causadas por pragas, guerras e fomes. Mais recentemente, a entrada de Portugal na UE e uma economia moderna levou a um colapso mais benigno caracterizado pelo abandono de terras. Isso, mais a mudança climática, promoveu a ocorrência de incêndios horrendos. Os esforços para suprimir o problema por meio do combate agressivo a incêndios, com o auxílio da ciência e da tecnologia, fracassaram e, de fato, pioraram estes cenários.

Reabilitar princípios básicos da matriz antiga ajudaria muito a diminuir o ciclo de conflagrações. Também poderia expressar solidariedade social, lembrar aos cidadãos da sua herança cultural, e oferecer empregos de forma a complementar (não competir com) as economias modernas. Essas paisagens poderiam ser visitadas por turistas, da mesma forma que eles visitam museus, pois a terra esculpida é uma obra de artifício e, frequentemente, de arte.

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The Canary in the Mine: Forensic Site Analysis

Silvia Benedito Slide Kelly

The CANARY IN THE MINE Option Studio is divided in two major sequences: (1) the research and (2) the application of the research conclusions into design strategies. The research is a forensic enterprise into the reasons for wildfire occurrences and the territorial conditions that have led to the emergence of extreme pyric events in the Arganil region. Rather than focused on seemingly obvious causes, such as climatic degradation or eucalyptus plantations, the forensic nature of this research implies investigating multiple variables and potential interdependencies engrained in the historical, cultural, and social domains of the rural lands. Therefore, the Studio investigates a series of topics and scales—from the country to the site—that that may lead to possible reasons and pathways to reduce the fire magnitudes of Portugal’s rural lands.

1. National Portrait: (a) Geography and Energy Sources—This research includes the analysis of Portugal’s climatic challenges, topography, hydrography and catchment areas, fire evolution, land-use types, infrastructure networks (new and historical), and energy sources. (b) Demography and Agricultural Activities – This topic includes the mapping of the agricultural and agro-pastoral activities (pastures, annual crops, agro-forestry, fruit trees, vineyards, native forests, etc), population density and dynamics, soil types, and ecological/protected zones (Natura 2000, natural reserves and parks, etc).

2. Fire Behavior: The study of pyric landscapes implies the study of fire through its behaviors and ecologies. This includes the examination of combustion and its fundamental elements (fuel, oxygen, and weather), and local knowledge for brush/grassland management. It includes the institutional framework relative to fire-break infrastructure (management and policies), the historical evolution of fire’s magnitude in Portugal, and current initiatives on fire preparedness, such as “Living with Fire” and “FireSmart.”

3. National Fire Management: This topic focuses on national policies and programs relative to landscape management and fire prevention. It also includes the examination of European incentives for agricultural programs and its consequences on landscape evolution and the corresponding social-ecological regimes.

4. Mediterranean Ecologies: The ecology of fire is rooted in practices of the Mediterranean landscapes and communities. This topic includes the examination of the “good” fire as a management tool, the form of social aggregations (collectivism, associations, and common lands), and production archetypes at the intersection between landscape and architecture for potential re-use (“socalcos,” water channels, wine/olive oil mills, collective ovens, fountains and water tanks, dovecotes, storage sheds, drying terraces, etc).

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O CANARY IN THE MINE Option Studio é dividido em duas sequências principais: (1) a pesquisa e (2) a aplicação das conclusões da pesquisa em estratégias de projeto. A investigação é uma epopeia “forensica” sobre as razões das ocorrências de incêndios rurais e as condições territoriais que levaram ao surgimento de eventos píricos extremos na região de Arganil. Em vez de focado em causas aparentemente óbvias, como degradação climática ou plantações de eucalipto em grandes escalas, a natureza “forensica” desta pesquisa implica explorar múltiplas variáveis e potenciais interdependências assentes nos domínios histórico, cultural e social das terras rurais.

Portanto, o Studio investiga uma série de tópicos e escalas - do país ao local - que podem levar a possíveis razões e caminhos para reduzir as magnitudes do fogo nas terras rurais de Portugal.

1. Retrato Nacional: (a) Geografia e Fontes de Energia — Esta pesquisa inclui a análise dos desafios climáticos de Portugal, topografia, hidrografia e áreas de captação, evolução do fogo, tipos de uso do solo, redes de infraestrutura (novas e históricas) e fontes de energia. (b) Demografia e Atividades Agropecuárias - Este tópico inclui o mapeamento das atividades agrícolas e agro-pastoris (pastagens, lavouras anuais, agro-silvicultura, árvores frutíferas, vinhas, matas nativas, etc), densidade e dinâmicas populacionais, tipos de solo, e zonas ecológicas/protegidas (Natura 2000, reservas naturais e parques, etc.).

2. Comportamento do Fogo: O estudo das paisagens píricas implica o estudo do fogo através de seus comportamentos e ecologias. Isso inclui o estudo do comportamento da combustão, elementos fundamentais (combustível, oxigênio e clima), e o conhecimento local para manutenção da paisagem. Também inclui o quadro institucional relativo às infraestruturas corta-fogo (gestão e políticas), a evolução histórica dos incêndio em Portugal e as iniciativas atuais de preparação para o fogo, como “Living with Fire” e “FireSmart”.

3. Regimes de gestão de incêndios (escala nacional): Este tópico centra-se nas políticas e programas nacionais relativos à manutenção e e gestão da paisagem e prevenção de incêndios. Inclui também a analise dos incentivos europeus para programas agrícolas e suas consequências na evolução da paisagem e os correspondentes regimes socio-ecológicos.

4. Ecologias Mediterrânicas: A ecologia do fogo está enraizada nas práticas das paisagens e comunidades mediterrânicas. Este tópico examina o “bom” fogo como pratica local de gestão de matos, a forma de agregações sociais (coletivismo, associações e terras comuns) e arquétipos de produção na intersecção entre paisagem e arquitetura para potencial reutilização (“socalcos” e levadas, lagares, fornos coletivos, fontes e tanques de água, lavadouros e pombais, tulhas e silhas, eiras, etc).

Forensic Site Analysis

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O CANÁRIO NA MINA: Análise “Forensica” do Lugar

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Forensic Site Analysis

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Silvia Benedito, Slide Kelly

Research “From savannas to shrublands, wetlands to mountains, and boreal forests to rainforests, unforeseen fire problems develop wherever agricultural societies transform landscapes and disrupt indigenous fire-management practices.

Societies respond to wildfire threats with various strategies such as fire bans, land and fuel management, and outright fire suppression. Yet rather than solving the problem, some of these approaches make the original fire issue even more problematic. This is because settler societies fail to grasp what pre-agricultural peoples understood: fire and vegetation are dynamically linked — changing either one alters the other.” [1] [1] In Cochrane, M., & Bowman, D. (2021). Manage fire regimes, not fires. Nature Geoscience, Nature geoscience, 2021-07-05.

“De savanas a matos, de pântanos a montanhas e de florestas boreais a florestas tropicais, surgem problemas imprevistos, tais como os incêndios, quando as sociedades agrícolas transformam as paisagens e interrompem as práticas indígenas associadas ao uso do fogo. As sociedades respondem às ameaças de incêndios com várias estratégias, tais como a proibição do uso do fogo, a gestão do solo e combustível, e a supressão total de incêndios. No entanto, em vez de resolver o problema, algumas dessas abordagens tornam o problema do incêndio original ainda mais problemático.

Isso ocorre porque as sociedades modernas não conseguem entender o que os povos pré-agrícolas entendiam: o fogo e a vegetação estão dinamicamente ligados - mudar um altera o outro.” [1]

Herd of goats managing the landscape for fire prevention Herd from the local shepard, Luis Fontinha, Arganil.

National Portrait: Geography + Energy

Alysoun Wright Gena Morgis

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National Portrait: Geography + Energy

Diagrammatic assessment of conventional profit vs. risk land use evaluation models versus a more fluid approach that considers economic, social and ecological value in relation to fire risk.

