Design Activism: A Call to Action for Landscape Architecture Education

We are living in a time of extraordinary change and uncertainty. Around the world, extreme weather and climate events have increased in recent decades[1]. Out of the ten hottest years recorded in history, eight occurred in the last decade[2]. By 2030, it has been estimated that 700 million people worldwide will be displaced by intense water scarcity[3]. The impact of sea-level rise, melting of ice caps and permafrost, loss of habitat and species extinction are just the initial signs of looming crises facing the planet and the society.

Beyond the death toll and economic disruptions, the COVID-19 Pandemic has also highlighted the persistent inequalities in our society with those in the lower socioeconomic ladder suffering higher death rates than the affluent class. Furthermore, the poorest populations of the world are also expected to be the most vulnerable under global climate calamities. In our role as landscape architects with the mission to “enhance, respect, and restore the life-sustaining integrity of the landscape” and to protect the interests of clients and the public , we have a responsibility ① to take on the environmental, social, and political challenges before us.

Already, there is growing interest among a new generation of students and faculty in socially engaged design responses to the urgent social and environmental challenges as evident in recent award-winning student projects and studio work. the New Landscape Declaration put forward by the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF), with a focus on social and ecological justice, resilience, and democracy is also indicative of this growing interest and aspiration[4] (Fig. 1). The recent discussion led by the McHarg Center at the University of Pennsylvania on the role of our profession in the Green New Deal suggests a proactive response to address issues of resilience and justice.

Given the growing interest and aspirations, however, is the current model of landscape architecture education providing students with the necessary skills and knowledge to confront the urgent issues of equity, justice, and climate resilience? How can we prepare students to become not only competent professionals but also proactive practitioners who are socially and politically engaged to produce transformative outcomes? How can we transform the profession and society starting with education?

1 LAF Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership

In 2019, I was fortunate to be selected as a senior fellow of the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s distinguished fellowship program . ② This fellowship allowed me to explore design activism, here defined as design for social change, as a concept for transforming landscape architecture education. The investigation was a direct response to the New Landscape Declaration that calls on landscape architects to be “active designers, engaging in politics, policy, finance, community service, and more.”[4]

Through workshops at a series of conferences in the United States , interviews with educational ③ leaders and practitioners , and a questionnaire ④ that was distributed to schools and programs and through the Landscape Architecture Foundation e-newsletter, the study sought to identify the challenges, opportunities, and perspectives from leading educators, students, program administrators, and practitioners on the relationships between activist practices and design education.

I also invited a group of colleagues around the United States to join me as members of a working group and collaborate on the series of conference gatherings (Fig. 2) . Following a ⑤ discussion of skill sets, challenges, opportunities, and existing models, a document was developed that included a framework for actions and a list of propositions for landscape architecture education. This document is accompanied by a website that serves as a resource guide for those interested in learning more about existing cases and resources ⑥.

2 Design Activism

Activism as a concept has long been associated with advocacy and agonistic actions to produce change. Those actions, including organizing and protests, have played an important role historically in making social and political advancements in our society. In the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement succeeded in ending legalized racial discrimination and segregation in the United States. In the 1960s and 1970s, the growing environmental movement in the United States led to landmark legislation such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act that are critical to the quality and protection of our environment today. By linking design to activism, “design activism” considers design as a vehicle for actions. Rather than viewing design as a technical exercise, “design activism” or “design as activism” recognizes the potential and capacity of design as a tool for social and environmental progress.

As a profession founded in a movement to remake the urban environment in the 19th Century, design activism is arguably in the DNA of landscape architecture. Since the very beginning, the practice of landscape architecture has long been

an exercise of activism, as evident in its attempt to improve the livelihood of people through ideas and methods that transform the built environment. In the face of the urgency of environmental and social challenges at the present moment, it is time for the profession to reflect on the mission and modalities of its practice through the lens of activism. It is also time for the accredited professional degree programs to re-examine their curriculum and pedagogy in the face of current challenges (Fig. 3).

