Designing the Demise of Aral Sea: Strategies to Sustain Aesthetics and Performance in Anthropogenic Landscapes

Abstract

Facing the irreversible decline of anthropogenic landscapes, what should be the aesthetics for landscape architects to design a perishing site? How should landscape design inform ecological grief from disappearing sites? This article evaluates the intersection of landscape aesthetics and material performance as agencies in the drying Aral Sea for design intervention.

This article challenges conventional ways of landscape conservation which aim to halt or reverse ecological degradation. Instead, it proposes a paradigm where the design for the anthropogenic landscape in the Aral Sea is not to solely conserve what is left, but rather allows a dignified decline. This perspective suggests that the aesthetics of designing anthropogenic landscapes depends on making visible the impact of human actions on the land and addressing resultant ecological grief, where nonhuman elements and their agency play a vital role in addressing the ecological losses.

The proposed design interventions involve creating a system of brine pools, tillage mounds, sand-capturing dunes, and ecological markers, and seek to employ non-human entities, including both inorganic and organic materials like sand, salt, and plantings, in mitigating the demise of the Aral Sea. In essence, this article strives to make human devastation in the Anthropocene perceptible by designing an educative experience while slowing the disappearance of the dying sea.

● Challenges conventional environmental conservation by designing the beautiful death of the Aral Sea

● To sustain beauty in anthropogenic landscapes is to make human impact visible

● To address ecological grief by working with local materials and magnifying their performance

● Proposed strategies involve systems of brine pools, tillage mounds, sand-capturing dunes, and ecological markers

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Anthropogenic Landscape / Landscape Aesthetics / Non-human Entanglement / Aral Sea / Desertification / Ecognosis / Ecological Grief

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