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Alysoun Wright, Gena Morgis

National Portrait: Geography + Energy

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Alysoun Wright, Gena Morgis

ARGANIL REGION Physical Landscape Drivers of Ignition

National Portrait: Geography + Energy

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Alysoun Wright, Gena Morgis

COIMBRA

ARGANIL SLOPE + TERRAIN

WATERWAYS

FUEL MANAGEMENT RANGE NETWORK

National Portrait: Geography + Energy

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Alysoun Wright, Gena Morgis

COIMBRA

ARGANIL SLOPE + TERRAIN

WATERWAYS

FUEL MANAGEMENT RANGE NETWORK

National Portrait: Geography + Energy

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Alysoun Wright, Gena Morgis

COIMBRA

ARGANIL SLOPE + TERRAIN

WATERWAYS

FUEL MANAGEMENT RANGE NETWORK

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National Portrait: Demography + Economic Activities

Kongyun He Vardhan Mehta

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Ayami Akagawa Sarah Doonan

Fire Behavior + Anatomy

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Fire Behavior + Anatomy

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Ayami Akagawa, Sarah Doonan

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Fire Behavior + Anatomy

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Ayami Akagawa, Sarah Doonan

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Policy

Jiani Zhang Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

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Policy

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Jiani Zhang, Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

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Carbon Management in Forests

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Mediterranean Ecology

Echo Chen Michele Turrini Tristan Battistoni

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Demographics

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Projects

Projects 108

Future Flames Gena Morgis + Alysoun Wright

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The Rosemary Province Echo Chen

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Eat, Cultivate, Heal Kongyun He

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Herbivores Estate Jiani Zhang

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Garnet Ring Sarah Doonan

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The Circle of Fire Ayami Akagawa

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Shared Steps Michele Turrini

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Migrations Tristan Battistoni

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Biodiverse Corridors Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

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Cork Valley Vardhan Mehta

Title

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Project Sites

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Firstname Lastname

Gena Morgis Alysoun Wright

This proposal seeks to shift the baldios from Serra do Açor from a constructed image of a degraded non- generative landscape to a new generative imaginary, in which the terra informs its care + cultivation.

Fire is certain. But can forest management practices simultaneously generate social and ecological value?

From this land informed management, the baldios becomes a critical space of learning to sit with, respond to, and anticipate risk. In this context, new practices of care + cultural heritage generate agency within a working landscape.

Village Under Study: Aveleira + Casal Novo, Arganil, Portgual

Chamas do Futuro: Jardins Florestais para um Rural Adaptável Esta proposta busca construir uma nova imagem para os baldios da Serra do Açor: de uma paisagem degradada e não produtiva para um novo imaginário generativo, no qual a terra e as suas morfologias geoclimáticas informam e estabelecem orientações e princípios para o seu cuidado e formas de cultivo.

O fogo é certo. E a pergunta que se impõe é: como poderão as práticas de manutenção e gestão paisagística gerar valor social e ecológico?

A partir da gestão informada do terreno, os baldios tornam-se um espaço crítico de aprendizagem para usufruir, dialogar e antecipar o risco. Nesse contexto, novas práticas de gestão e legados culturais são os novos protagonistas para uma paisagem ativa.

Aldeias em foco: Aveleira + Casal Novo, Arganil, Portugal

Aldeias em foco: Aveleira + Casal Novo, Arganil, Portugal

Future Flames

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Future Flames: Forest Gardens for an Adaptive Rural

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Gena Morgis, Alysoun Wright

MANIFESTO 1. Anticipate fire risk: Fire has always been apart of the rural landscape and will continue to be. Climate change and shifting ecologies will amplify that risk.

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2. Respond to the land: Use research tools to understand the physical conditions of the landscape and wildfire risk.

Use research results to inform initial investments of design and testing.

3. Embed plurality: Understand the landscape as infrastructure to mitigate the impact of wildfire while generating new rural identities and economic opportunities.

4. Cultivate ecological diversity: Use a range of plant species to form fire retardant landscapes and establish ecosystems with productive adaptive features 5. Illuminate the agricultural working landscape: Intertwine fruit producing orchards, forage forests, and grazing ridges.

6. Establish a network of villages: Take isolated communities and establish new connections between people living in the rural.

7. Reframe the rural identity: Leverage existing rural assets and create new assets through landscape design.

8. Form practices of care that bring people into the landscape 9. Celebrate the commons!

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Future Flames

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01 Reconnected Ridge Cultivation of Native Fire Resistant Landscape

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Gena Morgis, Alysoun Wright

02 Seedbank Shrublands Cultivation of Native Fire Resistant Landscape

Future Flames

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03 Foraging Forest Cultivation of Native Fire Resistant Landscape

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Gena Morgis, Alysoun Wright

04 Village Orchards -Cultivation of Native Fire Resistant Landscape

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Baldios Trail Network

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Aveleira: Ridge Village at Baldios Entry

Casal Novo: Valley Village on Baldios Edge

Aveleira: Ridge Village at Baldios Entry

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Aveleira is a small village the sits on the ridge of the Baldios Serra do Açor with northwestern winds wicking over its slopes. Adjacent drainage lines feed the castanheiro patches in the valley and the garden plots that hug its core. It is primarily a north facing village which allows for wetter and more humid soils. Towards the ridge, the shallower slopes are more favorable to plant establishment. While fire is a part of this landscape, the mega fires of 2017 were unprecedented and highlighted areas of exacerbated risk.

The proposal imagines an expansion of the village orchard surrounding the core, retaining moisture for increased protection. Further upland, forage forests hold follies such as forage stands, hunting stands and rest houses for land managers and tourists. The ridge reimagines the ICNF boundary and the fuel break infrastructure by diversifying its use and connecting them more directly to the adjacent villages and the local shepherds. Additionally, a new welcome center is proposed, which is visible on the approach from Arganil, marking the beginning of this reimagined network. The ICNF perimeters are a new designed landscape to welcome people, animals, and water. Trees of different species (heights and textures) are aligned in a layered manner following discontinued plantation patterns for varied visual axes. This strategy increases not only the aesthetic experience for the visitors, when meandering on this new landscape-infrastructure, but also increases the fire resiliency. Sequential manipulations on the topography create areas of water retention for promoting biodiversity (insects, amphibians, etc.), recharge of ground water, and provide zones of drinking water for the animals feeding on this land and responsible for the management of the fire breaks.

Aveleira: Aldeia de Montanha na entrada dos Baldios da Serra do Açor

Esta proposta imagina a expansão dos pomares da aldeia de Aveleira em torno do seu núcleo, retendo a humidade para maior proteção. Nas áreas mais altas, florestas forrageiras integram construções como armazéns agrícolas, apoios para usos dos caçadores, e casas de repouso para administradores de terras e turistas que trilham por esta nova paisagem. A cumeeira também re-imagina as faixas de gestão de combustível (FGC), diversificando o seu uso e conectando-as mais diretamente às aldeias adjacentes e às atividades de pastorícia local. É proposto um novo centro de boas-vindas, visível à chegada, marcando o início desta nova rede de paisagem reinventada. Os perímetros das FGC criam uma nova paisagem para acolher pessoas, animais e água. Nestes limites, as árvores são alinhadas em camadas de diversas espécies e alturas, seguindo alinhamentos de plantação descontinuados para formar diversos eixos visuais. Esta estratégia aumenta não só a experiência estética para os visitantes, ao deambular nesta nova paisagem-infraestrutura, mas também aumenta a resiliência ao fogo. Manipulações sequenciais na topografia criam áreas de retenção de água para promover a biodiversidade (insetos, anfíbios, etc.), recarregamento dos aquíferos locais, e pontos de água acessível aos animais que se alimentam nesta terra e responsáveis pela manutenção dessas FGC.

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Aveleira é uma pequena aldeia situada na cumeeira da montanha e adjacente aos baldios da Serra do Açor com ventos de nordeste a soprar nas suas encostas. As linhas de drenagem adjacentes alimentam as manchas de castanheiro no vale e as parcelas cultivadas que abraçam o seu núcleo. É principalmente uma aldeia virada a norte, o que permite ter solos mais húmidos. Em direção ao cume, as encostas mais planas são favoráveis ao estabelecimento de plantações. Embora o fogo faça parte dessa paisagem, os mega-incêndios de 2017 não tiveram precedentes e destacaram a vulnerabilidades desta região, da sua paisagem e comunidades.

Future Flames

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Forage Forest

Goat Forage

Powerline Buffer

ge ra Fo

Resevoir

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ICNF Boundary

ted ec

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Ri Orchard

ge lla

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Existing Gardens

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Rest Houses

Baldios

Castanheiro

Aveleira Site Plan

Forage Forest

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Gena Morgis, Alysoun Wright

View of Resevoir and ICNF Boundary Ridge Path

View of Forage Forest

Casal Novo: Valley Village on Baldios Edge

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Casal Novo sits in the valley below the Baldios, along a small riverway.

Existing agricultural fields lie in the alluvial plain and upstream there is the Praia Fluvial Poço da Cesta, an existing waterway attraction.