Let us ask ourselves: Are we doing enough as a profession to address the critical challenges of our time? What specific actions are needed beyond business as usual? Are we providing our students and graduates with the skills and knowledge needed to address the complex challenges? What tools and preparation are needed for them to become leaders of movements and progress? In light of the current challenges, there is no better time for us to reconnect with the premise of our profession. It is time for us to see beyond the limited and even biased notion of activism as divisive politics. Instead, we must recognize the power of design to bring about critical changes to protect the safety and welfare of diverse living communities on the planet. We must see design activism not simply as a rebranding of our work, but as a way to be true to what we do as landscape architects.

An online roundtable hosted by the McHarg Center of the University of Pennsylvania in 2017 provided one of the most insightful and pertinent discussions on design activism to date . Kian ⑦ Goh, a roundtable participant and a planning faculty at UCLA, reminds us that design activism is design that challenges power structures and expands “the agency of practice in the face of social and ecological exigencies.” Artist and designer Kordae Henry sees design activism as a form of survival, “We hold the power to choose between design that harms and continues to divide us or design that creates spaces that will uplift, connect, and distribute power to those who have been marginalized.” on design education, planning scholar Barbara Brown Wilson notes, “activism often requires skills not all designers are taught in school, such as cultural competency, peace negotiation, community organizing, knowledge of other fields (e.g. ecology or economics), deep listening, and a desire to de-center one’s individual ideas toward a collaborative outcome.”

One of the earliest published references on design activism appeared in the inaugural issue of Frameworks, a publication of the College of Environmental Design at the University of California, Berkeley. In a leading article from the volume, Randolph T. Hester[5] makes an important distinction between five types of design postures, ranging from the blissfully naive – those who are “spatially talented and contextually ignorant,” to catalysts – “agents of change.” He wrote, “Catalysts see design not only as a symbolic and utilitarian end but also a stimulus to bring about political [5]10 transformation” . For Hester[5]8-9, all design is design activism, “Every design action is a political act that concretizes power and authority.”

In a 1999 issue of Places Journal that revisits the practice of participatory design, Mark Francis proposes a proactive approach to professional practice, one in which professionals “use skills in risk-taking, negotiation and entrepreneurial enterprise, base their thoughts and actions on social and environmental values, employ advocacy as part of their approach […] employ sound research and analysis, and are involved long-term […] to realize a vision”[6]. What Francis has proposed is essentially the work of design activists or activist designers. In [7]12 her book Toward an Urban Ecology, Kate Orff notes that climate change requires us to imagine a different scale of action, “to scale up our work to effect larger behavioral modifications.” She further notes that this type of action is not usually commissioned by a specific client or through an [7] Request for Qualification (RFQ) process .

In the document that was produced through the LAF Fellowship, we use design as a vehicle for social change as a working definition of design activism. By social change, we don’t mean to exclude the environmental or ecological dimensions of design. Rather, we argue that social (including political) change is fundamental to how society approaches and safeguards the environment, including living systems. Furthermore, we see the engagement of the vulnerable and underserved as an important part of the social change, from a system the privileges the few to one that strives for justice and equity.

3 A Framework of Actions

To embrace and position design as activism in landscape architecture education, we propose the following framework of actions based on the challenges and opportunities identified in our research.

As educational programs in landscape architecture vary in their focus, size, and organization, and as they respond often to different contexts and constituents, the proposals here are not meant to be one-size-fits-all. Instead, we ask each program and school to reassess its mission and goals and develop appropriate strategies and actions together with students, faculty, and the professional community. Undertaking systemic changes requires patience, strategies, and mobilization at multiple levels. We envision these changes to occur locally, regionally, nationally, and transnationally, starting from the bottom, top, and sideways, through both acupunctural pressures as well as layered approaches. The change we envision requires creativity, innovation, and sustained efforts by faculty, students, administrators, and professional allies.

While the framework and suggested actions are specific to education, we envision that a strong intersection between education and profession is also essential. In other words, while the focus of this study is on landscape architecture education,

we do not see the actions as limited to the context of educational institutions only. Rather, we see the need for a broader transformation to occur through such intersections.

