Spectrum of Intimacy
what does it mean to grow and live
with the land?
I imagine it’s somewhere between
dodging and chasing through the swaying strands of bluegrass
like childhood friends in a game of hide-and-seek
sowing beds of compacted soil amidst the bustle of NYC
like sorting through embedded memories in scrap
books on a late summer evening
seeing the morning sun peep through the horizon, as it warms the earth and the budding oak tree in front of your house
like gazing upon the golden rays washing over a loved one
sound asleep, undisturbed, at peace with the earth
Memorial Drive, MA
Interstate 57, IL
Rocca di Cave, Lazio Italy
close by
“What on earth are you doing?”
I looked up, stunned at my roommate’s harsh words. The running tap water filled the silence, as I still held my flower pot over the kitchen sink.
“What on earth are you doing?” She repeated. “Why are you washing the flower pot over somewhere we would eat and drink?”
I didn’t know how to respond.
Because soil is “organic”? That it’s “natural”? That it isn’t so farfetched nor far away from our urban lifestyles?
You could blame it on my naivety or stubborn ideals, but I only relented and apologized a week after the soil crumbs were rinsed out of my succulent pot. But the question lingered long past that moment—has our relationship with our landscapes become so fractured that we shudder at the thought of ingesting raw, unprocessed earth?
Unsurprisingly, the earth manifests differently across contexts and is omnipresent even in our very urbanized lives; found in its raw, rugged form under the grass between our sidewalks, or speckled into the refined, gentle glaze that is iconic to Korean pottery found at the Museum of Fine Arts. Its celadon color originating from oxidized iron, writes the exhibit label, due to the presence of iron in clay, and the historic practice for introducing manganese, iron, and other particles. And now the earth sits, undisturbed, placed literally on a pedestal, as a stronghold and proof of intangible heritage and culture.
What is it that translates the immaterial to the tangible? Are these simply shaped by our daily interactions with the built environment? And how much of it is ingrained in tradition and customs?
My mind wanders. The question and the memory replay in my head as I throw this lazy lump of earth onto the pottery wheel. Carefully scooping water to soften its form, the otherwise dull blob comes alive under the steady guide of my palm, slowly giving way to organic forms of utility. The molding, sculpting, and firing of clay that bridges this relationship is much more curated and intentional. Harkening back to Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space, in how the production of space could be characterized under perceived space, conceived space, or lived space, there exists a version where the composing materials of a place could also be created or lived or perceived differently. The way that you live with and interact with soil could be much different than how I would, and each component of our mundane lives could be considered a social product—a vessel— of present-day context, but more so a way of preserving information across temporal scales.
I take a deep breath and sigh, leaning into the pottery wheel and easing into the familiar choreography of pottery throwing. The room smells distinctly of the dried soils and hints of copper, reminiscent of site visits as a landscape architect as we danced between tree planting and scrutinizing the exposed earth on a city block-wide construction site.
at arm’s length
“Everything outside of the built architecture” is how I usually define the scope of landscape architecture.
The younger sibling to architecture, the cup “half empty” counterpart to built development. For ease of navigating the conversational minefield, I also fall victim to the dichotomy of built versus unbuilt—to defining landscapes and vacant land as the “other.” But my perception of landscapes likely differs from how you might consider landscapes. Does it also evoke the same image of expansive, open fields? Ones that hold so much potential and many more possibilities?
I suppose the connection with the earth is also shaped by our independent and cultural perceptions of the land, and has evolved to match contemporary demands and expectations. This newfound value of the earth has since been equated to its utilitarian value and physical yield, playing a supporting role in the anthropic race for development. Is the soil structurally sound enough to support a fifty-story skyscraper? Will the soil yield enough produce to support the local township for the next month? Is the soil sturdy enough to walk on? Then sure, the earth is valuable and worthy of our recognition.
This obsession with commodifying space and prioritizing profit has resulted in a fragmented landscape, as we continue to dissect the continuum of spaces we inhabit. We struggle to capture the intangible practices with the land, and of the value and stories that are intrinsically tied to a place. It’s difficult to argue in spreadsheets why the neighborhood pocket park that provides respite should be penciled out with the same metrics, if not higher, than a multi-story development entangled deep in Philadelphia’s suburban quiltwork.
