Fruitvale Fire Garden

Emotionally Sensitive Landscape Design as a Didactic Tool in Native Sustainability Techniques

ContextUniversity of California, Berkeley

RoleIndependent project

AdvisorProf. Hyunch Sung

ToolsRhino · Illustrator · Photoshop · InDesign

Landscape · Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, Fruitvale, Oakland

Site plan · 1) native plant garden 2) office, utility, maintenance [existing] 3) mien garden 4) peralta hacienda historical centre 5) hearth — 5a. ceramics studio, 5b. basket-weaving studio, 5c. dance pavilion, 5d. community cooking space, 5e. shaded exterior dining hall 6) playground 7) fire demonstration meadow 8) fire buffer 9) creek 10) shade zone

Diagrams

Programme · preserving, sharing, demonstrating, escaping fire

Circulation · paths, entrances, gathering spaces

Water & watersheds · rain gardens, creek, storm water drains

Hover to enlarge

"Every autumn, for thousands of years, people living along the California coast would set fire to the landscape."

— Educational Plaque at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park

Fire is central to human existence; we light fires to cook, to gather, to see, and to create. Today, we often view fire as an existential threat to our built and unbuilt landscapes — however, fire shouldn't be considered in such black-and-white terms. By lighting controlled fires to raze grasslands every autumn for millenia, the Indigenous people living along the Californian coast relied on fire to renew the ecological health of their lands. In this region, fire is a necessary part of a healthy ecosystem's diet. Traditional Ohlone basket-weaving traditions depend on periodic small-scale wildfires to get rid of old, dry bush and to allow certain fire-loving plant species to germinate. These grasses, which sprout from the ashes of fire-torn meadows, are supple and pliable, ideal for weaving. Like a woven fabric, the spaces we inhabit site the convergence of individual and collective stories; in them, we can read both component parts and reuslting wholes.

Vignettes

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Dance Pavilion · Native Plant Garden · Ceramics & Weaving Studios

Site Section AA · Meadow · Native Plant Garden · Hearth · Dining Hall · Dance Pavilion · Fire Meadow · Fire Buffer · Wetland · Creek · Redwood Grove