GoodGeist
A podcast on sustainability, hosted by Damla Özlüer and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network. Looking at sustainability issues, communications, and featuring global guests from a wide variety of sectors such as business, NGOs and government.
GoodGeist
Wild & Us – with Mark Thomann
Discover the transformative journey of Mark Thomann, the director of WHY landscape workshop, WILDING X WHY. From his roots in Buffalo, New York, to his academic background in politics and conflict studies, Mark's path to becoming a leading landscape architect is nothing short of inspiring.
Join us as we explore the intersection of natural beauty and urban environments. We delve into the creative solutions Mark and his team have devised to bring ecological benefits to cityscapes, from micro forests to recognising the beauty in natural decay. Mark offers a unique perspective on the emotional and historical connections within landscape architecture that will leave you rethinking the world around you.
Follow GoodGeist for more episodes on sustainability, communications and how creativity can help make the world a better place.
Good Geist, a podcast series on sustainability hosted by Damla Özler and Steve Connor, brought to you by the DNS Network.
Speaker 2:Hello, hello everyone, you are listening to Good Guys, the message on sustainability which is brought to you by the DNS Network, the global network of agencies dedicated to making the world a better place. This is Damla from Mira Agency, istanbul, and.
Speaker 3:This is Steve from Creative Concern in Manchester. This podcast series explores global sustainability issues, how they're communicated and what creativity can do to make positive change happen.
Speaker 2:So in this episode we're going to talk to Mark Thoman, the director of the Y Landscape Workshop Wilding by Y. Under the leadership of Mark Thoman, the workshop engaged in projects ranging from large-scale urban parks and landscaping for architectural projects to master planning strategies and creative activation of liminal zones. I did it, Steve.
Speaker 3:So, mark, a bit of backstory. First, mark studied politics and conflict studies before receiving his master's in landscape from the University of Pennsylvania and conflict studies before receiving his master's in landscape from the University of Pennsylvania, where he is also taught, and his approach to landscape design is guided by commitment to social and environmental activism. And before joining Y, mark was a partner and design director with Balmori Associates, which is where we first met Mark. Thanks so much for taking time to tour the dam with myself.
Speaker 4:Thank you, I'm really happy to be here brilliant.
Speaker 3:Uh, in fact, I remember the first time I went and went for a really excellent beer as well. Anyway, moving on, um, to start with mark, we'd love to find out about you and your journey to becoming somebody who thinks very deeply, uh, about landscape, as a landscape designer, as an educator. Where did, where did you, how did you get to where you are now? That's the question.
Speaker 4:I think we have to start where I'm from, because I think it. I find, as as time goes by, I find that more and more I'm a product of my, my upbringing. I so I grew up in Buffalo, new York. Product of my upbringing. So I grew up in Buffalo, new York, the Great Lakes, on the western side of New York, and we grew up in a rural community. But it's interesting, buffalo, everything's only 20 minutes away. So even though we grew up in sort of countryside which eventually got eaten by some suburban developments, you could be in the city in 20 minutes. And the other part of that was my family was in asphalt, we were site construction and asphalt paving and what I've found over time is those, this idea of you know over time is those, this idea of you know mobility and um, asphalt and and weather, kind of really you know the, the, the contradictions and and asphalt and green and and you know city and country are all, are all there and I think that's really what shapes how. I think, because it's those, in those contradictions, that I like to kind of work.
Speaker 4:After that I went to university. I was studying politics. I had a really amazing minor in peace and conflict studies and we had this amazing course that was war and peace and speculative fiction. And you know we would, we. We had this amazing course that was a war in peace and speculative fiction and we were reading Kurt Vonnegut and Ursula Le Guin and Ender's game and that really started to show. And the core of the political science studies then was post-Soviet nuclear deterrence theory. You know, and I think there was just a lot of it. There was a very strong peace activism angle to the, to the educated, to the curriculum, to certainly in the peace and conflict minor, et cetera. And I was hell bent on going to law school and you know I wanted to do you know, environmental law, or you know that was my goal and one.