The generalization of our values and the “other” has effectively detached us from the production of our environments. Otherwise, these parcels are just sorted aside into the cooler color spectrum of reductivist land-use maps. Industrial. Open Space. Landscape.
Other.
hours to days; tangible only through scrunched-up paper maps and an array of luminescent pixels
Rolling hills. Splattering network of 2pt black pixels.
I squint at the digital map on my phone, the screen brightness dim in contrast to the harsh mid-summer Italian sun.
Seamless landscapes. Ambiguous polygons.
It’s difficult to distinguish how the disjointed landscape of Monti Prenestini is spliced—the result of Italy’s complicated history of fiefdom and social hierarchies. What remains is a sense of agnosticism for vacant parcels that were once the defining characteristic of Italy’s agricultural economy.
This urban-rural polarization is not unfamiliar to various contexts, both in Italy and other regions around the world. As the Italian government scrambles to reinvigorate the declining agricultural landscape and cling to a past where their economy flourished from extensive agricultural produce, we ponder on the cultural identity of communities that once were recognized for what the earth produced. What happens then, if the land fails after we’ve exploited much of its resources and nutrients—are our identities still tied to this dying land? Scattered communities located an arm’s length apart, and growing further away as these scattered parcels struggle to stay connected in a dwindling rural landscape.
This increasingly polarizing landscape is often associated with this spatial dichotomy of the rural or the urban. Either or, and never really in between. Natural or developed. Liberal or conservative. Here or there.
Then there exists the “other” that continues morphing into whatever fits the gaping holes in our community development, as though the earth were made to be adaptive to our every whim, exploited, distant by design.
Despite multiple commentaries that challenge the concept of the “other,” it requires a perspective change and restructuring of form-based codes deeply entrenched in industrial practices. Even in academic publications, this definition varies greatly—while Alan Berger1 calls for a reconsidering the perception of wastelands and their integral role and the value they bring to healthy cities, Surajit Kar2 emphasizes the potential working within these boundaries, focusing on policies to revitalize “wastelands” rather than radically shifting our mindset to glorify the benefits of landfills. I’m increasingly convinced of radical inspiration. Realistically though, “othered” wasteland also often corresponds with the periphery of cities, and in many developing contexts and economies is exploited due to weaker land claims and more malleable jurisdictions.
“Other” could also reference agricultural land that has tangible yields. Here you’ll hear the distinct whir of a mechanical till, the grain mills groaning in the late September afternoon of the midwestern landscape. Here, you’ll begin to understand the invisible creep of commercial agriculture, gradually enveloping land owned by small-scale farmers.
This is also where polarizing identities manifest, where the media and our thirst for seeking validation on a predetermined perspective have divided regional networks. In moments sitting in the middle of Cambridge, the rural landscapes and fields of corn feel so far away, and yet, I recall, I wasn’t too far from it, both spatially and temporally. Just last week, I was on a commuter bus, grumbling along the cracked asphalt on I-57, as I looked out into the soft wispy tips of the barnyard grass swaying in the morning breeze. Small motifs and reminders sprinkled around the city bring a pang of nostalgia for wanting to be physically closer to the romanticized countryside.
But I can’t say I would leap at the opportunity for a labor-intensive position in the same cornfields.
My heart swells with joy and warmth at the sight of friends leaning in over a vibrant bowl of fall harvest salad, delicately garnishing the last-minute pani-puri, and organizing the ensemble of dishes over the Thanksgiving table in a choreographed manner. It only serves as a reminder to be grateful for how the land is capable of growing such vibrant produce, and the act of us sharing our heritage and cultures is equal to how the earth shares the treasure trove of knowledge that manifests through bountiful harvests. The beauty of the land relies on us as inhabitants to engage in more intimate activities and embrace that the land is not a dichotomic patchwork of identities, but rather a palimpsest of stories that we often take for granted.
Notes
1. Alan Berger, Drosscape: Wasting Land in Urban America (New York, NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006).
2. Kar, Surajit, Trude Sundberg, Lakshminarayan Satpati, and Subham Mukherjee, "Reappraising Natures and Perspectives of Wasteland in the Developing World with a Focus on India" Environments 11, no. 6: 111 (2024).