Let us breathe. An investigation into uncertain landscapes

Let us Breathe, is practice-based landscape design research. With a performative approach to knowledge creation, it explores ways to encounter and engage uncertain and vulnerable urban landscapes in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Uncertainty in the landscape and holding uncertainty in design process is the problem around which the research pivots. The inquiry is sited in a residential estuarine and wetland landscape subject to population growth along with the impacts of flooding and rising sea-levels. Drawing on the creativity of ‘non-solutionist’ thinking, design is used as an investigative lens to consider future spatial and relational possibilities across all forms of life. The research thus asks what happens to the practice of design of the landscape when uncertainty is embraced? To this end the research moves against practices that by default seek to contain water bodies and preserve the primary of terrestrial occupation for human needs. What has been discovered through the design process is a relational shift towards engaging and presenting living landscapes beyond the transactional, such asecosystem services, but of equal value.