3.1 “Politicize”

The social and environmental challenges facing our society and the planet today are in essence political, in the sense that they reflect exercises of power and struggles. To be effective in meeting these challenges, landscape architects need to be engaged with the political – the process in which different forces and struggles converge in the public realm. We must understand better the language and systems of power. We need to have the ability and capacity to engage in the political process to effect change. To politicize is not to align necessarily with partisan interests and viewpoints. It’s not “politicizing” as conventionally or commonly understood. Rather, to politicize is to accept the responsibility of professionals as engaged citizens and as members of a democracy. To be effective participants in a democracy, we must acquire the skills in communicating, mobilizing, and advocating for the public (demos).

To politicize is also to understand that the built environment has always been an ongoing product of social, economic, and political processes. The work that we do as professionals and the materials that we teach and learn in school are shaped by the systems and the history of social movements as well as oppression and colonialization. In the book, Design for the Real World, published almost four decades ago, designer and educator Victor Papanek[8]21 argues, “The main trouble with design schools seems to be that they teach too much design and not enough about the ecological, social, economic, and political environment in which design takes place.” Although Papanek was addressing more specifically the field of industrial design, the same criticism could be applied to landscape architecture, not just in the 1980s, but also today. There is much work to be done to engage with the “real world” we live in.

3.2 Hybridize

The scale and complexity of the social and environmental challenges today require landscape architecture to build knowledge and capacity beyond the traditional core of the profession. One of the advantages of higher education is that we reside in institutions with other areas of expertise, including arts, environmental sciences, ethnic studies, geography, gender studies, health, human-centered design, law, planning, social work, etc. There are abundant opportunities to explore collaboration in research, teaching, and service that can mutually benefit students, faculty, the professional community, and the public if we are willing to invest in building the connections and taking the initiatives.

By connecting and working with other disciplines, there are also opportunities to reflect critically on how we operate as a field. For instance, we can learn from the methods that the other fields use to generate, disseminate, and apply knowledge. We can also observe how they test ideas and verify results. We can draw from the way they engage the public and advance their agenda. Through these interactions, we can learn about our strengths and limitations and find ways to advance our profession. Conversely, by hybridizing, we can also make others aware of landscape architecture and what we can bring to the table. Rather than taking on the challenges on our own, hybridizing allows us to join forces with others (Fig. 4).

There are different ways in which hybridization can occur. In programs that are housed together with planning programs, for instance, students already can benefit from the availability of courses and the company of cohorts often with a strong social justice focus and sensibility. At the graduate level, students can develop specializations, participate in joint projects, or even pursue concurrent degrees. At the undergraduate level, we can encourage students to pursue minors in other fields to broaden their relationships with other units, steps must also be taken to reduce barriers including tenure and promotion criteria and process.

At the program level and as a profession, we must also hybridize our ranks by recruiting more diverse students and faculty into education. We must reach out to schools, communities, and students that are historically underrepresented in our profession. Only by bringing those from diverse cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds into the profession can we begin to have the capability of understanding and addressing issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion in society.

3.3 Glocalize

Just like landscapes and ecosystems, today’s social and environmental challenges are also interconnected across scales and locations. To be effective in meeting these interconnected challenges, we must think and act both locally and globally. Starting with the local, educational programs can build connections with local stakeholders, including communities, public agencies, and civic organizations, not to mention the local professional community. These connections are important for developing a service-learning curriculum and providing students and faculty with opportunities to develop working relationships and gain insights into the issues and challenges facing the local communities. These insights allow students and faculty to understand how issues facing the planet and the global society are manifested locally and how we can begin to undertake actions in communities and places where we live and work, particularly the vulnerable communities.

Developing local ties needs not be done at the expense of global connections. In fact, by working both locally and globally with partners and communities abroad, landscape architecture programs can explore the interconnectivity of global and local issues, broaden the horizon for students and faculty, and prepare students to

become global leaders and citizens. As demographic compositions diversify in communities across the globe, institutions are increasingly required to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Cultivating the local and global connections and exploring curricular and pedagogical opportunities can also help build the cultural and intercultural capacity for the next generation of landscape architects.

