Armatures and imaginaries

This week in studio, we’re going to discuss the armatures that shape flows in landscapes, and think about different ways of representing them. These representations affect what we know and how we know it. In that sense, they are “epistemological” — they are a way of knowing what the elements of a landscape are, and how those elements interact.

I define a landscape “armature” as a linear feature that influences the flows of energy, organisms and/or materials — vertically or horizontally — through a landscape space. It might be natural, for example, a bedrock ridge, a shoreline, or a river; or it might be built by people, like a highway, or an oil pipeline, or a border wall. Armatures exist at every possible scale — from the landscape of a beetle to the entire planet. If we can identify them, we can design with them — by introducing new structures that work with flows in beneficial ways.

Here’s an example of how armatures were represented in an old atlas of California and the West Coast, along with latitudes and sea level:

This representation is made more useful and interesting by adding a cross-section that emphasizes the three-dimensional volume of landforms in a landscape. The cross section reveals topographic relationships along a transect from the offshore zone to the Sierra Nevada mountains. It also marks sea level, which used to be thought of as a static line that provided a stable datum for land elevations and ocean bathymetry. Now that sea levels are rising over most of the world, it also reminds us that the San Francisco Bay is rising and changing shape.

It’s hard to imagine a more powerful armature than topography, which directs flows of water, animals, wind, fire, and people. Every other armature is influenced by geologic patterns, both at the surface and deep under the earth. But unlike the flat “layer cake” representations of geology from the McHarg era, thinking of geologic materials and geologic forms as creating a three-dimensional armature allows us to visualize flows — and the interactions of flows and forms across scales.

The overlay method that originated in 19th-century vellum and was formalized by Ian McHarg (and now data layers in GIS) was a rational filing system, but in practice it prevented people from using their visual synthesis skills to comprehend how patterns interact with flows. It atomizes the relationships among patterns of different types, instead of revealing them. Students in design studios used to make these layers and then walk away- unclear how they could really use them for design.

Instead of breaking issues apart into atomized layers, the old atlas illustration of California’s coast brings hydrology and landform together. It reminds us that the Sierra Nevadas accumulate moisture as snow, storing it until the spring melt season. Then that meltwater pours down through the Central Valley to the Bay, making agriculture possible, supporting ecosystems, and sending mud to the Bay. I only wish the cross-section contained information about what’s underneath- the layers of rock and faulting that drive earthquake events in the region.

E. Underwood, Illustration

The sea level line in that bird’s-eye drawing also reminds us that the flat lands along San Francisco Bay and in the California Delta are going to be submerged by rising sea levels some day. And other knowledge is layered on top of that — for example, if we understand that seawater penetrates the ground itself as salty groundwater, representing mean sea level reminds us that groundwater will rise as sea levels rise.

K. Hill, illustration

The combination of California and Alaska in the map tells an additional story. The city of San Francisco grew and became prominent on the West Coast during its original “gold rush” in the 1850’s, but that importance was reinforced during the Alaska-Yukon gold rush of 1896–1899. San Francisco provided supplies for the miners, and in the Alaskan gold rush, merchants in Oakland and San Francisco, as well as Monterey, built canneries to send preserved food to the miners — among many other kinds of supplies.

Brands like Levi’s emerged to provide work clothing. Wells- Fargo Bank was founded on gold profits. Alaska and California will always be connected by the history of gold mining, and its impact on sediments in the San Francisco Bay, global trade and containerization.

San Francisco Cannery, photo by Jim Layton, SF Chronicle

In short, armatures are the starting point for understanding ecology, economics and culture. Drawing armatures lets us see how crazy it was to try to break everything into thematic layers that - once broken - lose their meaning. It’s the same kind of crazy thinking that separated art from science, and culture from nature. Relationships are crucial, particularly now that the environment itself is changing — and there’s no way to understand them if you can’t see the armatures.