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SCENARIO

04: RETHINKING INFRASTRUCTURE

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Spring2013

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EditedbyStephanieCarlisleandNicholasPevzner

04: Rethinking
Infrastructure

TheHumanityofInfrastructure:LandscapeasOperative
Ground

03: Performance
02: Buzz or Noise?
01: Indeterminacy and
Multiplicity

byDaneCarlson
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Introducedhydrology:TheCentralArizonaAqueductisa336milecanalthatdiverts
waterfromtheColoradoRiverinordertoirrigateamillionacresoffarmlandin
centralArizonaandtoprovidemunicipalwaterinPheonixandTucson.Imageby
USBRonFlickr.
The ubiquity of contemporary infrastructure cannot be overstated; it silently conveys,
inhibits, facilitates, mediates, and in so doing forms the foundation of humanitys
existence. As a result, infrastructure as we know it has become both culturally and
physically peripheral, resigned to crumble and rot as it waits to be replaced. In recent
years, landscape historians, urban theorists, and designers have turned their gaze once
again to focus on the vast networks of infrastructure that underlie our cities and
metropolises in order to begin to address the ever increasing pressures placed on
contemporary cities and the innumerable biophysical systems with which they
interface. The study of infrastructure as an industrial urban phenomenon, however,
neglects millennia of infrastructural practice in the city, its periphery, and far beyond.
It is necessary to recontextualize landscape, the common medium for human
inhabitation, as infrastructure; a practice inexorably tied to the history of human
civilization.
For the purpose of this discussion, infrastructure can be defined as those systems,
works, and networks upon which the function of any system of human inhabitation is
reliant. According to Bhatia, it has become apparent that the natural environment is
perhaps the only issue that affects all of humanity equally, and a renewed emphasis
on the collective natural environment repositions the role of infrastructure as the
foundational spatial format, as it allows for the interconnection between the human
and environmental spheres [1]. Landscape is Bhatias infrastructure. Landscape is
inherently infrastructural: it mediates, produces, facilitates, and transports. As a
network of infrastructural function and flow, landscape (here considered to be a result
of human modification of an environment) becomes the operative platform of human
existence; where landscape exists, so does infrastructure. Landscape is the medium
through which culture, society, and the individual interact with biophysical,

FIND

meteorological, and geological fluctuation or stasis. Landscape is a conduit, an

exaggerator, a proliferator, an inhibitor, an enabler; herein lies its timeless operative
capacity.

Evolvingplatform:IcefloesserveasanephemeralproductiveplatformintheArctic,
continuallymoving,forming,andmelting.ImagebyohcontraireonFlickr.
In his piece Redefining Infrastructure, Pierre Belanger proposes the replacement of
this state of infrastructure with an infrastructural system aligned with ecology and
other biophysical systems, recognizing that the economy is now inseparable from the
environment [2]. While this piece sets the stage for this new proposal, it does so
without referencing several key components of infrastructure and its history. Belanger,
in his recent work, operates with a much more narrowly defined definition of
infrastructure, limiting it to the set of systems, works, and networks upon which an
industrial economy is reliantin other words, the underpinnings of modern societies
and economies, and as the basic system of essential services that support a city,
region, or nation [3]. Systems of transport, water, commerce, and production are
these underpinnings, the system of essential services.
Belanger argues that, in the era of the megalopolis and industrial state, infrastructure
has gained a new degree of visibility and complexity which separates it from the entire
pre-industrial history of human life and culture. This perception, perhaps largely due
to disastrous infrastructural failures as discussed in the piece, is flawed [4].
Infrastructure is an inherently human and cultural phenomenon not limited to
industrial and contemporary civilization, but something which has been continuously
produced and managed for millennia to sustain human civilizations of many scales and
levels of technological capacity.
In Redefining Infrastructure, infrastructure is investigated through case study as a
series of systems hard rather than soft in nature (concrete/steel/asphalt/aggregate)
and largely divorced from biophysical function. Belangers redefinition of
infrastructure proposes to reevaluate this separation. However, it is possible that
Belangers definition and treatment of infrastructure itself contributes to the
separation between hard and soft infrastructures ignoring the historic spaces of
overlap, the productive grey zones in which landscape has historically functioned as
dynamic, adaptive and managed infrastructural systems. Landscape is defined by
human intervention, created through the interactions of humans and a given
environment. If we understand landscape to be the result of modification or
utilization, and facilitation of program is the intent of modification, landscape
becomes infrastructural whenever it is created. When landscape is modified and
inhabited, it becomes the medium through which humanity can produce, move, and
live. As landscape fulfills these roles, it becomes infrastructural. By proposing the
integration of ecology and economy, as well as the creation of synergistic design
through interconnectivity and interdependence, Belanger suggests the necessity to
understand landscape, and the processes and systems which inhabit it (such as
ecology) as an operative infrastructural ground [5]. Through this understanding,
Belangers proposal to integrate contemporary infrastructure with biophysical systems
can transcend the reappropriation of current infrastructural typologies to develop an
infrastructural proposal utilizing landscape as operative ground.
Delvingdeep:AqanatsysteminanIraniandeserttunnelsdeepintothemountain
profile,tappingsubterraneanwaterforagriculturalusewherewaterisotherwise
unavailable.NASAimagecreatedbyJesseAllen,usingdatafrom

NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS,andtheU.S./JapanASTERScienceTeam.
Infrastructure, by definition, sustains and defines all human settlement and activity.
For example, a series of canals to a remote farmstead provides an essential service in
the form of irrigation, thus becoming infrastructural, and in turn represents part of a
much larger system of food production and distribution vital to the support of human
settlements. Even a network of fruit trees connected by footpaths is an infrastructural
network; a physical intervention and selective management regime designed to
provide essential services (production of food) to a specific population. In Nicaragua,
harvesting of fruits from the tamarind tree results in the emergence of an ephemeral
landscape infrastructure as the ground underneath each tree is cleared before
harvesting, resulting in network of circular clearings below the dense tree canopy.
Transhumance practices, such as the veranadas of South America, also create a
landscape infrastructural network defined by seasonal and climatic flux through the
movement of livestock to different seasonal pastures.

LivestockranchersinSouthAmerica,shownhereinChilesTierradelFuego,
undertakeseasonaljourneys,orveranadas,tobringlivestocktowinterpastureinthe
highmountains.ImagebyRobertCuttsonFlickr.

TheIndomitableYak:Yaksareabletosurviveinthearid,highaltitudeclimateofthe
TibetanplateauandprovidemanyTibetanswithmyriadsuppliesandproductswhich

areintegratedintodailylife.ImagebySteveHicksonFlickr.
Recent urging for a new ecological infrastructure that integrates biophysical systems
and engineered, infrastructural elements could more accurately be described as a reintegration of ecology, landscape and infrastructure in the city. Oyster-tecture and A
New Urban Ground, projects completed for the MOMA Rising Currents exhibition of
2010 by Scape Landscape Architects and ARO/dlandstudio, are canonical examples
which recognize biophysical function as an integral component of the survival of the
city.
By calling for reintegration rather than integration, the diverse and complex history of
human infrastructural works is recognized. The cradles of civilization in Mesopotamia,
Egypt, Indus Valley, and Yellow River valley provide a strong precedent. For these
civilizations, the river was the infrastructural backbone of life. Each culture was
initially defined by a river which provided transportation, irrigation, and fertility.
Although human interventions during the initial evolution of civilization were
relatively minor compared to contemporary infrastructural systems, the infrastructure
of the ancient world was no less integral to human survival and prosperity. For
example, use of a river by a fishing boat transforms it into an infrastructural entity
through the introduction of a system of production derived from the landscape, and
this system of production was part of a much larger network of food provision. The
Tigris, Euphrates, Indus, Yellow, and Nile rivers were the physical operative platform
for the systems which provided basic services and necessities for each civilization.

Theriver,reimagined:MainesKennebecRiver,oneofthemanyworldwidetobe
utilizedasaninfrastructuralconduitfortransit.ImagebyLeslieJones,1922.
CourtesyofBostonPublicLibraryDigitalCollection.
Road infrastructure, perhaps the most ubiquitous infrastructure of the contemporary
era, has a deeply historical presence in the evolution of the human narratives of
commerce, industry, governance, and communication. Although historical road
infrastructure tended to be limited in function, typically intended for imperial,
commercial, and military purposes, its scale was at times no less grand or complex
than that of the industrial age. Roman roads, the Silk Road and its caravanserai
network, the Persian royal road, and even Saharan trade routes were far-flung trade
and transportation networks designed to facilitate the movement of troops and goods
(usually accompanied by ideas), much like the American highway system. For example,
the Persian royal road was the backbone of the empires communication system,
providing an official conduit for the movement of goods, imperial edicts, and messages
[6]. Rest houses were located at every twelfth mile and stocked with fresh horses to
expedite transport. The planning of the road even responded to biophysical conditions,
having been diverted in various locations to avoid lands which were subject to
frequent flooding [7]. These highly complex systems were integral to the function of
the imperial state, and as such can be considered infrastructural.
The Silk Road, stretching through Asia and Europe for many centuries, is perhaps the
most intriguing precedent of a vast infrastructural network that transcended regional,
cultural, and religious boundaries. The Silk Road was a network on which innumerable
economies were reliant, playing instrumental roles in the movement of goods overland
through vast territories. Although the trade routes of the Silk Road were often little

