The Climate Resilient Landscaping Project aims to demonstrate the integration of resilience science into landscape management and design for a university campus. We define climate resilient landscape as a design, installation and maintenance process that sustains biodiversity, enhances ecological functions, and honors the indigenous cultures of our bio-region, all while meeting campus aesthetic needs, Grounds department capacity, and despite the multiple stressors anticipated for our climate constrained future.

Image courtesy of Permaculture Action NetworkThis project proposes researching food forests and permaculture and looking into ways to implement them into communal food security for campus and/or surrounding communities.

This project proposal seeks to take a radical approach to landscaping by establishing guiding principles that challenge human-centric relationships with the “landscape”. The selected preliminary sites for this project were regions that have been proven difficult to maintain as lawns, making them ideal for this conversion. These areas are difficult to access with equipment, have smaller/more irregular shaped lawns, and where leisure would not be preferred (damp and shady).