Speaker 4:You know, when it came time to take the LSATs, I just didn't go and I I didn't know why, and you know I was talking about it, you know, with family, and family kept saying, you know, maybe, maybe there's. You know you really enjoy the creative aspects of things and you know I would always tinker, even though we were in asphalt, I would tinker ahead all the equipment. You know we could, we could build stuff, and you know waterfalls and gardens, and so that's when, you know, by fate, I was walking in the department of the Poli Sci department and there was a poster for my final year of university for landscape architecture, space and the politics of place at the Harvard GSD and I was like, oh my God, this sounds really fascinating. I went to the conference. It really opened up everything for me. It made sense for what I wanted to. The conference it was. It really opened up everything for me. It made sense for what I wanted to do. So that was it. I went to, you know, right to graduate school for for landscape architecture.
Speaker 2:It seems like you were a maker all along, from your upbringing and then your field choosing. What I hear is you dream of something and you find the tools to make it happen.
Speaker 4:So I think dream is the right word. I mean, there is a, there is an aspect of dreaming in it and I think there should. You know, when you're thinking about activism, there's an aspect of dreaming, dreaming of better place, dreaming of a better world. And I think in the practice, you know, I'm actually much more interested in that aspect of it, the conceptual, the dreamy part of it. You know the technical part is important and you know, but but you can't, you can't do great things without a big idea.
Speaker 2:You know, but you can't do great things without a big idea. That's right. And, speaking of which, it is great to see a design practice that puts landscape and nature so central to its thinking, and this is the big idea actually. So, for our listeners who don't know why, could you give us an explainer on why, and some recent projects, how your wilding landscape practice fits into all this? How does it go?
Speaker 4:Yes, thank you. I met Y, you know, and so Y was founded by Kulapat Yantrasast, an architect, and had studied under Ando Tadao. And you know I mean there's so many stories about that too how I was living in Japan and you know our landscape firm was working with Ando's office and Kulapat was a good Ando. But we didn't know, anyway, when I met Kulapat, they would have these salons in the office, these topics, these idea sessions, and you know I went to one and we stayed up talking, you know, for much longer after the event and he kept talking about an ecology of disciplines, how his dream was to have this ecology of disciplines, and I loved, I loved the word, I love the phrase and it made sense and what he was much with the way that I felt in school and in the way that, even in practice, how we would assemble teams, where we found our inspiration for things has to come from the rest of the world, from the rest of the world. I once did a talk at an artist collective in upstate New York called Mildred's Lane and the way they introduced me was really kind of summed it up and they didn't tell me before what they were going to say, but they're like this is Mark Thoman. He's not a horticulturalist, he's not a landscape designer, he's not, you know, an ecologist, he's not this, this, and he just went through this whole list and he said he's all of these things. And I think that's kind of sums up landscape architecture in the sense that it is all of these different things that have to come together.
Speaker 4:And I think, getting back to why this ecology of disciplines really recognizes that it brings together the different, the different streams of thought and way to approach things. Why at its core is, you know, they started very much in the museum space and the cultural space and you know that's a different kind of other interest. You know, I always thought the artist's practice was more free, a little bit more engaging, rather than a very strictly pragmatic approach to architecture. So that was interesting. But they take it a little bit further. At its core, why, in the ecology of discipline sort of format, is really about connecting people, nature and culture. And that's it, like every project that we do, whether you know, whether it's a residential project, whether it's, you know, a museum ground up project, whether it's an exhibition, whether it's a, you know, cultural district, they all you know, whether it's public space. Everything is looked at through the lens of connecting people, place and culture and nature.
Speaker 3:When we added landscape, so the nature. Let's get back to nature um mark it's time for us to go wilding. It is that time, um, so I'd love you to give us your thoughts on. I think you've described it as an ecological succession that we humans are going through and and um, and we hear a lot in Europe and the UK about rewilding, and I'd love to think about the interplay of that versus wilding and the role of human intervention in nature recovery. That I think about, I think about you so much when people talk about rewilding, and I think about the design of natural spaces. So tell us more about wilding, what it's all about.