This proposal expands upon the existing agro-cultural zone to include village orchards that act as a water retention buffer surrounding the village core. Along the steep slopes towards the baldios Serra do Açor, a seedbank shrubland with fire retardant species is implemented. This ensures soil stability and allow grazing of herbivores for supporting the local economy and integrated shrubland management. Along the river’s edge, new riverbeach infrastructure is installed to promote recreation along the riverway for the residents and tourists of Casal Novo.

+Shrubland Pasture Seedbank Shrubland

+Shrubland Path

+Cherry Groves

Village Orchard

Casal Novo V

+Apple Groves

River Beach +

Casal Novo: Aldeia de Vale no perímetro dos Baldios da Serra do Açor

Essa proposta expande a zona agro-cultural existente para incluir pomares com variadas espécies locais que atuam como áreas de retenção de água em redor ao núcleo da aldeia. Ao longo das encostas íngremes em direção aos baldios, são instalados pastagens com espécies retardadoras de fogo. Isto assegura a estabilidade do solo, e permite a pastagem de herbívoros para suporte da economia local e gestão sustentável dos matos. Ao longo da margem do rio, uma nova infraestrutura de recreio é instalada para promover atividades de lazer ao longo do ano para os visitantes e residentes de Casal Novo.

+Poco Da Cesta River Beach

Village

Forage Forest

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Casal Novo fica no vale abaixo dos Baldios, ao longo de um rio.

Os campos agrícolas existentes situam-se na planície aluvial e na base da montanha encontra-se a Praia Fluvial Poço da Cesta—uma atracão natural nesta área.

Forage Forest +Shrubland Path

+Shrubland Pasture

+Poco Da Cesta River Beach

Village Orchard

+Cherry Groves

+Perennial Gardens +Apple Groves

River Beach +

Casal Novo Site Plan

Plaza Perches +

Casal Novo Village

Future Flames

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Seedbank Shrubland

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Gena Morgis, Alysoun Wright

View of Seedbank Shrubland Grazing Area

View of River Beach

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View of Reconnected Ridge Along the ICNF Boundary

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Echo Chen

In this project, rosemary is proposed as the “agent” to conduct a living ground where fire, human and brushland coexist. A national health service pilot-program for senior people is proposed in the central Portuguese rural areas. Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal are the focus sites. Currently each of the three villages have less than 10 families. The depopulating and aging problems are still exacerbating. By introducing rosemary as the primary product, I consider that the three villages will benefit from the social and ecological abundance that shrub industry produces. According to research, rosemary is a promising and sustainable economy. From the fire ecology dimension, this brush species adapts to fire and resprouts in post fire season. The rosemary fields will continuously generate revenue in the next year following the fire crisis. Internationally, it is supported by EU agriculture fundings and Portugal national rural network. Since the market of extract oil and dry brush products keeps growing, this region in the center of Portugal will become the backbone of local cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry. The detail designs of agriculture infrastructure, village public space and social relations are included in the proposal. The rosemary industry will create a safe living environment, sustainable and profitable economy, and healthy social ecosystem. It changes people’s perception. Rural is neither a picturesque landscape, nor a burned poor ground. Rather, it is a socially constructed and significant space. The rural will be a healing retreat for people who look for peacefulness. The new community will produce reciprocal relations among diverse generations. This project will show an alternative landscape program to deal with aging society and the senior’s safety in pandemic times. The scenario of rosemary industry enlarges the capital capacity for well-developed infrastructure and generates a new “image” for the rural areas. Furthermore, a diverse community and healthy social network will help the seniors physically and mentally benefit from the living environment.

Villages Under Focus: Adcasal, Linhares, + Pracerias, Arganil, Portugal

A Província do Rosmaninho: Onde o Fogo, Comunidades e Arbustos coexistem Neste projeto, o rosmaninho/alfazema é proposto como o “agente” de transformação da paisagem para produzir um “terreno-vivo” onde o fogo, as comunidades e arbustos coexistem. Em associação a este programa de paisagem, é também proposto um programa-piloto assente no serviço nacional de saúde para idosos nas áreas rurais do centro de Portugal. Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal são as áreas em foco. Atualmente, cada uma das três aldeias tem menos de 10 famílias. Os problemas de despovoamento e envelhecimento agravam-se todos os anos. Ao introduzir o rosmaninho/alfazema como o principal produto de cultivo, é esperado que as três aldeias beneficiarão da abundância social e ecológica que esta indústria arbustiva produz relativamente a produtos medicinais e de cosmética. Segundo pesquisas, o rosmaninho/alfazema é uma economia promissora e sustentável. Na ecologia do fogo, estas espécies arbustivas são adaptáveis aos fenómenos píricos e rebrotam na recuperação pós-fogo. Os campos de rosmaninho/alfazema têm assim a possibilidade de gerar receitas nos anos seguintes após ocorrências píricas. A nível internacional, esta economia pode ser apoiada por fundos comunitários e por programas locais de incentivo agrícola. Uma vez que o mercado de óleo de extrato de rosmaninho/alfazema continua crescendo mundialmente, esta região no centro de Portugal tornar-se-á na espinha dorsal da indústria cosmética e farmacêutica local. Os projetos detalhados de infraestrutura agrícola, espaço público da vila e relações sociais são incluídos nesta proposta. A indústria do rosmaninho/alfazema criará um ambiente de vida seguro e bonito, uma economia sustentável e lucrativa, e um ecossistema social saudável. Isso muda a perceção das pessoas. O rural não é uma paisagem pitoresca, nem um solo pobre queimado. Em vez disso, é um espaço socialmente construído e significativo. O rural será um retiro de cura para as pessoas que procuram tranquilidade. A nova comunidade produzirá relações recíprocas entre diversas gerações e a paisagem produtiva. Este projeto mostrará um programa de paisagem alternativo para lidar com o envelhecimento da sociedade e a segurança dos idosos na pandemia. O cenário da indústria do rosmaninho/ alfazema amplia a capacidade de capital e cria uma nova imagem para o rural. Uma comunidade diversificada e uma rede social saudável ajudará os idosos a se beneficiarem física e mentalmente do ambiente em que vivem.

Aldeias em foco: Linhares, Pracerias, + Adcasal, Arganil, Portugal

The Rosemary Province

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The Rosemary Province: Where fire, humans and brushland coexist

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Echo Chen

MANIFESTO 1. Perceiving fire as our co-producer for culture, ecology and economy.

2. Existing brush-based rural ecosystem is the nation’s cultural memory.

3. Building persistent human management in the fire-prone ecosystem.

4. Embracing the long-history of brushland as a key node for human-non-human balance.

6. Accommodating good jobs for younger generations to secure the longevity of the rural community.

7. Constructing reciprocal cooperations between intergenerational groups to support a healthy social metabolism.

8. The rural promotes radically inclusive and communal ways of life.

9. The rural ground is a socially constructed and significant landscape.

10. Surface a new perception to the rural identity.

The Rosemary Province

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5. Long-term economic resilience is indispensable for the fire-resistant community.

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Echo Chen

Pracerias residential area

Adcasal senior houses

Linhares clinic greenhouse

rosemary field medical herb garden communal food shed

(1:2500) 0

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20m

Site Plan: Rosemary Industry in the Three-Village Coalition

Rosemary Color Palette

Blue Spires Strong vertical habit; clear blue flowers.

Prostratus Pale blue flowers. Most commonly used rosemary for cascading down walls.

Miss Jessup Upright Slender branches; pale blue flowers.

I hope I can have my wedding here...

Retaining Wall

Boule It forms a neat dome

Water Ditch

The Rosemary Province

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amphi-botanical garden

cherry trees

Water Resource Billboard Storage

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A Critical Intersection: The Botanical Garden at the Entrance of the Field and the Villages

Communal Food Shed Storage Water Allocation Billboard

Rosemary Grower I grew up here. After working in Lisbon for 4 years I returned and now grow rosemary in my grandparents’ land Rosemary Field Medical Herb Garden

Olá!!

Shepherd

Herbalist I moved here 2 years ago to do my research on the field after retiring

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Echo Chen

cereal

Water trench

Surface Drainage

Build Socalco: Water infrastructure + Soil maintenance Wall 02 July - Sept Rosemary Seedling

03 Oct. - Dec. Rosemary Growing

04 Jan. - March Rosemary Harvest

05 April - June Ground Fuel Clearance

04 Rosemary Harvest

01-01 Dig the Trench Water Allocation 01-03 Build the Retaining Wall

01-02 Move the Soil Water Allocation

The Rosemary Province

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Water Allocation Mar. 02-08

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Echo Chen

Tart-spicy taste

Pungent, licorice-like taste

Spicy-bitter, balsam-like odor and a soapy and dominant taste.

