Instruments of Change is focused on the technological and scientific frontiers of sensing, simulating, and experimentation in the landscape.

The series is hosted by the Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab) at emlabupenn.com through the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology in the Stuart Weitzman School of Design. For more details, please visit the EMLab's event page: https://emlabupenn.com/Events

A great deal of knowledge about our environments and landscapes is learned via instruments that detect what is otherwise imperceptible to human senses. Remote sensing, sensors, and image interpretation give rise to particular ways of seeing landscapes, thereby conditioning our design responses; yet the practices by which environmental data are collected and codified remain largely unexplored as part of the creative process in landscape architectural practice.

As frequent users of environmental and spatial data, knowing how, when, and why these data are collected enables landscape architects to improve their literacy about the practices that underpin how landscapes are conventionally represented. This knowledge provides insight into how such conventions can be augmented to develop approaches that better characterize local landscape conditions and dynamics. Sessions will explore ground-based sensors and aerial-and-satellite-gathered imagery, the use of models to simulate material behavior, and place-based experiments that directly manipulate landscape material.