Fox Friday: How to Draw Soil (using Grasshopper)

If we can’t draw soil we can’t design with it. In this workshop, we will learn how to visualize soil as a complex mixture of chemical, physical, and biological properties that determine the limits and opportunities for designing sustainable ecological systems. To do this we will use a data driven approach developed in partnership with experts in landscape architecture and regenerative agriculture, and tested through the ongoing work of the Garden of the 21st Century, lead by Teresa Galí and The Office of Living Things.

Takeaway: A working grasshopper script that visualizes soil through multiple soil data parameters.

Instructor: Bonnie-Kate Walker is a landscape designer based in New Orleans and Zürich. She is a research associate at the Chair of Being Alive at ETH Zürich, where she contributes to teaching and research on drawing languages for living systems and regenerative practices for soil health and biodiversity. At the Chair, she has co-led the design and implementation of the Garden of the 21st Century in Senan and New Orleans. She is also a co-founder of the landscape design collective Office of Living Things, whose work centers social justice, relationships, and long-term ways of thinking about land. She received her MLA from the University of Virginia in 2017 and has since practiced landscape architecture in New York City and Zürich. She has written and co-authored articles in OASE Journal, LA+, and a forthcoming collection from GTA Verlag, Researching Otherwise: Pluriversal Methodologies for Landscape and Urban Studies.