Spicy, dry and slightly bitter.

A strong, distinctive taste that’s like a combination of fennel, anise and celery.

Thyme

Tarragon

Sage

Oregano

Dill

Yerba Mate Tea

Lamb meat

Aioli

Seasoned Pork

atop feta

Greek tzatziki

Omelets

Sausage

Fish

Spanakopita

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Mint

Mushroom

Pasta Chicken

hors d’oeurves

[ core muscle ] [ tricep extension ] [ cat and camel ]

[ squat ] [ bicep curls ]

The Rosemary Province

A mixture of spearmint and peppermint

Spatial Program

Treatment Room

Rosemary Path

Outdoor Dining

Working Field

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Bedroom

Echo Chen

Game Room

The Senior House

Senior Houses

Senior Houses “Socalcos” Bench

Herbal Garden

Agricultural Exercise Fileds (w/ rosemary)

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As the young people, we volunteer to bring our home-grown vegies and fruits to support the senior people Domestic Agricultural Field

Food Market

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30 Clinic As the senior resident, I do Yoga here...

They have a good physiotherapist

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Senior House

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Eat, Cultivate, Heal proposes a multi-functional land use system along the common land of the Baldios of Serra do Açor in Portugal with one of their villages, Cepos, as a pilot-project.

This proposal aims at creating a future with more resilient landscapes against fire and a lasting rural identity coupled with economic growth. The proposal aims to transition the existing fire-prone and monocultural plantations to diverse landscape by bringing back the traditional agro-silvo-pastoral management system. With a strategic choreography of seasonal land use and collaboration between humans and animals, risk of megafires is reduced by an interplay of farm activities, grazing and prescribed/ cultural burnings. This project intends, therefore, to create a rural image for Cepos associated with seasonal specialty food production and a lifestyle in a working landscape. Through the act of eating, cultivating, and giving new meanings to the Baldios of Serra do Açor, as a regenerative and biodiverse landscape, Cepos sets an example for how we may heal our relationships with the land, starting by re-tooling the varied potentials of the rural landscape toward new ideas in re-immersion with nature’s processes and food cycles – from Farm to Fork.

Village under focus: Cepos, Arganil, Portugal

Comer, cultivar, curar: re-imaginar a aldeia de Cepos como uma paisagem regenerativa para produção e proteção Comer, Cultivar, Curar propõe um sistema multifuncional de uso do solo ao longo dos Baldios da Serra do Açor em Portugal com uma das suas aldeias, Cepos, como projeto-piloto.

Esta proposta visa criar um futuro com paisagens mais resilientes contra os incêndios e uma identidade rural duradoura aliada ao crescimento económico. A proposta visa fazer a transição das plantações de monoculturas existentes, e mais propensas ao fogo pela sua continuidade no território, para uma paisagem diversificada, trazendo de volta o sistema de gestão agro-silvopastoril tradicional. Com uma coreografia estratégica de uso sazonal da terra e colaboração entre humanos e animais, o risco dos incêndios é reduzido por uma interação de atividades agrícolas, pastagem e queimas prescritas / culturais. Este projeto pretende, assim, criar uma imagem rural para Cepos associada à produção sazonal de especialidades alimentares e a um estilo de vida associado a uma paisagem de “trabalho.” Através do “comer”, “cultivar” e de novos significados para os Baldios da Serra do Açor, enquanto paisagem regeneradora e bio-diversa, a aldeia de Cepos dá o exemplo de como podemos reestabelecer a nossa relação com a terra, começando por reformular os diversos potenciais dos territórios rurais para novas ideias de vida, re-imersas na natureza, e nos ciclos da culinária – do prado ao prato.

Aldeia em foco: Cepos, Arganil, Portugal

Eat, Cultivate, Heal

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Kongyun He Eat, Cultivate, Heal: Reimagining the village Cepos as a regenerative landscape for production and protection

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Kongynu He

MANIFESTO 1. To protect the people is to restore the land.

2. To transform the fire-prone, monocultural landscape requires collective and collaborative effort between humans, animals and plants.

4. Agro-silvo-pastoral land management systems, such as the Montado, are an important cultural heritage and should be used as an example in rethinking the rural areas of Arganil.

5. Re-activate the Baldios for common environmental, economic and recreational benefits through localized food production and create a rural identity with specialty food products.

6. Generate long-term income and create resiliency by diversifying economic activities.

7. Promote a rural lifestyle by reconnecting the food on the table to the landscape we eat.

8. Production of food and protection of biodiversity should go hand in hand.

9. Celebrate the harvest. Appreciate the labor. And continue to educate others about the multi-functional landscape.

10. Heal the relationships with the deserted landscape while the landscape heals from fire.

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3. Fire is inevitable. But risk of megafires can be reduced through agro-silvo-pastoral land management systems.

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Kongynu He

Eat, Cultivate, Heal

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SITE ANALYSIS Cepos, Portugal - Functional Aptitude of Land

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Kongynu He

SITE PLAN Cepos, Portugal

TRANSECT 1 Orchard + Pasture

TRANSECT 2 Shrubland

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Eat, Cultivate, Heal

TIMELINE

Short and long term economic and agricultural activities exist year round between the landscapes, while livestock and wildlife move between the pastures, orchards, and shrublands at different times of the year to graze and fertilize, ensuring biodiversity and maximizing the use of manures and organic materials.

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Kongynu He

TRANSECT 1: Orchard & Pasture Site Plan + View

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TRANSECT 2: Shrubland Site Plan + View

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Kongynu He

TRANSECT 3: Montado Site Plan + View

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Jiani Zhang

By reframing and redefining the relationship between plants, animals, people, and the environment, I propose to reintroduce herbivores into this area. Herbivores will serve as agency to generate ecological, economic, social, and cultural possibilities for the new rural. Focusing on the collaboration between villages and people, the herbivores related practices, like grazing, transhumance, hunting and agro-silvo-pastoral farm will address seasonal shift between different terrains and programs. It was selected 2 villages - mountain top and valley--to operate as a complementary network for this new eco-cultural proposal. This complementarity expands the possibilities to address issues of seasonality, including the herbivories’ routes, and also include potential uses for tourism.

Village under focus: Torrozelas + Salgueiro, Arganil, Portugal

Estado: Herbívoros Reenquadrando e redefinindo a relação entre plantas, animais, pessoas e meio ambiente, esta proposta visa reintroduzir herbívoros nesta área. Diversas espécies de herbívoros serão os agentes de transformação da paisagem para gerar possibilidades ecológicas, económicas, sociais e culturais para o novo rural. Centrando-se na colaboração entre as aldeias e as pessoas, as práticas relacionadas com os herbívoros, como pastagem, transumância, caça e agricultura agro-silvopastoril abordarão a mudança sazonal entre diferentes terrenos e programas. Foram selecionadas duas aldeias – uma de topo da montanha e outra de vale - como rede complementar a esta proposta de carácter eco cultural. Essa complementaridade expande possibilidades para abordar questões de sazonalidade, incluindo as rotas dos herbívoros e usos potenciais para o turismo.

Aldeia em foco: Torrozelas + Salgueiro, Arganil, Portugal

Herbivores Estate

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Herbivores Estate

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Jiani Zhang

MANIFESTO 1. Reintroduce herbivores into the rural area. Herbivores used to play an important role here, but not any more with demographic decrease. I propose to reintroduce herbivores to generate ecological, economic, social and cultural possibilities for the new rural.

3. Establish cooperation between villages and people. The baldios is utilized as both the summer pastures for seasonal migrating herbivores and winter hunting ground. By travelling around through the transhumance route, different villages are more connected to generate inter-municipal communication and cooperation. Past situation of fragmented ownership and demographic loss urge people to work cooperatively as shepherds, farmers, and at other services inside and between villages in order to obtain economic success and social interaction.

4. Build farm to fork. Village gardens, the agro-silvo-pastoral farm and hunting practices will produce products from fruits and vegetables to grain, milk and meat. Ample supply of local agricultural and sideline products will enhance the food quality and safety, bring down the food price as well as import pressure, and ultimately promote local economy. Sharing of food will also unite people.

5. Welcome new comers and new lifestyles. While current residents, mostly elder people, are maintained as they always are and may work cooperatively inside village gardens, new careers are introduced. Shepherds, farmers, loggers, butchers and many other jobs created for the herbivores related practices are payed to perform their duty in a more modern way. They infuse new lifestyles into old villages as long-term settlers or temporal hired hands. Visitors, hunters and market people will also bring fresh dynamism.

