Wildfire Shed Skewer, unsolicited proposal for HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, digital drawing, 10 × 10 inches, 2019.

Lookout Tower No. 6 to Fire Marshal, sound installation prototype, 4 × 7 × 28 inches, 2026. Collaborators: William Bonner and David Buckley Borden.

Alpha-Chem Signal

The Alpha-Chem Signal project expands the nautical tradition of alphabet signal flags by hybridizing the international maritime communication system with the graphic framework of the periodic table (See concept diagram below). The design intention is to leverage the familiar brightly-colored flags to highlight dangerous levels of chemical pollutants within local waterways. The flexible nature of the fabric enables the lightweight banners to broadcast warnings of environmental distress on boats, kayak landings, docks, bridges, or other high-use infrastructure along public waterways.

Alpha-Chem Signal, diagram for graphic-communication design framework, David Buckley Borden, 2024.

Alpha-Chem Zinc. This five-color flag communicates unhealthy levels of zinc in local waterways. In the Pacific Northwest, where unwanted moss is a perpetual maintenance issue, unnaturally high levels of zinc in water bodies are often caused by the application of “moss killer” to buildings. This commonly used herbicide (powered zinc sulfate) presents serious harm to the environment. When zinc residue powder comes into contact with plants, it retards floras’ natural growth cycle. In rainy environments, microscopic particles of zinc powder end up in streams, lakes, rivers, and eventually, oceans. The moss killer harms aquatic species such as amphibians, insects, and fish while ultimately diminishing the overall quality of the environment both on land and within the waterway. Many homeowners in the Pacific Northwest are unaware of the ecological impact of their bi-annual application of moss killer to their shingled roofs, and the zinc signal flag was created with these caring, yet uninformed, folks in mind.

Alpha-Chem Signal: On Blast!  It is a citizen’s legal privilege to hold polluters publicly accountable. Point-source pollution demands a place-based expression of public disapproval and a targeted call-for-remediation. So, don’t be shy; make a noisy scene with a colorful blast of informed community protest. As Nana likes to say, “Put ‘em on blast!”

Alpha-Chem Signal: Phosphorus. Phosphorus is a capital “P” pollutant. Phosphorus water pollution, most often caused by nutrient runoff from agriculture and sewage can lead to deadly water quality problems such as eutrophication, which causes ecological dead zones, fish kills, and harmful algal blooms.

Alpha-Chem Signal: Uranium. If you see this flag flying (often by mining and milling operations), do not use the local water to drink, brush your teeth, wash your body, dog, or even paddle board for that matter. Toxic uranium pollution can cause consequential health issues, including increased cancer risks and kidney damage. Keep your kids and dogs out of the old mill ponds, for safety’s sake.

Alpha-Chem Signal: Iodine. Forget taste and odor issues, iodine pollution can be a deadly thyroid disruptor. Flag these largely invisible chemical plumes and the anthropogenic pipeline from which they spew hospital waste water containing iodinated contrast media and antiseptics.

Alpha-Chem Signal: Dead Zone. Not all the signal flags are limited to a single chemical pollutant, nor sole point source. Riparian pollution is often multi-factored and complex as is the case with riparian dead zones produced by careless agricultural practices, industrial byproducts, and poor quality infrastructure such as combined sewer outputs throughout a watershed.

Alpha-Chem SIgnal: Who 2 Call Out? We know what the pollution is, and where the pollution is, but who’s responsible for the pollution? Sometimes it’s them, sometimes it’s us, but most often it is them and us. 

Alpha-Chem Signal: Kids Are Alright. Ecological literacy projects and environmental activism do not need to be doom-downers. K? We know the kids are alright because they can still make joy out of fighting the good fight.

Alpha-Chem Signal: Eco-Piracy Flag. Momma said knock ‘em out with technical knowhow.

Signed up for F.U.N. Examples of Alpha-Chem Signal flags presented by collaborators Ashley Ann Ferguson, Zora Johr, Aidan Teppema, and Sabine Winkler. Winter 2026.

The Candy Crew geared up for the installation. Photography by Keith Stanley.

Love Birds Hex pre-production in the horse barn. Photography by Ashley Ann Ferguson.

The Candy Crew anticipates the heavy lift. Photography by Janessa Beltran.

Many hands make the fabrication grind go! Photography by Ashley Ann Ferguson.

Northeast quilt blocks, left to right - Hills and Valley, Soul Escape Hatch, Monkey Wrench Skylight, and Cornelian Cherry Basket Torch. Photography by Janessa Beltran.

Southwest quilt blocks, left to right - Night Pollinator (AKA Moth Man), Monkey Wrench Skylight, North Star, and Diving Bird. Photography by Janessa Beltran.

Hayloft facade featuring the Mother Earth Hex, Love Birds Hex, and Unicorn Resistance Hex. Photography by David Buckley Borden.

Beacon facade featuring watchful barn shutters, the Tractor Hex, Monsanto Hex, and the Thistle Finch Round Up Hex. Photography by Ian Escher Vierck.

