The exploration of five essential landscape construction materials—fertilizer, stone, steel, trees, and wood—reveals their journeys from iconic public landscapes in New York City to their origins. By examining these materials, the book highlights the interconnectedness of urban spaces and natural resources, offering insights into environmental impact and material culture. Through case studies, it illustrates how everyday elements shape our understanding of landscapes and their construction.
Landscript 5 examines Material Culture in landscape architecture theory and design. Designed landscapes are temporal assemblages of extant and introduced materials, constructed and maintained through the efforts of human labor, mediated through non-human forces, and shaped by constantly changing cultural relations. Sites are bounded by property lines, yet their material relationships—from the transport of construction commodities to global water cycles—extend to untold limits. Designed landscapes are models of human-nature relations, at the same time they are human-nature relations, simultaneously representing and actualizing the co-production of the world. Landscript 5 looks at the aesthetic implications and design opportunities engaging landscape’s extended Material Culture.