6. Preserve the rural cultural value. The existence of baldios reflects the tradition of local people working collaboratively to survive hard times. Uniting baldios and villages let people work together again to values this tradition. Traditional festivals like Magusto and Transhumance Festival are integrated into new lifestyles. Although alterations happen under information era, the spiritual core of rural areas remain the same peaceful and still serve as an escape from urban life. The new rural are believed to be more open, practical and cooperative.

7. Recover and rebuild the landscape. From post fire recovery to new farm establishment, then to the routine maintenance and practices, forests, pastures and agro-silvo-pastoral landscapes are recovered and rebuilt to offer ecosystem service and aesthetic value.

8. Activate local economy. With investments from governments and cooperation with related companies, the rural area will enter a new era of economy development. New jobs will produce new products, new landscape will generate new tourism. Therefore, the circular of capital will stream faster into and around villages.

9. Build up sustainable community. Collaboration of work, sharing of food, care for the young and the old, all these actions unites people and give them a sense of belonging for the place, increasing their possibility of staying here and recommending to the outside for potential new comers. Continuous education given to farmers, shepherds and other necessary jobs guarantee the knowledge and skills needed, thus promoting this new community living with herbivores.

10. Welcome the new rural. The relationship between plants, animals, people and the environment have been reframed and redefined as herbivores have been the central actors. Herbivores related practices in the new technology century will bring this area into a new rural era of safety, development and communication.

Herbivores Estate

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2. Protect the rural from fire risk. Through the grazing of domestic herbivores and the foraging of wild herbivores, and through recovering and creating moist landscapes, a practical fuel management network and firebreak is built.

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Jiani Zhang

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JAN: 112.9 FEB: 86.5 MAR: 61.4 APR: 64.6 MAY: 49.3 JUN: 17.7 JUL: 4.5 AUG:6.3 SEP: 34 OCT: 99.1 NOV: 116.9 DEC: 112.7

FEB

MARCH 1st ANNUAL GRAND FAIR TRADE

AVERAGE MONTHLY TEMPERATURE (°C) JAN: 11 JUL: 26

FEB: 13 AUG:26

MAR: 15 SEP: 22

APR: 17 OCT: 19

MAY: 19 NOV: 15

JUN: 22 DEC: 12

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VISITOR ACTIVITIES HERBIVORE ACTIVITIES APR

TRANSHUMANCE HERBIVORES Mostly goats, a few cattles and sheep will travel on transhumance in the summer between May 1st and September 30th. During winter, they will stay at the valley for milking, breeding, meat and wool production.

MAY 1st TRANSHUMANCE FESTIVAL

DOMESTIC HERBIVORES Pigs and donkeys will serve as annual everyday herbivores on the agro-sylvo-pastoral farm as understory consumer and customary meat supply.

MAY

WILD HERBIVORES Deers and wild boars live in the mountains for the whole year. But during winter months, they will be hunted reasonably. They also serve as substitute as preys for carnivores like wolves and eagles to maintain food cycle balance and increase diversity of species as well as thickening the whole ecosystem.

Herbivores Estate

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Mountain Village Torrozelas

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Jiani Zhang

Looking Down at the Multi-Functional Farm from Hillside Plaza

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Garnet Ring: A Beacon for Change

Sarah Doonan

Garnet Ring honors, through the landscape, those lost lives during the 2017 wildfires, protecting and enriching the communities of today and tomorrow with the integration of fire as a process and social catalyst.

Through ecologic fire rekindled by culture, this strategic succession of community clearings, plantings, control burns, and seasonal fire festivals provides economic opportunities. It does so through both a novel educational stewardship program and village patronage events that, together, illuminate a fire-resilient future here and there.

Forging the Future: By reframing and redistributing existing knowledge of fire management, Garnet Ring proposes to rewrite existing perspectives and practices of fire—its role and our relationship with it by re-establishing fire as a generator of cultural and ecologic health, joy and wealth, and new eco-economic possibilities.

The path forward is through the path we once walked, together, united with our neighbors and with the spark of our species, fire itself. To embark on our new future, with fire directed by people and plants, WE REKINDLE. Village under focus: Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal, Nogueira, Aveleira, Torrozelas, Adela, Acor, Arganil, Portugal

Anel de Rubis: Um Farol para Mudança A proposta Anel de “Rubis” homenageia, por meio da paisagem, as vidas perdidas durante os incêndios florestais de 2017, protegendo e enriquecendo as comunidades de hoje e de amanhã com a integração do fogo como processo e catalisador social.

Por meio do fogo ecológico reacendido pela cultura, esta sucessão estratégica de clareiras comunitárias, plantações, queimas controladas e festivais sazonais de fogo oferece oportunidades económicas. Esta proposta imagina que um novo programa educacional e o patrocínio de eventos locais nas aldeias centrados na cultura do fogo possam iluminar um futuro mais resiliente, aqui e ali.

Forjando o futuro: Reenquadrando e redistribuindo o conhecimento existente sobre a gestão do fogo, esta proposta imagina reescrever as perspetivas e práticas existentes do fogo—seu papel e nossa relação com ele para restabelecer o fogo como gerador de cultura e ecologia, saúde e deleite, e novas ecoeconomias. O caminho a seguir é o mesmo caminho que um dia percorremos, juntos, unidos aos nossos vizinhos e com a centelha da nossa espécie, o próprio fogo. Para embarcar no nosso novo futuro, com o fogo conduzido por pessoas e plantas, NÓS REACENDEMOS. Aldeia em foco: Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal, Nogueira, Aveleira, Torrozelas, Ádela, Açor, Arganil e Góis, Portugal

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MANIFESTO 1. Welcome a new perspective: Through a system fueled by community engagement, landscape management stewardship will be aligned with cultural creation to set forth a new precedent for Portugal’s perception of fire.

3. Reignite our relationship with fire: To exist in the future, we must rekindle the negotiations once held between land and inhabitant through economic opportunities that incentivise healthy land use and subsequently nurture familiarity between human, land, and fire.

4. Employ cultural shifts: We believe the first steward must be employed, to initiate a novel cultural shift in perspective drawn from traditional fire practice and mark the significance of this remembered relationship.

5. Share Knowledge: To plan the future, we must understand, collectively, the difference between wildfire and fire, their origins and intentions. This knowledge must be shared with those in positions to make the most immediate impact in fire’s potential extent, those who live within its route.

6. Initiate community confidence: To grow together, we must listen, speak, and trust. These first village adopters will develop a community model partnered with employed stewards to craft a wildfire preventative landscape through fire that generates community safety while creating events for economic gain.

7. Navigate balancing resident + visiting interests: While the cultural significance imbued in these regular landscape maintenance practices are intended to celebrate the returned role of fire for the prevention of wildfire, they are also intended to more importantly foster a new relationship for those residents who live in the wake of fire. Maintenance interventions will scale between the ceremonial and the habitual.

8. Designate opportunities to uplift residents to leadership: We believe the best leaders rise from experience. We believe community stewardship roles may, through provided additional training, transition into specialised stewards, compensated employees of this new wildfire employment regime.

9. Lead by example: While the cultural significance imbued in these regular landscape maintenance practices are intended to celebrate the returned role of fire for the prevention of wildfire, they are also intended to more importantly foster a new relationship for those residents who live in the wake of fire. Maintenance interventions will scale between the ceremonial and the habitual.

10. Encourage rekindling through shared experience: Wildfire is not a picky antagonist, and rural abandonment isn’t either. This cause and effect is global, but what we learn, implement and succeed at here can help revolutionize fire-prone communities around the world. Through the controlled, collaborative glow of fire intentionally started here, in both ceremonial and daily practices, we will captivate hearts and ignite curiosities across the globe to reimagine their own relationships to rekindled fire. When we celebrate, we invite the world in.

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2. Invoke Ecologic solutions: We believe the soundest protection against future wildfire lies at the intersection of people and plants. Our approach is two fold, and relies on the collaboration of these two foundational actors to create enduring change. We must return these lands to their native ecological systems, in which regular, controlled fire was used by humans to prevent devastation while providing physical and economic sustenance.

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Sarah Doonan As a network and process, the Garnet Ring makes change in the Linhares-Pracerias-Adcasal Valley for locals and natives alike. See something, share something, change something.

