Manufacturing Landscapes began during our residency at MacDowell, for our 6 week stay in the lovely Red Barn. This grew from our ongoing research endeavors that stemmed from our collaborations with Gale Fulton on many landscape projects.

First, after the devastating 2011 tsunami that hit the coast of Japan as well as many other coastal cities vulnerable to climate change, it has become imperativeo that infrastructural systems along coasts be considered more closely. Second, the discipline is reshaping the discourse to larger environmental and ecological systems and architecture is asking - how can we participate in larger scale systems to create more resiliency between systems? We need to move beyond the local ‘sustainable’ questions. Lastly, the question focuses back on materiality. If we, as architects, want to participate more closely, we need to do what we do best - design spaces. How do architectural topics, such as form, space, and material begin to influence these larger systems? By focusing on these topics, will we inherently take liminal space, infrastructural systems and create new and compelling synthetic realms that begin to truly merge landscapes and architecture?