3.4 Improvise

With fiscal uncertainty or declining financial support (and more recently with the impact of COVID-19), most landscape architecture programs in the United States and perhaps elsewhere are likely not in a position to grow rapidly. As such, the most effective way to move forward with the agenda of integrating design activism into design education is to make use of what already exists. For instance, studios present an excellent opportunity to integrate design activism into a curriculum. Given the common problems of crowded curriculum and systems that are already overstretched, using a design studio to introduce and embed design activism can be done with the least cost and disruption to a curriculum. The project-based approach and the significant time assigned to design studios also make it an appropriate venue. Similarly, content related to design activism can also be layered or inserted into existing courses whenever it’s appropriate.

Aside from the coursework, a program can also build on an existing lecture series to introduce new themes and substance focusing on critical issues of our time. It can offer workshops/ charrettes on an annual or biennial basis providing opportunities to engage not just students and faculty but also the professional community and members of the public. Summer programs provide yet another opportunity to utilize existing resources, in this case, the availability of space and time during the summer. Improvising, or working with what you have, also means utilizing strengths and assets that are already in place in a program or a community. These may include existing community-university partnership programs on campus, community-based organizations that one can develop partnerships with, and city agencies that can use resources and support from university programs.

3.5 Problematize

To improvise with existing resources and strengths, one doesn’t need to go far than to look at an existing program, curriculum, university, and the nearby city or communities. There is arguably no better way to address issues of equity, justice, and resilience than to look at what’s immediately around us. Starting with the courses, what if we take a social justice lens to re-examine the history of our profession? Rather than following the typical narrative in the literature, what if we revisit it from the perspectives of the subaltern groups, including the indigenous communities and marginalized groups whose lands were expropriated to make ways for some of the most iconic works of our profession? What if we take on the disparities that exist already in our communities, such as access to fresh food and green spaces? What if we look at how university campuses are addressing issues of sustainability and resilience?

To problematize our assumptions and existing systems is also to develop a deeper understanding of issues and take a critical stance that is in essence the source of activism. There is an abundance of issues that we can take on at our doorsteps if we can problematize them and make them the focus of actions. These actions are in turn provide the opportunities through which design activism can be introduced and integrated into the curriculum. Starting in one’s programs, institutions, and communities also presents opportunities to be engaged and to connect theories and concepts to realities. Beyond one’s immediate surroundings, problematizing the societal institutions and challenges facing the planet is also a critical step toward developing holistic and innovative solutions. One must develop appropriate solutions by first asking the right questions.

3.6 Authenticize

Design activism is best learned and understood in actions. An authentic experience including, but not limited to, meeting and working together with community members, tabling or speaking in a rally, and staying or living in a community, can go a long way in instilling a sense of purpose, empathy, and understanding by being immersed. Rather than indoctrinating students or simply delivering content and expecting the students to accept and digest on their own, it’s often more powerful to provide opportunities for self-discoveries through experiential learning. Providing opportunities for actions and experiences is thus a critical component of design activism education (Fig. 5).

Authenticize, or creating an authentic experience for students, involves working with people in the actual context with real issues. The reality is the best material for students to learn about the complexity of issues and challenges as well as the opportunities and pathways for solutions. Creating opportunities for experiential learning, therefore, needs to be integrated into landscape architecture education, either through service-learning studios and field classrooms or other innovative mechanisms. Long-term investment of time and commitment is needed to ensure an authentic and long-lasting relationship for collaboration. The collaboration can only be as authentic as the relationships that enable the collaboration to occur in the first place.

3.7 Entrepreneurize

For alternative practices to be viable and successful in the market economy or the competitive nonprofit ecosystem, landscape architecture education needs to provide students not only with technical knowledge but also entrepreneurial skills. Even in the public sector, understanding funding

and fund management is critical to program effectiveness and success. Again, one advantage of higher education institutions is their proximity and access to a variety of resources and expertise, including programs that support businesses, entrepreneurship, nonprofit management, and grant writing. Programs can develop partnerships with their counterparts on campuses that offer appropriate courses and workshops and can become partners in potential initiatives.