Overseeing the Future

Garnet Ring: A Beacon for Change

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Shaping through Stewardship The Time for Tomorrow is Now: 2020 - 2050 for 2220

Forging the Future Process as Path

Phase 0: Existing

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Sarah Doonan

Abundant store of flammable fuels, highly combustible unchecked forests. Traditional fire management practices overwritten by fear of devastation possible by fire suppression mismanagement strategies.

Phase 1: Clearance

Woods thinned, brush and trunks harvested, grasslands responsibly ignited

by Flame Keeper to cleanse.

Phase 2: Construction

New cultural-ecologic paradigm initiated, in which humanity and fire re-establish a working relationship through renewed cultural management!

Native algarve goats shepherd by village Keepers pastured to alleviate excess forest floor fuel. Shrubland ignited responsibly, post-goat, by Flame Keeper while training Community.

Phase 2: Construction

Community Fire Attendant, fully trained by the Keepers and with permission, performs a controlled burn on grasslands.

Phase 3: Cooperation

The culture established through work, through engagement, with ecologic fire, now community wisdom. Native shrub seeds sowed by Community in first postfire recovered zones.

Phase 4: Celebration

Process as path, path as process, from start to finish, burned through! Garnet Ring channels and bonfires invoked to commemorate for and with Community.

New shrublands developing.

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Garnet Ring: A Beacon for Change

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RENEW In spring, a grove fire festival marks the March spring equinox, followed by the April Memorial Shower. During this ceremony, 100 community planted Prunus avium cherry trees honor those taken by fire through a cloud of white blossoms. In summer, these trees offer sustenance for both bees and residents.

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Sarah Doonan

REPLENISH In fall, groves of village chestnuts are harvested in November to celebrate the magusto festival. An accompanying Goat Feast pays respects to those guardian goats who are spared and who spare us of the wildfires that could have been, if not for their grazing.

Garnet Ring: A Beacon for Change

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REFLECT A Ilex aquifolium holly tree planted for each of the 66 people who died in the 2017 wildfires, this evergreen grove bears witness yearlong to the efforts of survivors to change Portugal’s future through a culture of rekindled ecologic fire. In winter, the wind-breaking planting hosts intimate holiday bon fires generated through the summer reaping of fragrant Eucalyptus globulus bark.

Aromatic steam and smoke pleasantly focus.

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Sarah Doonan

REMEMBER The largest of all festivals, the Cork Grove Remembrance Fire Festival gives space to recollect the tragedy of past wildfires within the protective embrace of 150 Quercus suber cork oaks. In early summer, their barks are stripped, sold, and returns distributed among villagers.

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Ayami Akagawa The Circle of Fire: Making friends with fire again, through the use of prescribed fire and its cultural landscape Humans are now distanced from fires, which have always been part of the landscape.

To restore a healthy relationship with fire, this project curates a prescribed fire scheme as a prevention practice. It situates culturally the fire regimes in the context of the local communities’ agro-pastoral activities. In sum, this proposal re-imagines the re-integration of fire as an eco-cultural process integral to these landscapes and, therefore, impossible to erase. Rather than suppressing, this proposal re-ignites fire as ecology and culture in the rural areas through the creation of a “District of Fire.”

The inter-village trail runs through the designated ‘district of fire’ where a prescribed burn patch rotates every four years. Charred patches will invite pollinators and wildlife, restating the value of shrub ecology and generating a new local economy. Collective engagement with the land will be heightened through designed festivals and gathering spaces, reminding us the role of the “good” fire in the core of community life.

Villages under focus: Açor, Fajão, and Soito Arganil, Portugal

O Círculo de Fogo: Fazendo (novamente) amizade com o fogo, através do fogo prescrito e sua paisagem cultural Os humanos agora estão distantes do fogo, que sempre fez parte desta paisagem. Para restaurar uma relação saudável com o fogo, este projeto imagina um esquema de fogo prescrito como uma prática de prevenção. Situa culturalmente o regime de fogo no contexto das atividades agro-pastoris das comunidades locais. Em suma, esta proposta desenha a reintegração do fogo como um processo eco-cultural integrante destas paisagens. Ao invés de suprimir, esta proposta “reacende” o fogo como ecologia e cultura nas áreas rurais através da criação de um “Distrito do Fogo.”

O trilho desenhado nesta proposta passa pelas aldeias incluídas no “Distrito do Fogo,” onde uma área de queima prescrita gira a cada quatro anos. Manchas sujeitas à queima irão convidar polinizadores e vida selvagem, reafirmando o valor da ecologia dos matos e gerando uma nova economia local. O envolvimento coletivo com a terra será intensificado por meio de festivais projetados e espaços de encontro, lembrando-nos do papel do “bom” fogo na vida comunitária.

Aldeias em foco: Açor, Fajão e Soito Arganil, Portugal

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Prescribed Fire

MANIFESTO 1. Prescribe fire as a regenerative act 2. Respect natural fire cycle 3. Work with fire instead of suppresion 4. Collectively engage with the land

6. Create new fire warden jobs 7. Connect villages with a trail system 8. Re-evaluate shrub ecology and economy 9. Plant fire-retardant & fire-dependent species 10. Generate productivity from biodiversity

The Circle of Fire

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5. Gather around small friendly fire

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Ayami Akagawa

The Circle of Fire

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Village Scale Proposal: Açor

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Ayami Akagawa

Axon + View of Açor

The Circle of Fire

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Village Scale Proposal: Fajão

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Ayami Akagawa

Axon + View of Fajão

The Circle of Fire

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Village Scale Proposal: Soito

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Ayami Akagawa

Axon + View of Soito

The Circle of Fire

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Village Scale Proposal: Colmeal & Sobral

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Ayami Akagawa

Axon + View of Colmeal & Sobral

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Shared Steps: Towards a New “Serra”

Michele Turrini

Shared Steps aims to anchor local communities and possibly new ones by resurfacing and enhancing the old infrastructures of water, cultivation terraces (socalcos), and new residential opportunities—especially for inter-generational communities committed in searching for healthy living standards. A new “region” inspired by the potentials for natural capital expansion offered by neighboring native woodland, water streams, and food terraces, will provide new social and economic opportunities for the region. Shared Steps focuses on the valley village of Salgueiro, building on existing infrastructure to strengthen and diversify the economical possibilities for the community through communal spaces and health services (residences, health clinics, etc) aiming at improving the lives of the current residents, many of them elders, and potential new communities.

Village under focus: Salgueiro, Arganil, Portugal

Passos Partilhados: Em Direção a uma nova “Serra” Passos Partilhados tem como objetivo ancorar comunidades locais e possivelmente novos residentes através do reconhecimento e reintegração das antigas infraestruturas de água, terraços para cultivo (socalcos), e provisão de novas possibilidades de residência— sobretudo para comunidades inter-geracionais apostadas em procurar uma vida saudável. Uma nova “região” inspirada nos potenciais de expansão do capital natural oferecidos pelas paisagens nativas vizinhas, riachos e terraços de cultivo proporcionará novas oportunidades sociais e económicas para a região. A proposta Passos Partilhados concentra-se na aldeia do Salgueiro, aproveitando as infraestruturas existente para fortalecer e diversificar as possibilidades económicas para a comunidade por meio de espaços comuns e infraestruturas de serviços de saúde (residências, clínicas, etc) que visem melhorar a vida dos atuais moradores, muitos deles idosos, e de novas comunidades.

Aldeia em foco: Salgueiro, Arganil, Portugal

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Shared Steps Phasing Plan

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Salgueiro Valley Village Shared Steps: Towards a New “Serra”

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Michele Turrini

Water Storing Socalcos

Socalco’s Levada

Retention Pond

Levadas

Riparian Corridor Gullies

Planted riparian corridors with stepped gullies

Levadas for productive Socalcos

Water Storage Socalcos

Levadas for village protection and fitness trails

Retaining Ponds

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Salgueiro Site Plan

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Village View Shared Steps: Towards a New “Serra”

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Valley View 205

Michele Turrini

Shared Steps: Towards a New “Serra”

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Salgueiro Retiree Complex The complex will have housing units with vegetable and flower gardens draping down the schist stone walls. A fitness route would lead from the pond series and other amenities within the valley to the Complex. The close proximity of the units to the central square of the village makes it easy for the retiree to alternate between restfulness and social life.

The retiree complex in Salgueiro will be integrated within the Socalcos infrastructure, topped by a health clinic accessible by car through a scenic route facing Mount Redondo.

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Michele Turrini

Salgueiro Elementary School A new elementary school provide primary education to the younger generation of the village. Screaming kids hurry from the school slope down to the creek, trousers up to their knees as they enter the fresh waters to race their paper boats downstream.

