Sympoietic City: a Forest of Plant/Human Kinship

Abstract

With the financialization of ecosystem services and putting forests to work, our relationship to the trees continues to be rooted in the design legacies of the botanic gardens, herbaria, and gridded property systems. Operating within these legacies perpetuates a land ethic that fosters inequality within our cities.

The thesis proposes a reorientation of Americans’ relationships with trees. Situated within the complex palimpsest of political, colonial, and activist histories within the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., this process begins with a constitutional amendment that defines the spatial, visual, and political rights of trees. Moving through spaces inhabited by D.C.’s emblematic trees - the Japanese Cherry, American Elm, and Scarlet Oak, these rights are manifested throughout the District.

By eschewing notions of ownership over nature and cultivating spaces that embody plant/ human kinship, Sympoietic City renegotiates Washington D.C. as a landscape held in tandem by humans and trees.