Having the additional skills in entrepreneurship can open the door for graduates to pursue alternative forms of practice, the lack of which has been identified as a barrier to design activism. Stronger entrepreneurial skills can also help existing practices to become more successful financially by developing new business models and revenue streams. With greater financial resilience, firms will have more ability to pursue projects and initiatives with greater social impacts and environmental contributions. The entrepreneurial skills can also potentially translate into a stronger and more creative way of governing public assets and resources and for the profession to become more capable of supporting the revitalization of local communities that struggle in today’s economy.

3.8 (Re)organize

To take on the scale and complexity of the critical challenges today, we must “scale up” our practice by collaborating with other professions, by pursuing different models of practice, and through different ways of organizing. Landscape architects are far from being alone in addressing the critical changes facing society and the planet. To say the least, our capacity is modest compared to the number of people and organizations that are already mobilized to fight the systems that produce climate change and social and environmental injustice. Take the American Environmental Movement as an example, it is a movement with a collective membership of millions of people, a sophisticated web of organizations, and providing job opportunities for many professional organizers and staff, engaged in a wide variety of issues ranging from wildlife conservation to toxic waste.

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, we can collaborate with these movement organizations and find critical intersections of our work. Instead of producing new skills and knowledge from scratch, we can learn from these organizations and the work they have done successfully already. Beyond learning from and participating in the work that other movement organizations are doing, pursuing these intersections also means finding allies and building coalitions and capacity for the profession. Rather than training the students on our own, we can collaborate with others in developing practicum and internship programs to build skills and knowledge in organizing and advocacy. By joining coalitions of movements and organizations, we can better identify opportunities for the field to contribute and assert our presence and influence. By working with others, we also make the work of landscape architects more visible to a broader audience.

Working with others is certainly a way to begin. But at some point, we also need to reflect critically on the way our profession and educational programs are organized. Are the profession and the education system organized in a way that addresses the scale and complexity of the challenges at hand? What are the alternatives? Can we emulate the success of other movements and disciplines? Where can we have the largest impact? What is missing from our practice model? These are some of the questions that we need to address as a profession as we move forward.

3.9 Democratize

To take on the power structure in society, we must also reexamine the power structure within our educational institutions. This includes how decisions are made, how resources are allocated, whom we are accountable to, and even how educational institutions are funded. Starting with developing strategies to make our programs more responsive to the critical challenges of our time, we must make sure that students, faculty, and even the professional community are fully engaged in the process of deliberation and implementation. Without their input and support, the strategies would risk being misinformed or lacking the support to sustain.

In partnering with communities outside the university, we must also ensure that all voices are included in the process and that we do not end up sustaining the structure of injustice through our work. More than just design assistance, our involvement must help build capacity in the community we work with. In developing solutions for projects, we must ensure that they address equity, diversity, and inclusion at different scales, from local to global. As a profession and as educational institutions responsible for training future generations of professionals, we must hold ourselves to the same set of values and principles that our work is intended to embody.

4 Leading by Doing

To show students how to be leaders, we need to be leaders ourselves. We, as faculty, program leaders, and professionals need to be engaged with issues that matter to our communities and society. We must take a stance on issues that we can contribute to as professionals and as engaged citizens. We must look at the critical challenges facing the planet and society as teachable moments for our students and the public. By taking on these issues ourselves, we also become more aware of their complexity and the necessity to go beyond the normative approaches enshrined in the profession. We become reflexive and educated about possible responses and solutions (Fig. 6).

As programs and courses take on issues that matter to local communities and society, opportunities can arise for collaboration and partnerships with those including community

organizers, agency staff, elected officials, and professionals. These interactions also provide teachable opportunities for empathy, negotiation, and co-creation. As we become better at these processes ourselves, we will be more able to engage our students in navigating the complexity of change. Furthermore, we will become more capable of identifying future directions for the profession, including education. By getting our hands dirty, so to speak, we set an example for our students and create a supportive environment for engagement.

