What is Land-Based?

In our third installment of Questions & Answers, we look into the meaning of land-based.

Question: I am wondering what it means to be place-based. How does resilience grow out of it?

[CT] Place-based and land-based, from a designer’s point of view, are interchangeable.

These terms simply define the constituents which must be considered in the design and planning process. For me they also describe the foundations of my ethical compass and how I see myself relating to the world around me ...

[AH] And I would say, place-based and land-based are almost interchangeable.

A land-base includes all the individuals and their interactions that reside in a place (People); all the understandings, ideas, beliefs, and values that form the culture of a community (Knowledge); and all of the physical things - from the strata under our feet to the thin skies above us - that defines the character and composition of a space (Place).

PEOPLE : KNOWLEDGE : PLACE

In this second installment of Questions & Answers, we delve into plan-making.

Question: Why is it important to make plans even without knowing the exact reasons and/or outcomes? What is the value/necessity in this curiosity or exploration?

The act of preparation makes us stronger. Awareness of the complexities and challenges of life empowers us. It allows us to gain a full picture, but this can only happen if we stop ignoring the hard parts of human development, the things we usually just write off as externalities.

Right now, we need the whole picture. We’ve ignored too much for too long and it has come back to us directly (like climate change) and indirectly (like cultural shifts due to technological changes).

When we acknowledge the uncertainty of our collective future under rapid environmental change, we are forced to be flexible—to supplicate ourselves to powers greater than ourselves, things which I believe will always exist and form the encounters that lead to feelings of meaning or value in human experience.

Change is never easy. With it comes pain and conflict, but it also gives form to opportunity.

Alex and Chris answer the question, "What does the 'rapidly changing world' look like or mean to you?"

[CT] It might seem like there is no point in acting, like the game is set. I don’t see that. What I see is an opportunity for a very young and complex species to come full circle and begin to re-form the sort of relationships that will bolster resilience, that will lead to life persisting at complex levels.

[AH] It’s important to remember that we need this awareness for our own sake, not for the sake of the planet or life itself — those things can take care of themselves. What we face now is an internal crisis, an acknowledgement of systems much bigger than ourselves.

The term Anthropocene suggests that we are powerful, but if we combine this notion with the uncertainty of the implications of our actions across both time and scale, it should remind us how big the world is and how small we truly are.