What were you doing before you applied to the Conway School?
Trying to learn the landscape design and planning trade on my own.
What brought you to Conway?
Wanting to learn landscape design and planning with a strong ecological focus in a practical, hands on setting (i.e. realizing that I wasn’t getting far on my own).
How did you first learn about Conway?
Through a video conference with Ben Falk whilst visiting Richard Perkins’ Ridgedale farm in Sweden!
What advice do you have for someone just starting out in the field?
Be humble but brave; know that your Conway education is not a technical one and that there’s much to learn, but have faith in the design method and inquisitiveness the school encourages. And don’t be afraid to approach people with more experience and knowledge of a given topic than you–most people like talking about what they do and have learned (clearly).
What are you doing right now, and what do you love about it?
I’ve been working as a field mapper in the northern counties of Norway for a handful of seasons now, basically being “on tour” as we like to describe it for half the year, wandering Norwegian landscapes while drawing polygons and dots on an iPad. It’s a fantastic job for all the time I get to spend outdoors, and I have some remarkable colleagues. We’ve also begun getting more ecological restoration work and are taking care to build up alliances slowly enough to be able to work at scales where it’s mostly about relationships with local stakeholders and as simple and as democratic use of techniques as possible. The restoration work is more intimate design process oriented, whereas the mapping is more distant, more production of data. I find this tension in the production of maps particularly interesting. Mapping is in so many ways a crude practice, enabling you to both see and be blinded, to be awakened and seduced at the same time.
List one or more books that you find influential in the field of ecological design and/or planning.
Tricky one, this one. Most of my reading these days is less profession oriented and more for the sake of challenging my own patterns of thinking. I’ve enjoyed Christopher Alexander’s humongous “The Nature of Order” series for how to think about design as something that can be life-increasing or life-reducing to places, spaces, objects and so on. I’ve also enjoyed Terunobu Fujimori’s work for his interest in traditional materials used in new ways, participatory building, and connection to older cultural lineages like the Jomon. It’s also good to be reminded of the naivety inherent in the design field and with modern stories of “development” and “progress”, so anything by Arturo Escobar, Vanessa Andreotti, Anna Tsing, Tyson Yunkaporta, Federico Campagna, and Ivan Illich is valuable, as well as Ruined by Design by Mike Monteiro and good old timeless Tao te ching.
What book changed your life?
There’s been many, and they tend to show up quite frequently. Metaphors we Live by is one, A Pattern Language another. Right now Kindred: Neanderthal Life, Love, Death and Art is making a good job radically readjusting my established timelines and appreciating the incredible skill and knowhow of some of our closest relatives.
What is your favorite tool? E.g., a type of gardening tool, digital tool, etc.
The knife known as a “Samekniv” here. It’s basically an enlarged bushcraft knife with the weight toward the tip of the blade, inviting you to hack with it. With a handle made from stacked birch bark it keeps a good grip also when it gets really cold, and there’s no move versatile tool in this region to carry outdoors.
How do you think ecological design and planning can help make positive change?
I think this is a question about culture and practice, and not “solutions”, “hacks” or “fixes”. My take is that we create worlds through the ways that we inhabit them, so the challenge for the ecological designer and planner would be how are you going about your work? What patterns are you reinforcing and how do these play out in your wider relations?
Which aspects of your Conway education do you use in your current work? Which aspects do you use to address urgent challenges related to climate change, environmental justice, etc.?
Versatility in thinking and taking on work with an attitude to learn continuously.