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Salgueiro Village Square The existing road has been moved slightly off the village center to allow for the construction of a new square.

Communal ovens, a Merceria showcasing local produce, shaded terraces, and event spaces all feature part of the new social language of the village and its multigenerational community.

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Migrations

Tristan Battistoni

Migrations is a statement on the future of the Arganil region and rural communities established in the mountainous areas of the Arganil region. These areas are witnessing a general aging of their population and face with limited resources raging wildfires during the hot summers. The project tackles the various challenges through articulated design interventions at different scales. Starting from the regional scale, a radical landscape vision will limit the damages of future fires and provide support for new pastoral and touristic activities. Firewalls will be created through the clearing up of wide stretches of land following the ridges of the mountains (dry firewalls) while the valleys will become dense corridor of fire resisting plants and trees species and cultivated fields (wet firewalls). Trails will connect the two separate networks of firewalls and make this mountainous region a single space that one can freely navigate for different purposes: forest management, goat herding, legal hunt during specific timeframes, wildlife corridors, and tourism. At the village scale, a project will be developed in Porto Castanheiro and includes two main programs: a shelter for a retired community and a barn used for pastoral activities and to protect goats during winter. The programs are organized in a series of blocks separated by retaining walls which extend the terraces already built to create horizontal space in the slope. The barn will have a house associated while the retirement community has a common space which will host public event and will participate in the social life of the village. The two are meant to bend with the building fabric and existing walls and become fully integrated with the village. In fact, the barn will provide jobs for newcomers willing to live in the vacant homes, while the old population will live in the retired community and will be joined by new residents willing to spend their retirement in Portugal.

Finally, at the microscale, the architecture will draw from the existing building techniques, materials and local knowledge to develop an innovative construction system integrated in the local landscape of retaining walls (socalcos) and stone houses. This has two goals: making a statement about rural intervention and building on the existing knowledge to face the risk of fire damage to buildings and occupants as well as building in the slope.

Village under focus: Porto Castanheiro, Arganil, Portugal

Migrações Migrações é uma declaração sobre o futuro da região de Arganil e das comunidades rurais estabelecidas nas áreas montanhosas da região de Arganil. Essas áreas estão a testemunhar um envelhecimento geral de sua população e enfrentam, com recursos limitados, incêndios violentos durante os verões quentes. O projeto aborda os vários desafios por meio de intervenções de design articuladas em diferentes escalas. Partindo da escala regional, uma visão radical da paisagem irá limitar os danos de futuros incêndios e fornecer suporte para novas atividades de pastorícia e turísticas. As faixas de gestão de combustível (firewalls) serão criadas através da gestão da vegetação em grandes extensões de terra seguindo as cumeeiras das montanhas (firewalls secos) enquanto os vales se tornarão corredores densos de espécies de plantas e árvores resistentes ao fogo e campos cultivados (firewalls húmidos). As duas redes separadas serão ligadas por trilhos e tornar esta região montanhosa um único espaço no qual se pode navegar livremente para diferentes propósitos: gestão florestal, pastoreio de cabras, caça legal durante períodos de tempo específicos, corredores de vida selvagem, e turismo. À escala de aldeia, será desenvolvido um projeto na aldeia de Porto Castanheiro que inclui dois programas principais: um complexo residencial para a comunidade reformada e um estábulo/ celeiro comunitário para a pastorícia e para abrigo dos rebanhos durante o inverno. Os programas são organizados numa série de blocos construídos, separados por muros de contenção que prolongam os terraços existentes para criar um espaço horizontal na encosta. O estábulo/celeiro terá uma casa associada enquanto a comunidade de aposentados terá um espaço comum que acolherá eventos públicos e participará da vida social da aldeia. Os dois programas deverão integrar-se na escala da construção existente e as paredes do seu sistema construtivo irão prolongar os socalcos existentes para completa integração na paisagem local. O celeiro vai proporcionar empregos para os recém-chegados que desejem viver nas casas vagas, enquanto a população idosa viverá na comunidade de reformados e será acompanhada por novos residentes dispostos a passar a reforma em Portugal. Finalmente, na microescala, a arquitetura irá basear-se nas técnicas de construção existentes, materiais e conhecimento local para desenvolver um sistema de construção inovador e integrado na paisagem local de socalcos e casas de pedra. Tem dois objetivos: fazer uma declaração sobre a intervenção rural e aproveitar os conhecimentos existentes para fazer face ao risco de incêndio, tanto em edifícios e ocupantes como em edifícios em declive.

Aldeia em foco: Porto Castanheiro, Arganil, Portugal

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MANIFESTO (TIME-SCALE) 2021-2023: Preparation: Merge datas about land ownership and list private owners Layout of firewalls

2023-2030: Firewalls Clear up vegetation and implements gradually the new pastures land on the remaining lands Allow the development of windmill arrays spaced every 400 meters along the Dry Firewalls Clean the species growing in the Wet Firewalls and progressively create an Original Forest running along the streams, protected by empty stretches of lands Develop a network of trails connecting the valleys and Villages together 2024-2026: Construction of the Retirement Community At the village scale, a project will be developed in Porto Castanheiro and includes two main programs: a shelter for a retired community and a barn used for pastoral activities and to protect goats during winter. The programs are organized in a series of blocks separated by retaining walls which extend the terraces already built to create horizontal space in the slope. The barn will have a house associated while the retirement community has a common space which will host public event and will participate in the social life of the village. The two are meant to bend with the building fabric and existing walls and become fully integrated with the village. In fact, the barn will provide jobs for newcomers willing to live in the vacant homes, while the old population will live in the retired community and will be joined by Europeans willing to spend their retirement in Portugal.

At the microscale, the architecture will draw from the existing building techniques, materials and local knowledge to develop a construction system meaningful and integrated in the local landscape of retaining walls and stone houses. This has two goals: making a statement about rural intervention and building on the existing knowledge to face the risk of fire damage to buildings and occupants as well as building in the slope.

Migrations

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2023-2024: Construction of the Barn

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Tristan Battistoni

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Porto Castanheiro Proposed Site Plan

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Migrations

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Ground Floor Plan

Porto Castanheiro Site Section

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Tristan Battistoni

Porto Castanheiro Site Proposal

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View from the Senior’s Residence

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Biodiverse Corridors: Leveraging Landscapes for Fire Management and Biodiversity Enhancement

Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

The goal of the project is to leverage different landscape condition of this region, namely topography, slope aspects, valleys, and drainage channels. This goal aims at enhancing fire resiliency and protection, increasing biodiversity and economic possibilities with local production of meat, olive oil, and vegetables. Within the barren and dry land of the Baldios after the mega wildfire in 2017, natural drainage channels will be strategically re-envisioned as the “Green Fuel Breaks” with multiple purposes, (1) increasing wildfire protection to villagers, visitors, and wildlife , (2) providing benefits of the increased biodiversity from a mix of broadleaf forest, low inflammable shrubs and groundcover to the communities and nature, and (3) creating social spaces and trails inside and outside of the corridors for new possibility of interaction between people and nature while acting as infrastructure for soil protection against erosion, (4) promoting water filtration for aquifer recharge, (5) and, ultimately, supporting the identity for the Porto Castanheiro as a region of varied and productive landscapes.

Village under focus: Porto Castanheiro, Arganil, Portugal

Corredores de Biodiversidade: Desenhar a Paisagem para gerir fogo e catalisar biodiversidade Este projeto potencializa as diferentes condições paisagísticas desta região, nomeadamente topografia, vertentes, vales e canais de drenagem. Os objetivos são, portanto, o aumento de resiliência e proteção ao fogo, o aumento da biodiversidade com possibilidades de desenvolvimento económico assente em produtos locais: carne, azeite e vegetais. Dentro da terra árida e seca dos Baldios, após o mega incêndio florestal em 2017, os canais de drenagem naturais serão estrategicamente repensados como “Green Fuel Breaks” com múltiplos propósitos, (1) aumentar a proteção contra incêndios florestais para moradores, visitantes e vida selvagem, (2) proporcionar benefícios do aumento da biodiversidade de uma mistura de floresta de caducifólias, arbustos pouco inflamáveis e cobertura do solo para as comunidades e a natureza, (3) criar espaços sociais e trilhos dentro e fora dos corredores para novas possibilidades de interação entre as pessoas e a natureza ao mesmo tempo que atua como infraestrutura de proteção contra a erosão do solo, (4) promover a infiltração da água para recarga de aquíferos, e (5) em última instância, apoiar a identidade do Porto Castanheiro como uma aldeia de paisagens variadas e produtivas.

