L I V I N G

P L A C E

Place As a Living Landscape

The Phenomenon of Place

“Sense of place”

“He went to that place”“Put things back in their place”

“He’s all over the place”

“She found her place in the world”

“I feel out-of-place”

“I’m going to put you in-your-place”

“This place is freaky”

Space and Place

“Space is transformed into place as it acquires definition and meaning”

Each Place Is Unique

New Orleans &

the Louisiana Bayou

Manhattan Island &

the mid-Atlantic Coast

San Francisco&

the Bay Area

Rhythm of Place

Place is Nested

This Classroom

SF Prep

The Eastside

Santa Fe

Northern New Mexico

The Southwest

“How Big is Here?”

Places are Dynamically Co-Created

Land

Water

Climate

Animals

Human Settlement

Patterns

Economic Forces

Cultural Traditions

Religious Beliefs

Political Trends

Plants

Finding One’s Place

Places are Concentrating and Enriching

T e r r o i r o f P l a c e

“Place is a pause in movement…The pause makes it possible for a locality to become a center of felt value”

– Yi-Fu Tuan (Geographer)

Places are Dynamic and Evolving

“A preferred position for the system, such that if the system is started from another state it will evolve until it arrives at the attractor, and will then stay there in the absence of other factors”

Attractors

Sense of Place

Emotions of Place

“Meaningful places are essential for meaningful lives”

– Timothy Beatley

“Places are immediate, known and lived in”

– Timothy Beatley

Eutopia vs Outopia

Curitiba & Brasilia

“Caring evolves through attachment to a place. As one puts down roots in a certain location and becomes familiar with the surroundings, one begins to distinguish subtle differences in even the most ordinary landscapes”

– Kazuo Matsubayashi

(Zen Monk)

At Homeness

Being in Place

Symbols of Place

“As one settles and becomes attached to a location, one activates space and time… We mark a space with signs and decorations to distinguish it from other places, and we punctuate time with rites or transition.

– Kazuo Matsubayashi

(Zen Monk)

Disconnected Spaces Interconnected Paces

Artifacts of place

“We are all Place-makers”

“A building should tell you everything about the society you live in; it’s history, its possibilities, and its future”

– Vine Deloria

(Indigenous Educator)

Great Plains

Chihuahuan Desert

Northern New MexicoSonoran Desert

Basin and

Range Colorado Plateau

Rocky Mnts.

“Cultural differences can only be adequately understood when placed in their geographical context” – Joel Bonnemaison

Rio Grande Delta

“The concept of a ‘homeland,’ although abstract and elusive, has at least three basic elements: a people, a place, and identity with place… People must have lived in a place long enough to have adjusted to its natural environment and to have left their impress in the form of a cultural landscape. And from their interactions with the natural and cultural totality of the place they must have developed an identity with the land.”

- Richard Nostrand (Cultural Geographer)

Homeland

Endangered Places

Boomer Nester

Value-Adding

Evolving

Interconnected

Rooted

Concentrating

Bounded

P L A C E

L I V I N G

P L A C E

Questions

• How big is here?• How is this place processing me?• Why here ? How did this place come to be what it is today?• What is this place wanting to be/become?