Meadow patches positioned along the tractors filed lanes to not become obstacles on the cultivated field
Meadowscape
Master’s Degree Project
2023
The physical landscape is a patchwork of different physical and immaterial structures and networks built up through time, where nature and culture cooperate in shaping the landscape. Grass meadows are the most biodiverse land type in Sweden. The current loss of meadows states a threat to endangered species. Through a set of design guides based on landscape principles and the understanding of rules actors follow in the landscape network, a new diverse landscape pattern can emerge, defined as a meadowscape.
Since the first settlers in Sweden the grass meadow has taken a central part in the agricultural practices, but today little of this landscape remains. To maintain an agricultural landscape with high variation in land use, where biological values and cultural environments are maintained, the current landscape pattern and activities must be redesigned. Departing from the territory of Småland as a region defined by its long agricultural practises, the research provides new learnings and insights from the agricultural landscape through historic and modern activities and patterns, to understand how ecological processes and human actions has influenced the landscape and how these actors can be combined.
The proposed design guidelines are a set of recommendations on how to apply design principles to reach a more heterogeneous agricultural landscape that will support ecological systems without hindering modern agricultural hay production. Designers can use this guide to judge how to adopt principles of landscape ecology with cultural tools and artifacts. As architects we have the possibility to understand the rules and logic of historic and modern actors in the landscape. By rethinking tools and structures, landscape elements and ecological succession and their patterns, the actors and the guidelines can be used to create a new type of landscape that cater both ecological processes and agricultural activity.
Studio 12: Man-Made Geographies: From Planetary to Molecular
Studio Teachers: Alejandro Haiek Coll (Studio Coordinator), Johanna Runge, Raffaelle Enrichiello
Timeline of events influencing the agricultural landscape.
Human disturbance is necessary to maintain a biodiverse meadow.
Proposed overlapping of activities on cultivated field and meadow covering a year.
Design guide booklet.
Meadow patches and edges positioned to support movement and shelter for wild animals on cultivated fields.
