WATER LOG: Observations on a Former Flood Plain in Northern Syria

摘要

Landscape architect Denise Hoffman Brandt examines the legacy of a dam built in a pastoralist region of Syria, and in doing so takes on the question of whether this and other such extreme interventions in the landscape are necessarily bad in themselves. She describes the potential enrichments of ecology and economy. She reveals the complex shifts wrought indirectly on daily habits, on understandings of nature and space, on structures of property and traditions of community. Her essay and project demonstrate the layered, interrelated workings of culture and nature that exceed the reductive scope of terms and tools we currently use for assessing environmental impact.