more than a trail through the mountains or a directional heading, the network enabled
the integration of a vast Eurasian network of production and consumption. In addition
to a network of connection vectors, the route was punctuated by a point matrix of
caravanserai which facilitated the movement of goods by providing secure lodging,
storage, and a site for cultural and commercial exchange [8]. Understanding the Silk
Road as a commercial infrastructure meant to facilitate trade and exchange, as well as
the smaller, peripheral infrastructural networks which allowed it to function, allows
us to again consider a definition of infrastructure as those systems, works, and
networks upon which the function of any system of human inhabitation is reliant.
Although none of the economies served by the Silk Road were industrial, it was
undoubtedly a system upon which these economies, and the economy of Eurasia as a
whole, were heavily reliant. Goods and money were not the only things being
exchanged along this trade route; the Silk Road was also largely responsible for the
evolution of several syncretic cultures in Central Asia, aided by the presence of
numerous monasteries along the great roads which facilitated the spread of Buddhism,
Islam, and Nestorianism [9]. Khotan emerged as one of these syncretic city-states,
becoming a merchant crossroads for the silk and jade trade as China reached beyond
its western borders toward Parthia and Bactria [10]. This cultural evolution
demonstrates the capacity of landscape infrastructure to act as a strategic agent of
culture through facilitation of movement, an argument well articulated in the work of
Simon Swaffield [11]. As with contemporary infrastructural networks, the complexity
and dynamism of these pre-industrial networks was so vast that it was almost
impossible to understand them as single systems, perhaps because such a thing is
almost mythological in its rarity; both ancient and modern infrastructures are
inclusive of many systems and complexities.
While the industrial revolution may have exacerbated the apparent conflict between
economy and ecology, as noted by Belanger, this seemingly intractable tradeoff is not a
historic constant. We can also look to historical infrastructure to provide precedents
of balanced ecological environmental and economic function long before the onset of
the industrial age [12]. For example, the chinampa agricultural system of the Aztec
capital Tenochtitlan was formed by a series of canals which provided continuous
subsurface irrigation to island agricultural plots fertilized by nutrient-rich muck from
the bottom of Lake Texcoco. By utilizing the existing network of biophysical systems
and creating an infrastructural landscape specifically designed for this production
system, the chinampas were able to produce an astounding amount of crop yields (up
to seven crops of corn per year) [13]. Not only was the provision of food an
infrastructural system in itself, but the series of canals joining the chinampas allowed
goods to be directly taken to market via waterway in addition to providing
fertilization and irrigation.
In North America, the agricultural systems of the Eastern woodlands Indians are also a
valuable precedent of infrastructure and ecology functioning closely in tandem.
Through the introduction of a dense and continually evolving matrix of forest burns,
these Indians created a continuous infrastructural surface designed to produce food
and facilitate movement of people and game through vast areas of edge habitat and
managed production zones. This burning regimen recognized temporal flux, seasonal
or otherwise, as a critical component of landscape and infrastructural process (the
production and supply of food), resulting in varying types of cultivation and gathering
through seasons, etc. [14]. The burn matrix actively facilitated the accumulation of soil
organic matter, increased growth rates and opportunities for gatherable plant species,
and increased edge habitat for game species. Successful management ensured that this
system was propagated in conjunction with biophysical function. If infrastructure is to
be defined as the basic system of essential services that support a city, region, or
nation, every element of the eastern woodlands agricultural system can be seen as
infrastructure.
LaPrusia:Growthdefinedbyadjacencyandproductivecapacity.ImagebyDane
Carlson,2012.
Increasing magnitudes of hydrological, meteorological, and geological flux have
revealed many of our vulnerabilities as builders and inhabitors of landscape. Within
this context, the precept of planning for failure through adoption of systems reliant
on a culture of contingency and preparedness identified by Belanger is increasingly
becoming recognized as necessary, potentially providing a framework for a systematic
response to all degrees of flux [15]. Flux is process, whether it be succession of plant
communities or changing of the seasons, and process engages the dynamic conditions
of the landscapeliving material that changes over time [16]. The reference to living
material is not limited to plant matter, but also water, soil, biota, and every other
minute component of landscape. All of these components are integral to the function

of landscape as an infrastructural platform defined by process and change. Flux may be