Speaker 4:Sure. So when we were looking at, you know, creating a, you know the identity of the landscape, practice it. This idea for me of wilding, the identity had to be active, it had to be an active term. It couldn't just be wild, it couldn't be rewild, which in some ways there's a reactionary or redo kind of form, but to have the action. So that's where the wilding it comes out. It's a simple proposition and it comes out. It's a simple proposition. I mean it's simply. You know, we need to have more nature in our lives, right? We need to have more ecology, more green in our cities.
Speaker 4:We had in the office where we had a speaker who was speaking on aging actually, and he went around the room and there was probably 30 people in the room and he spent like 20 minutes doing this. He went around each person. You know, where do you see yourself when you get older? And I was last because it was in the office, so we would go last. Every single person before me said when I get older, I want to. I want to, you know, build a house in the woods, I want to go live in the country, I want to travel the world and go see nature. I wanted every single person and I found that striking, because why can't you do that now, like you know? So I said you know I would like to, you know, grow a garden tonight. You know, like it has to. Why can't we do this now?
Speaker 4:And I think that's a very important part of this is the idea of wilding. Comes in now the other part of it to, when you think about rewilding versus this term, wilding, which is sort of a made-up term. The rewilding group is fantastic and it's fine, the whole movement, it's important in what it's doing. But the thing that I don't want to be confused with is, you know, there's a lot of tension in that debate of rewilding because some people think you should just, you know, leave it as is it, just let nature take, evolve as it would. It's the survival of the fittest. You know, the animals kill the animals and this, and that I don't.
Speaker 4:I shy a little bit away from that because I do think there's a human. We're part of that, we're part of that mix and once we add ourselves in, like you, have to have the human hand if we're going to be involved with it, otherwise it's kind of creating that other again. You know it's us versus them, which is the term kind of comes from that right, the 19th century idea of wilderness was that space in our space, right, and and I think all problems in the world currently are that notion of us versus them, you know, creating others. So that's really my thought on wildness in a nutshell is that it is that, um, that all-inclusive humans are part of it and we have to look forward. It has to be an active move towards bringing, you know, nature into the city and a lot of that work happens.
Speaker 4:Um, it's also an edgy, um, approach because I do think, and even that has two sides to it, right, right, edgy in the sense that, you know, there's a little bit of punk rock, there's a little bit of that. You know, we're going to explore things, you know, a little bit differently. We're going to. Our influences are we start from elemental pieces of the landscape. We, you know, we like dead plants, we like decay, we like the aesthetics of that, but at the same time, edges is where landscape architecture work. We work at the edge of buildings, we work at the edge of cities, we work in between conceptual edges, between river and land. We understand processes, know we don't have borders, we have, you know, all these different things. So you know, I'll kind of keep coming around to this, these dialectics of things you know going, you know wet, dry, asphalt, green, gray green. You know those are exciting conversations for us and it's kind of a way to describe what wilding means.
Speaker 2:So it is so interesting because what you said about your team everyone dreaming of going to the wilderness when they're old, but at the same time, I do have parents and they are also dreaming of going more and more, more into the wild, but they also need to access to the health care facilities so fast, and life in the wilderness is not as romantic as it seems or sounds. So I think there is a space that we have to fill in with the design concept that you're talking about our needs, but also our need for the nature. So could you talk a little bit more about this? How can this more nature and cities be transformative, and what do we actually aspire?
Speaker 4:Yes, I could give an example of how we've approached this, you know, specifically in an urban context, and we were asked to do kind of a think piece at the beginning of an urban design project in Mississauga, outside of Toronto and really really good developer in Toronto, and they asked us to think about what is the idea of livability in the project and then this would lead into some of the conceptual drawings for that. And again, in these first meetings everyone was talking about the Toronto Ravine System and the Toronto Ravine System is this, you know, beautiful natural features that really structure Toronto and bring these green fingers through and they're filled with biodiversity and everyone loves them and that's where you spend your weekends, hiking and picnicking and biking and doing whatever. And they have, you know, amazing ecosystem services for the city of cleaning air and all this. And they kept saying let's bring this into our project. I said, ok, what do you mean by that? Like, bring the ravine. You don't own the two miles between the ravine and here. So at that point for me it becomes a little bit of, you know, I wouldn't maybe not greenwashing, but it's a little bit of, you know, taking the term, applying it to the project but it has no real functioning meaning, right?
