BIRDS EYE VIEW OF SOLACE PHASE
THREE STAGES: POST CATASTROPHE. FORM. SOLACE.
Lytton: Pre (top) and Post (bottom) fire
This project accepts that climate change will continue to fuel the presence, severity, and continuation of global climate catastrophes. By doing so, it also acknowledges that western forms of fire management innately hold damaging forms of colonial ideologies. Subsequent ideologies do not fully admit the dynamic forms of landscape identity that occur temporally and spatially within a given community and individual. Landscape architecture as a profession must begin to accept and embrace catastrophic climate events as away of life for many people that will persist over multiple generations. Without adequate design foresight, many communities are at risk of a psychoterratic illness known as solastalgia. This term is defined by when the “landscape is stripped of its capacity to provide solace”.
In June 2021, the community of Lytton, British Columbia experienced a devastating wildfire which destroyed 90% of the town.Lytton became a case study to develop a deeper understanding of how landscape architecture can integrate design interventions in post climate catastrophes to provide solace and a subsequent sustained rebirth of landscape identity.
The three main design interventions are founded in the idea that true solace comes from a layering affect, consisting of endemic planting repurposing material and areas of topographic interest.
BIRDS EYE VIEW OF SOLACE PHASE
THREE STAGES: POST CATASTROPHE. FORM. SOLACE.
Lytton: Pre (top) and Post (bottom) fire
