Social Aesthetics: Affecting Change in Food Provisioning

Food embodies our most intimate relationship with nature. We ingest it to survive. Without it, perish. Through time humans have physically distanced the places of food cultivation from human inhabitation. In recent decades green planning initiatives embraced urban agriculture as a critical element of sustainable communities. However, current approaches to bring food cultivation into cities require labor, capital, and physical resources that are often unavailable in sufficient quantity, quality, or duration for provisioning sites to be considered sustainable. Within each pillar of sustainability - economy, ecology, and equity - barriers exist. Rooted in indigenous land stewardship and food provisioning practices, permaculture (permanent agriculture) offers strategies and tactics to overcome those barriers. Despite mounting evidence that permaculture will result in more sustainable food systems, adoption is limited. Social aesthetics is the term employed by cultural theorists to describe how institutions, social groups, and collective projects codify their values and beliefs. The diffusion of innovation theory suggests that ideas and information from a highly specialized world require translation into a language the rest of society understands to reach widespread adoption. This thesis translates permaculture to contribute to a sustainable social aesthetic for food provisioning and change American food culture. The translation occurs on iconic public land - 'America's front yard'. In 1901 the National Mall was envisaged to serve as a stage on which democratic values are expressed and became the prototype for America's City Beautiful movement. Today, its carpet of lawn framed by American Elm trees epitomizes the economic, ecological, and equity challenges of monoculture landscapes. This project aims to express democratic values through polyculture. It invites every citizen to participate in acts of justice rather than submit to illusions of order and control. From site selection through design, spatial and temporal scale is critical. This thesis explores food's past to understand our present and imagine our future. The design creates an immersive food experience that equips visitors with the knowledge and resources to apply permaculture at the homestead, neighborhood, city, and regional scales. The remade front yard becomes the symbol of a country where places of food cultivation and human inhabitation are one and the same.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Landscape Architecture

Level thesis:degree_level

masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Landscape Architecture

Department dc:contributor.department

Landscape Architecture

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Ramirez-Blust, Lynda Sue

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Bohannon, C. L.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Heavers, Nathan
• Kelsch, Paul J.

• social aesthetics
• permaculture
• agroforestry
• National Mall
• food culture
• regenerative agriculture
• cultivation

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:30321

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/104164