capacity available to produce more food for a growing global population, California also suffers from periodic, severe droughts that can impact food availability and pricing across the entire country and beyond. As it stands today, our food system is at risk of failure. Our current agricultural methods are unsustainable, damaging, and even negligent. On the whole, deforestation and habitat loss are primarily a result of the expansion of agriculture19


and overgrazing, much more than from sprawling human settlement. Again, viruses linked to bats emerged because of the loss of traditional bat habitat due to farming. Nipah virus, for example, which originated in Malaysia, was linked to an escalation of pig farming and fruit production. Fruit bats, displaced by drought-induced forest fires, began feeding on fruit trees grown on farms that also raised pigs. This new proximity enabled the virus to crossover from bats to pigs to humans.


A logical question that arises from the argument for building denser cities and allowing the rest of the planet to revert to a mostly pre-development state is where our food will then come from. The answer is we will have to double down on implementing innovative approaches to sourcing what we eat. Although changes to centuries-old practices require a cultural shift and top-down policies to reduce their risks to society, now is the time for bold action. The era of unhygienic farming, slash-and-burn agriculture and unregulated food sources must end now. New technologies like plant-based proteins, and new methodologies like vertical urban farming, must be rapidly adopted. Now more than ever, as we imagine innovative functional roles of farm landscapes within and around cities, we must seek to rebuild the complex landscape structures to support a robust agro-ecological system. As designers, we must strive to integrate sound science into the creative process and explore the spatial synergy between our natural lands, recreational lands and productive agricultural lands all at the interface of the burgeoning modern city. How can a stormwater basin serve as a source population for beneficial insect predators? How can the landscape of a public park intentionally rebuild pollinator populations adjacent to a community vegetable garden? How can we leverage diverse yet intentional native plant palettes to contribute mutual benefits with local farms? Can we design adjacent uses for maximum integration of beneficial biodiversity back into urban and peri-urban landscapes? Can we imagine an ecosystem that is both city and farm, buzzing with all kinds of life?


As activists for the responsible use of natural resources, landscape architects must speak out against the ravages of corporate farms on the environment. We must advocate for community-based agriculture. We must integrate urban farming and productive landscapes into all of our projects to enhance food security. And we must continue to research, test and aggressively campaign for revolutionary transformations to the way we source our food.


A CRITICAL PATH FORWARD


This is a pivotal moment for landscape architects and allied designers to put our skills to vital use. It is an opportunity to rewrite a design manifesto for the 21st


century and alter the course of the professions as


a service industry into that of an essential one. For those who still don’t know what landscape architecture is, this is a chance to shed its cloak. Just as Frederick Law Olmsted shaped parks that responded to the health crisis of the time, Ian McHarg advocated for environmental action, and Hideo Sasaki opined about the opportunity to diverge from designing gardens for the 1 per cent, we must define a new trajectory for the profession of landscape architecture, and for the design professions writ large. Now is the moment to put the health of the planet before any human desires, and to lead with our conviction that landscapes and ecology must drive the decision-making process—not for personal fame or fortune, but for the sake of our shared humanity, and of our very existence.


References: 1


2


3 4 5 6 7 8 9


https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/04/sensor-taps-door-handles-covid-19-rethink-public-toilets-bathroom- design


https://worldarchitecture.org/article-links/efppz/mass-design-group-redesigns-hospital-spaces-on-the-fly-to-protect- healthcare-workers.html


https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/05/05/opinion/parks-are-essential-especially-during-coronavirus-pandemic/ https://www.who.int/neglected_diseases/diseases/zoonoses/en/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/aids/virus/origins.html https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14738798/


https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/why-bats-are-breeding-grounds-for-deadly-diseases-like-ebola-and-sars https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-14727-9


https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200326144342.htm 10 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.03.894675v1.full 11 https://www.rand.org/pubs/external_publications/EP20041011.html


12 https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-04-26/coronavirus-cities-density-los-angeles-transit


13 https://www.propublica.org/article/in-chicago-urban-density-may-not-be-to-blame-for-the-spread-of-the-coronavirus 14


15 16


http://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/index_0.html https://urbanization.yale.edu


17 https://www.conservationmagazine.org/2008/07/forest-fragmentation-may-increase-lyme-disease-risk/ 18 https://www.history.com/news/cholera-pandemic-new-york-city-london-paris-green-space


19


https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/09/scientists-reveal-how-much-world-s-forests-being-destroyed-industrial- agriculture


13 Kelvin Helen Haboski/Shutterstock.com FUTURARC 21


https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/03/who-says-prolonged-exposure-in-confined-spaces-is-main-coronavirus-transmission. html


12 BaLL LunLa/Shutterstock.com


12 & 13 Hydroponics vegetable farming and other such new methods must be rapidly adopted; deforestation and habitat loss are primarily a result of expansion of agriculture so the era of slash-and-burn agriculture must stop now


Michael Grove is the Chair of Landscape Architecture, Civil Engineering, and Ecology at Sasaki, a global design firm with offices in Boston, Denver and Shanghai. He is a fierce advocate for the vital role landscape architects play in shaping contemporary cities. Informed by a rigorous inquiry of economic, ecological and cultural influences, Michael believes that the role of the designer is to make cities liveable, equitable, resilient and just. He is a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects, serves on the board of directors for the Landscape Architecture Foundation, and teaches at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.


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