Aldeia em foco: Porto Castanheiro, Arganil, Portugal

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MANIFESTO 1. To live with fire means to design resilient landscape infrastructure. Designing drainage lines as vegetated network by starting regrowing landscape around existing drainage lines where the land is comparatively more humid and fertile.

3. Fire Buffer Zones as Open-field Fire Break. Designing fire break for multi-distance buffer areas, depending on spatial categories such as roads, buildings, drainage line, etc.

4. Biodiversity Trails as a New Identity. Incorporating a network of hiking trail into the new broadleaf forest planted within the vegetated network 5. Regrowing the Baldios. Areas beyond fuel break and fire break will be a new space for generating income.

These areas become Montado with low-density plantation of native species.

6. Village Plaza as Social Space for Villagers and Visitors

Biodiverse Corridors

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2. Regulatory Framework as a Design Guideline. Fuel management regulation and framework from ICNF in Portugal and in other countries will inform the spatialization of landscape planning and dimension for buffer zones.

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Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

Montado: Low Density Plantation with Livestock

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Biodiverse Corridors

Village Plan A0 1:1500

Porto Castanheiro

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Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham

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Cork Valley

Vardhan Mehta

In a world where majority of trades have been either robotized or urbanized, Cork Valley celebrates the homegrown art and culture of cork as a means of revitalizing the social landscape of rural Portugal. This sustainable growth strategy spatializes the supply chain of cork throughout a network of three villages, Linhares, Pracerias, and Adcasal, and then centralizes them in a productive campus that becomes a base for entrepreneurship and learning.

The three villages act as a model of inter-municipal governance, with the Baldios Serra do Açor as the matchmaker and the private sector as a champion, for collective growth. This proposal is based on a series of bio-physical site analysis that creates arguments for supporting the idea of a new cork region. It was found that it is possible to expand the growth of cork tree plantations (Quercus suber) and the implementation of agro-silvo pastoral systems in the region as sustainable strategies to address (1) the challenges of climatic pressure and corresponding impacts on fire regimes and soil moisture, and (2) the need to find alternative economic models based on community engagement for the sustainable future of the rural landscapes.

Villages under focus: Linhares, Pracerias, Adcasal, Arganil, Portugal

O Vale Cortiça Num mundo onde a maioria das profissões foi robotizada ou urbanizada, O Vale Cortiça celebra a arte e cultura locais da cortiça como meio de revitalizar a paisagem social do Portugal rural. Esta estratégia de crescimento sustentável espacializa a cadeia de abastecimento da cortiça numa rede de três aldeias, Linhares, Pracerias e Adcasal, e depois centraliza-as num campus produtivo que se torna uma base de empreendedorismo e aprendizagem.

As três aldeias atuam como modelo de governança inter-aldeias, tendo os Baldios da Serra do Açor como território-suporte e a iniciativa privada como catalisador para o crescimento coletivo. Esta proposta desenvolveu uma série de análises biofísicas do local para suportar a ideia da criação de uma nova região corticeira. Verificou-se que é possível expandir o crescimento da plantação de sobreiros (Quercus suber L.) na região e a implantação de sistemas de agro-silvo-pastoris como estratégias sustentáveis para enfrentar (1) os desafios da pressão climática e as mudanças associadas dos regimes de fogo e de humidade nos solos e (2) a necessidade de encontrar modelos económicos alternativos baseados no envolvimento da comunidade para o futuro sustentável das paisagens rurais.

Aldeias em foco: Linhares+ Pracerias+ Adcasal, Arganil, Portugal

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Rest Stops

MANIFESTO 1. Create a form of inter-municipal governance for a network of villages as a selfsustaining ecosystem 2. Celebrate the homegrown ‘art of cork’ as an active exchange between the past and the future.

4. Connect the villages by using Baldios as a channel and private sector as a champion for collective growth.

5. Cherish the ‘simple life’ by promoting circular economies 6. Produce an ecosystem of incentives for all stakeholders 7. Empower native villager with tools to kickstart their entrepreneurial solutions.

8. Leverage diversification and collaboration in economic activities, species and user segments.

9. Restore productive species and agriculture.

10. Reduce fire prone and invasive species

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3. Centralize the supply chains of Cork in a campus that acts as a base for entrepreneurship and learning.

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Vardhan Mehta

Cork Valley Timeline

Cork trees prefer acidic soils Cork trees prefer acidic soils

Cork trees prefer acidic soils

Cork trees prefer northern exposures for humidity

er northern umidity

Cork trees prefer northern exposures for humidity Cork trees prefer northern exposures for humidity

Cork trees prefer woodlands and lower slopes at 300-1000m 296

Cork trees prefer woodlands and lower slopes at 300-1000m 296

Cork trees prefer woodlands and lower slopes at 300-1000m

Cork trees prefer lower slopes at 300-1000m

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Cork Valley

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Cork trees prefer acidic soils

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Vardhan Mehta

Existing landscape types

New Landscape LAYER...

Cork tree reforestation on areas with northern and gentler slopes with acidic soils

New “landscape” figure of cork trees

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The “Cork Campus”

Linhares

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Pracerias

Adcasal

Cork Valley

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Recreation Spaces

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Vardhan Mehta

Cork Campus

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Cork Campus loop infrastructure as an extension of local organizations

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Herd of goats managing the landscape for fire prevention Herd from the local Shepard, Luis Fontinha, Arganil.

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Contributors

Silvia Benedito Sílvia Benedito is an architect and a landscape architect from Portugal. She teaches in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Benedito teaches graduate core design studios in landscape architecture and urbanism, as well as advanced research seminars. Benedito’s research and practice are focused on the role of atmosphere and weather in the built environment. Interested in the production and reception of atmosphere, Benedito’s research simultaneously examines the making of micro-climates for human and environmental health under the current pressure of climatic disintegration. In her methods for landscape architecture and urbanism the concept and space of atmosphere claim the body in multiple scopes and scales—from large ecological networks to smaller open space interventions, from large urban plans to rural territories. Claiming that landscape is as much about air and atmosphere as it is about land and water offers a stimulating dimension to these disciplines, reconciling ecological imperatives with community delight and wellbeing. Her last book Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation (Lars Müller, 2021) examines weather as design substance at the disciplinary intersection of landscape, architecture, and planning. Here, she examines paradigmatic design examples and corresponding thermodynamic phenomena operating at micro and macro scales for thermal delight and energy optimization.

Benedito’s design work and research has been awarded by various institutions, including the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies, MacDowell Colony for the Arts, Foundation of Science and Technology, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, and the Portuguese League of Architects with the Fernando Távora Prize.

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Studio Report Title Instructors Silvia Benedito Report Design Alysoun Wright Report Editor Alysoun Wright Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture Sarah Whiting Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture Anita Berrizbeitia Copyright © 2021 President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without prior written permission from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Acknowledgments We want to acknowledge the invaluable contribution of several participants and their important inputs during the development of the projects: Prof. Stephen Pyne, Prof. José Gaspar, Prof. Alexandra Aragão, Prof. Xavier Viegas, Prof. Pedro Bingre do Amaral, Dr. Tiago Oliveira, Prof. Helena Freitas, Pastor Luís Fontinha, Landscape Architect Henrique Pereira dos Santos, Prof. Cláudia Taborda, Prof. Steven Handel, Prof. Jeremy RussellSmith, Prof. Bibiana Bilbao, to Prof. Paulo Martins Fernandes and Architect Ana Fróis. We also thank the Municipal Chamber of Arganil with the President Mr. Dr. Luís Paulo Costa, Mrs. Councilor Érica Castanheira, Eng. Nuno Santos and Eng. Abel Simões. And also, to the students Inês Benítez and Melissa Barrientos who developed the base work for this studio during their Fellowship in Benfeita during the summer of 2018.

Text and images © 2021 by their authors.

Image Credits The editors have attempted to acknowledge all sources of images used and apologize for any errors or omissions.

Harvard University Graduate School of Design 48 Quincy Street Cambridge, MA 02138 gsd.harvard.edu

Studio Report Fall 2021

Harvard GSD Department of Landscape Architecture

Students Ayami Akagawa, Tristan Battistoni, Echo Chen, Sarah Doonan, Kongyun He, Vardhan Mehta, Gena Morgis, Gem Chavapong Phipatseritham, Michele Turrini, Alysoun Wright, Jiani Zhang

Conducted in Partnership with Arganil Municipality (CMA)