SUN-B09: The Story of Site as Organism: Poetic Perspectives of Dynamic Landscapes

Sunday, October 12, 2025

2:00 PM – 3:15 PM CT

1.25 PDH, LA CES/HSW

Speaker(s)

Chris Landau, Affil. ASLA

Principal
LANDAU Design+Technology
Havertown, Pennsylvania
Jennifer A. Dowdell, ASLA (she/her/hers)

Practice Leader: Landscape Ecology, Planning, & Design
Biohabitats Inc.
Baltimore, Maryland
Patricia Algara, FASLA, PLA

Principal
BASE Landscape Architecture
San Francisco, California

What if we saw landscapes as whole, living, evolving organisms? This session centers sites as adaptive systems shaped by ecological patterns, community, and context. Through case studies and methodologies, attendees will explore resilience, site metabolism, and landscape intelligence, gaining tools to design landscapes that are both functional and deeply connected.

Learning Outcomes:

Learn techniques for using storytelling to translate complex site interactions into clear narratives, improving stakeholder engagement and decision-making and broadening an understanding of how sites are interconnected, adaptive systems.
Discover how site boundaries are defined or subverted and how spatial and social membranes influence interactions between a place and its surrounding communities.
Explore communication approaches for describing how sites function simultaneously at multiple scales—ecological, economic, and cultural systems.
Examine how analytical and technological tools such as data visualization and site analysis techniques can be applied to assess a site’s metabolism, homeostasis, broader connectivity, and resilience.