Speaker 4:So what we proposed was said okay, well, let's go with this. Let's say let's bring the ravines to the thing. But what we need to do is we need to measure. What does that mean, what are the benefits of the ravines? So we convinced them to let us work with University of Toronto's forestry students and they gave us a couple of graduate students who went in and did scientific measurements of what are the ecosystem services of the ravines that would be applicable to human health and wellness and why does everyone love them. And then start to take those principles and turn them in. So this is the creative act now Take those and turn them into meaningful, real attributes for an urban development. And part of that was it's challenging, because part of the beauty of the ravines is the decay right, because part of the beauty of the ravines is the decay right, it's the constant turning over of a dead tree and then it becomes a nurse log and then it does this and then all the biodiversity. So how do you bring that into, like residential towers and an urban plaza and in between four roads?
Speaker 4:And one was exactly that bringing that, that move, that living ecology into the project, which is an aesthetic shift, for people like to understand that a dead tree can be beautiful, like we recognize that in every project, residential public work, it, it, it has to be beautiful. We, you know, we all love beauty. Um, I'm gonna just move to a tangent here. There was a we did a um, I read a book, the evolution of beauty, uh, by richard prune, um yell, ornithologist, and it was another one of these kind of mind-blowing things and he was talking about it was about Darwin and it was really about how there was one part of Darwin's theory that's just not explained, and even that Darwin acknowledged it, he just didn't talk about it. He's known for survival of the fittest, but really beauty isn't explained in there and it is a human desire, it is something that makes people happy, there's a wellness component to it. So, anyway, when you start thinking about shifting aesthetics in a project, how you know, how do you do that?
Speaker 4:And then the other thing was you know, we locked on to a feature of you know, a typical, you know component of urban development, the street tree, and we really looked like one street tree. Okay, good, you know, maybe it needs to be have better tree pit, maybe it needs to live longer. And actually, but is that really a forest? Is that really bringing in, you know, nature to the city? And we started with no. And how could you do that?
Speaker 4:So we, you know, through research and other you know, exploring with the forestry students, came on to these micro forests and these idea of micro forests in japan and you know the first response is well, you can't do that. You can't plant like 20 little saplings in a street pit. And then the question, you know, why not? Why can't you? And then you go through all the benefits and you get through the practical things, and then it's like, oh, actually we could have meaningful ecology in the city, it could be beautiful and it would, you know, be very, very different. And so it's. It's that kind of um, that thinking, and that kind of exploration and that kind of curiosity that I think is our strategy and that's how we'll start to be able to get green spaces into the city that aren't just, you know, greenways, which are great, and aren't just street trees, which are great, and aren't just green roofs, but, you know, looking at the next evolution of that kind of thinking so.
Speaker 3:Are there so much down the way? I'm just giving you a heads up. We're going to run out of time really badly, because I want to talk about decay a lot more. I want to bring in baudelaire, who I think he I'm sure there was something where he said he only felt truly alive when he saw dead flowers, which I don't quite understand, but I think is very deep. But also I love the fact that if you do talk to a forester in particular, they will tell you that a dead tree is like a goldmine for biodiversity. It's the most beautiful thing. That's not my point.
Speaker 3:I wanted to just very briefly pan back out from those micro forests and cities and just talk about the bigger landscape picture for a moment, Mark, because I know you've thought about this and you know our cities are part of regions and they sit in landscapes and bioregions around them that supply so much from food, water, flood resistance. And how much do you think in design terms? When you're looking at something and you just pan back out, Do you think about the wider landscape? How does that play into designing nature within a city?
Speaker 4:Yes, I think all architecture professions think about scale, and I think scale for us is just a little different. We're not at the level of the doorknob and the bedroom and again, this is where it's systems, it's processes, it's weather, it's oil, gas. All those things come in right Because they're things that don't have borders, that affect everyone, and I think that's part of it is. These things are bigger than us. They're bigger, they're hard to comprehend, like Tim Morton, the philosopher, calls them those hyper-object moments, those beyond our comprehension, but that they completely you know, we're part of it, and so I think our strategy for that is that you know, on some levels, it is exploring and studying the connections between things. Think where our strategy for that is that you know on, on some levels it's, it is exploring and studying the connections between things. I think, because some things are beyond our control, like even the ravine story is beyond the control of the developer, bringing in the I, the principles of it and understanding the fundamentals of things. You know, know, and in a lot of project in Edinburgh our work was looking at geology and, and you know, in a little small garden in France was looking at climate through the lens of a feather. Right, so it's. It's it's starting with these elemental things that are part of much larger like there's.
