Date of Award

Spring 6-4-2022

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Department

Landscape Architecture

First Advisor

Emily Vogler

Second Advisor

Ann Kearsley

Abstract

For decades, landscape architects have been working with water, proposing vocabularies like sponge parks, rain gardens, emergent shorelines, and hydrologic urbanism. Surviving with water is common sense. However, there is not enough landscape design research and practice when it comes to another destructive natural force - fire. The new normal is that people are being exposed to more frequent and catastrophic wildfires and the burn-on-burn phenomenon is becoming common. With climate change and sprawling land-use patterns that increase the wildland-urban interface, a greater number of communities are having to adapt to living with fire. Landscape architects are in need to play a more significant role in establishing a beneficial and sustainable human-fire relationship.

Based on the study of the historic and modern prescribed burning, fire-mitigation, and post-fire recovery strategies, this thesis focuses on the wildland-urban interface and the Mediterranean ecosystem in the Santa Monica Mountain region. By transforming a ranch into a fire educational park and proposing multifunction installations as markers in fire-touched wildland, the thesis aims to convey new attitudes towards the fire landscape and initiate aesthetic and ecological dialogues on innovative ways of living with fire.

Comments

View exhibition online: Mohan Wang, Living With Fire

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