gradual or cyclical, but it also has the potential to be violent and immediate. Fisher
acknowledges a recent history of disasters caused or exacerbated by ignorance of
potential flux or attempts to prevent, rather than adapt to, fluctuation; perhaps most
notably the post-Katrina flooding of New Orleans in 2005 [17]. These failures stem
from what Fisher defines as fracturecriticaldesign, in which structures and systems
have so little redundancy and so much interconnectedness and misguided efficiency
that they fail completely if any one part does not perform as intended [18].
Landscape is not purely a temporal or biophysical phenomenon; culture is an integral
component in the formation of both landscape and the infrastructural systems which
transverse it, many of which are unique to place and people. Denis Cosgrove says of
J.B. Jackson: more evident perhaps is the influence of his consistent demonstration
that landscapes emerge from specific geographical, social, and cultural circumstances;
that landscape is embedded in the practical uses of the physical world as nature and
territory [19]. These practical uses of the physical world are infrastructural:
transport, production, mediation, facilitation. The geographic, social, and cultural
origins of landscape, as stated here by Cosgrove, mark landscape and infrastructure as
human, not pre or post- industrial, and rooted (in origin) in biophysical systems
specific to place and time.

Ritualinfrastructure:Ghats,seenhereontheGangesatVaranasi,performmany
ritualfunctionsforHinduadherents.ImagebySamuelBourne,1865.
The recent trend of soft infrastructure proposals and ecologically driven landscape

infrastructure proposal is necessary and timely, but tends to be limited in scope and
ambition through the overemphasis of an artificially bounded urban condition.
Understanding infrastructure as an industrial or urban phenomenon limits the
potential of infrastructure to be redefined, essentially only allowing us to reevaluate
existing infrastructural typologies. Expanding our view to include historical
precedents of both pre-and post-industrial infrastructures and landscape may serve to
elucidate potential intersections between infrastructure and biophysical,
meteorological, and geological systems, providing fertile ground for the expansion of
infrastructure that is defined by landscape rather than the reverse.
By understanding landscape as the operative ground for infrastructure, and any
landscape intervention as inherently infrastructural, our ability to radically redefine
infrastructure is expanded and solidified. Recognition of the combined cultural and
biophysical parentage of infrastructure also brings historical case study (beyond the
industrial age) to a point of particular relevance. Integration of infrastructure with
biophysical systems is not a phenomenon limited to a potential future, but has been
achieved on a significant scale for thousands of years; rather than discovering this
anew, we have the opportunity to rediscover biophysical infrastructure as an integral
component of landscape.
DaneCarlsonisalandscapearchitecturaldesignercurrently
pursuinganMLAatHarvardsGraduateSchoolofDesign,and
receivedhisBachelorofLandscapeArchitecturefromthe
CollegeofArchitectureandPlanningatBallStateUniversityin
2011.Currentlyworkingtoinvestigatelandscapeasa
productiveculturalphenomenonthroughdesignandresearch,
hisinterestsvarygeographicallyfromChileanPatagoniato
Nepal.AsaCommunityServiceFellowattheGraduateSchoolofDesign,Danewill
pursuethedevelopmentofproductiveculturallandscapedesigninsubSaharan
AfricaatMASSDesignGroupinBoston.
Resources
[1] Bhatia, Neeraj. Resilient Infrastructures. In GoesSoft:Bracket2. Ed. Lola Sheppard and Neeraj Bhatia.
Barcelona: Actar, 2012. p219.
[2] Belanger, Pierre. Redefining Infrastructure, EcologicalUrbanism, Mohsen Mostafavi and Gareth Doherty eds.
Baden: Lars Muller Publishers, 2010. p345.
[3] Ibid. p333.
[4] Ibid. p332.
[5] Ibid. p345.
[6] Schreiber, Hermann. trans. Stewart Thomson. TheHistoryofRoads:fromAmberRoutetoMotorway.
(London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1961), 13.
[7] Ibid. p13.
[8] Ibid. p46.
[9] Ibid. p13.
[10] Ibid. p33.
[11] Swaffield, Simon, Introduction: Theory in Landscape Architecture, TheoryinLandscapeArchitecture:A
Reader, ed. Simon Swaffield. Philadelphia: Univ. of Philadelphia Press, 2002
[12] Belanger, RedefiningInfrastructure, 345.
[13] Aguilar-Moreno, Manuel. HandbooktoLifeintheAztecWorld. New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2006. p318.
[14] Cronon, William. ChangesintheLand. New York: Hill and Wang; a Division of Farrar, Straus, and Giroux,
2003. p37.
[15] Belanger, RedefiningInfrastructure, 345.
[16] Berrizbeitia, Anita. Re-Placing Process, LargeParks, ed. Julia Czerniak and George Hargreaves. New York:
Princeton Architectural Press, 2007. p177.
[17] Fisher, Thomas. DesigningtoAvoidDisaster:TheNatureofFracturecriticalDesign. New York: Routledge,
2013, p5.
[18] Ibid. Introduction.
[19] Cosgrove, Denis. Introductory Essay for the Paperback Edition, SocialFormationandSymbolicLandscape,
first published 1984. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1998.
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