Speaker 4:There's a book that I always gave the students and it was the Starting with these elemental things that are part of much larger life. There's a book that I always gave the students and it was a children's book from like the 19th century, called the Wonder of Common Things, and like the one, the first chapter is called the Autobiography of a Lump of Coal and it's written from the person. It's the lump of coal talking to the person, the little, the child holding it and just talking about. You know I was a tree. You know, back when the dinosaur. You know, and it goes through that timescale that it goes from plant to, you know, strata in the earth, to either rock or oil. Or you know a piece of coal that then you know you can burn, you could get as a you know nasty gift. You know it can pollute the earth, it can give light and hope. You know it's.
Speaker 4:The complexity of all of these things is so vast and I think that's, you know, but that's exciting, you know, and that's where we try to in the practice, really look at those things. So I mean that's a bit more of a, you know, esoteric way of explaining, you know, answering your question, but I do think you know some of these things are that's how we approach it, that's how we would approach it. Even a city, a regional master plan, for example, we would. You know you start to look at those things. And I say you know you start to look at those things.
Speaker 4:I say you know you start to see different connections. Then it's not just about, you know, green patches and you know residential zoning and it's not just about water systems, which are all super important. But I think if you can creatively start to look at those and start to add in the other inputs, the other parts of the algorithm, you know. Getting back to weather, that's right, there's almost a predictability because of all the inputs. But when one thing comes in that wasn't expected, it changes everything.
Speaker 2:And I think sometimes that changes everything moment can be really good and could come from, you know, some other little spark that no one, no one had noticed well, steve always, always finds a way to just drop a name of a french philosopher in every, every episode, and that always makes me to talk endlessly about the way we live, about the system and everything. And I really want to go forever with you, mark, about Baudelaire and hyperreality, but I can't because the reality is we are running out of time, so I have to go to the final question, and the final question is our network is ironically called Do Not Smile, because we need to make sustainability a subject that brings happiness into the world. What object, place or person always makes you smile?
Speaker 4:OK, this is going to sound crazy, I'm going to give two, but it's asphalt and snow and it's just, you know, for all the reasons, that both of them would be the answer. I think it reminds me of family, of childhood, it's, you know, it just makes you happy when you're around both. And I think there's again, there's well, you know, one thing I do want to add. You know what I found out after I finished graduate school? I found out that my great grandfather was a landscape architect in France.
Speaker 3:No way.
Speaker 4:And when he came over to the US he was, as landscape architects do, testing new materials and asphalt happened to be a new material at the time and he started using it in pathways, and then that became the family business. So I think you know there's again that those contradictions of you know something like that, which is has so many negatives, and how do you, you know, turn these into positives?
Speaker 3:and then, uh, and then snow is just so glorious and beautiful when it when it happens oh, mark, I mean, one of the reasons why I love getting over to your neck of the woods is because you get proper snow, whereas on our, on our slightly warm, wet island, we're lucky if we get even the tiniest bit. So I'm feeling quite jealous right now well you're.
Speaker 4:We're always welcome both of you. Thank, thank you.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Well listen, Mark, we're going to have to call it quits there. Asphalt and snow also has a beautiful monochromatic, very visual finish to our conversation. I think it's beautiful. Thank you so much, Mark. That was amazing. And you didn't just pan out to landscapes and regions, you actually panned out to geological time, which I was not expecting. So that's pretty awesome. So, Danla, over to you to finish it off.
Speaker 2:So thanks to everyone who has listened to our Good Guys podcast, brought to you by the Do Not Smile network of agencies.
Speaker 3:And make sure you listen to future episodes, where we'll be talking to more amazing people about how we can work together to create a more sustainable future. So, mark Danla, see you soon. Take care. Thank you, you. By the DNS Network.
