RISD Landscape Architecture

RISD Landscape Architecture Faculty are part of a 4-year National Science Foundation Grant, looking at the Future Damns in New England

This new Tri-State collaboration will strengthen connections between scientists and decision-makers while incorporating the design expertise of faculty at Rhode Island School of Design.

The project will address a range of future approaches to dams, including maintaining existing hydro power dams, expanding hydro power capacity, and removing aging dams to restore fisheries or reduce safety risks. By examining economic, environmental, and social.

[GS Grant] Kelsey Wakefield and Lucila Silva-Santisteban received Graduate Studies grant this past summer 2016 to study ancient indigenous agriculture systems of central and South America in the search of how these ancient technologies could be applied to contemporary issues such as sea level rising, food security and self-sufficient methods for communities. Thinking about how landscape architecture can provide an updated way of solving current human needs with trying to preserve the environment in a symbiosis.
The sites they visited included:
- Xochimilco, México: Chinampa method by the Aztecs
- Macchu Picchu, Peru: Microclimate Terrace system of the Incas
- Moray, Peru: Incan agriculture laboratory where they would test crops. Each terrace has a 1-2 degrees difference.
- Maras, Peru: Pre-Incan salt mine system. Expanded and designed by the Incas.

The research is still in process and will be officially presented this coming January.