5 Imagine and Invent What Has Yet to Exist

Asked about what specific skills and knowledge in landscape architecture are relevant to activism, Seattle activist and former Mayoral candidate Cary Moon responded: “being asked to imagine what does not exist.” Imagining and inventing what does not yet exist is indeed one of the most powerful skills we have as a profession as we address issues and challenges in a site, a neighborhood, a watershed, or a network of landscapes. We must bring those skills and mindset to addressing the challenges facing our own education and profession. In the face of the scale and complexity of challenges facing humanity and the planet, we need to explore methods and models that may not exist yet in the current model of education and professional practice.

Looking back more than a century ago, the profession of landscape architecture was able to emerge, grow, and make great strides because we made something that did not exist at the time. Throughout the 20th century, the profession continued to evolve, each time creating something new and innovative. They include new types of parks and open space, new methods for planning and design, and a new understanding of the built environment and ecological processes. To invent something new, we must also revisit and examine the past fallacies and mistakes, including the legacies of displacement and injustice. Inventing something will also require collaboration and working across social, political, and disciplinary borders. It’s important to recognize that those inventions in the past would not have been possible without the contribution of many others both within and outside the profession.

The issues facing the planet and society today present a new set of challenges and opportunities. They signal a call to action for the profession to again invent something that has yet to exist. It’s our responsibility now to rise to the call. I invite you to reference our report in developing your own framework of actions – http://designactivism. be.uw.edu/.

Acknowledgments:

I wish to thank first the Landscape Architecture Foundation for supporting this work through its Fellowship for Innovation and Leadership. The project benefitted from the comments and inputs from the program leaders Lucinda Sanders and Laura Solano, the members of cohort 3, the many invited critics, and the LAF staff. This work also would not be possible without the contribution of the working group members as well as those who were interviewed for this project and those who participated in the series of conference meetings. Finally, the students in my Design Activism seminars at the University of Washington, Seattle, also played an important role in producing the materials and shaping the project.

Notes:

① ASLA Code of Professional Ethics (https://www.asla.org/ uploadedFiles/CMS/About__Join/Leadership/Leadership_ Handbook/Ethics/ASLA_CODE_PRO%202017-02.pdf).

② https://www.lafoundation.org/what-we-do/leadership/laffellowship/laf-fellows.

③ Workshop sessions were organized for the 2019 CELA (Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture) Conference in Sacramento, CA, and the annual conferences of EDRA (Environmental Design Research Association) in Brooklyn, NY (2019) and Tempe, AZ (2020). ④ Ten program leaders were interviewed, including (in alphabetical order by last name) Mark Boyer (Louisiana State University), Meg Calkins (North Carolina State University), Katya Crawford (University of New Mexico), Samuel Dennis (University of Wisconsin, Madison), Ron Henderson (Illinois Institute of Technology), Alison Hirsch (University of Southern California), Denise Hoffman Brandt (City College of New York), Joern Langhorst (University of Colorado, Denver), Stephanie Rolley (Kansas State

University), and Robert Ryan (University of Massachusetts, Amherst). Six activists/practitioners were interviewed, including (in alphabetical order by last name) Leann Andrews (Traction), Billy Fleming (McHarg Center), Brice Maryman (MIG), Cary Moon, and Chelina Odbert (Kounkuey Design Initiative).

⑤ The working group members included Kofi Boone (NC State University), Mallika Bose (Penn State University), Chingwen Cheng (Arizona State University), David de la Peña (University of California, Davis), Joern Langhorst (University of Colorado, Denver), Laura Lawson (Rutgers University), Michael Rios (University of California, Davis), Deni Ruggeri (Norwegian University of Life Sciences), and Julie Stevens (Iowa State University).

⑥ The URL of the Website is https://designactivism.be.uw. edu.

⑦ https://mcharg.upenn.edu/conversations/what-does-itmean-engage-activism-through-design-engage-designthrough-activism .

Sources of Figures:

Fig. 1-3, 5-6©the author; Fig. 4©IUCI/Tractions. (Editor / LIU Yufei)