Jon Piasecki on "Designed Attempts to Re-Fuse Virtual Culture to Nature"

Jon Piasecki is a landscape architect who specializes in trying to reconnect people and the land. He is the recipient of the 2004 Prince Charitable Trust Rome Prize awarded by the American Academy in Rome. Within his lifetime, Piasecki has witnessed the landscape alter drastically which motivated him to design built landscapes with materials from local areas to fuse culture and nature. Through his work, Piasecki hopes to stop the segregated thinking between people and the environment and to motivate people to actively work against climate change. One of his projects included building a trail that he modeled after existing deer trails in order for people to feel as though they were walking through the trails like animals. Furthermore, he has installed bridges in wetlands without disturbing the sensitive habitats and also created different art installations with the idea of reconnecting people to their environments.

In his presentation, Piasecki talked about the growing movement of landscape urbanism and the different aspects of using “green intervention” to improve cities. He warned people to be wary of other business interests in landscape urbanism and discussed designing build landscapes to reflect the existing environment instead of just creating it for human interests.

For more information about Jon Piasecki’s work, look at his website here:

http://www.goldenbough.net/

Jon Piasecki