Northeast side of the Broke Back Barn structure. Photography by Keith Stanley.

Student anticipation of guest review with Anne Weber, Addy Smith-Reiman, and Brad Howe. Photography by David Buckley Borden.

Sleeping on the job inside the Hayloft. Photography by Keith Stanley.

The Fieldscape Fellowship video debuts inside the Hayloft. Photography by Ashley Ann Ferguson.

Fieldscape Fellows and guests celebrate the installation on opening night. Photography by David Buckley Borden.

The morning after, and the dream was still there. Photography by David Buckley Borden.

About the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes

The Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL) is an internationally recognized center for research-based design and design as research, focused on the role of place in cultural sustainability, and grounded in the arts and humanities. Guided by a team of scholars, students use applied art and design methods to investigate the stewardship of landscapes and culture.

About the Overlook Fieldschool

University of Oregon students from the College of Design engage in interdisciplinary practicums, seminars, and invited lectures to advance research and scholarship on productive landscapes. The Field School bridges Pacific Northwestern and Northeastern landscapes in rural Pennsylvania through a unique initiative only offered through UO Landscape Architecture thanks to financial support from Sue and Mort Fuller. An initial practicum held at UO introduces students to the topic through an intense two-week project-based engagement preparing them for a year of focused seminars and lectures before a second practicum at Overlook. The second practicum offers students the opportunity to live and learn for two weeks at Overlook, a 400-acre property in northeastern Pennsylvania designed by the Olmsted Brothers firm in the early twentieth century and currently being re-imagined by the fourth-generation owners and Nelson Byrd Woltz landscape architects. The summer field school at Overlook offers students a unique opportunity to live, study, and create on an evolving cultural landscape.

What’s Your Sign?, 7 × 10 inches, 90 pages, Fall 2025

UBB - 011 PC - 001, Summer 2025

The seventy-page, color, 5.5 x 8.5-inch Helves and Hallmarks of Collaboration zine offers a unique celebration of interdisciplinary collaboration through the creation of wood signs inspired by vintage axe branding and advertising. This zine features a forward by Michael Paul Nelson, Director of The Center for the Future of Forests and Society at Oregon State’s College of Forestry. The publication also includes design-research relative to the history of the axe in North America, an axe-brand theme guide, documentation of the Helves and Hallmarks Collection which includes over twenty different pieces, as well as an advanced laser workflow tutorial as to how the signs were fabricated.

Project and zine production funded by creative practice grants from the OSU Foundation’s Andrew’s Fund, the Center for the Future of Forests and Society, and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

UBB - 010 PC - 001, Spring 2025

The fifty-page, black and white, 5.5 x 8.5-inch Lab to Landscape zine features a brief history of science-communication and how it relates to landscape architecture. From early cave paintings all the way to MVVA’s Teardrop Park and beyond, this zine sets the stage to analyze nine different designed landscapes’ science-communication as brief case studies.

Zine research and printing was funded by the Landscape Architecture Foundation via DBB’s LAF Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership.

UBB - 009 PC - 001, Spring 2025

The thirty-four-page, color, 8.5 x 11-inch Harvard Forest X DBB Collabs zine details David Buckley Borden’s interdisciplinary science-communication-based practice through two distinct landscape projects at the Harvard Forest. The publication, builds off of collaborative work with Dr. Aaron Ellison and uses the landscape installations to ground collaborative frameworks and pushes the boundaries of traditional science-communication into an interdisciplinary collaborative hybrid space. The case studies are illustrated with contextual diagrams to help answer DBB’s LAF design-research question: How can science-communication be reimagined as a collaborative process between landscape architects and research scientists?

Zine research and printing was funded by the Landscape Architecture Foundation via DBB’s LAF Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership.

UBB - 008 PC - 001, Spring 2025

The thirty-four page, color, 5.5 x 8.5-inch Tree Guard X: A Flora Defense Project Guide includes project brief, design-development background, 11×17” construction detail blow-in, and documentation of five in-situ tree guards.

UBB - 007 PC 001, Summer 2024

The Feral Fellowship catalog features 144 color pages of collaborative work from David Buckley Borden’s Fuller Design Fellowship at the University of Oregon from fall 2021 to summer 2024. The 7x10” image-rich softcover book contains a dozen interdisciplinary sci-comm projects with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, Center for Art Research, McKenzie River Trust, Center for the Future of Forests and Society, and more. Classic jams include the Forest Fashion, PNW Tree Sign Project, Atmos-44 Weather Station, Environmental Wayfinding System, EPA-B Boats, and the controversial Arboreal Goth Collection. Writers include William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Ashley Ferguson, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Escher Vierck. Edited by Ashley Ferguson. Foreword by Liska Chan, Director of the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon.

The first edition (300 copies) was funded by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

UPDATE: The first edition is out of print. Second edition available as of November 11, 2025.

UBB - 006 PC - 001, Winter 2024

The thirty-six page, color, 5.5 x 8.5-inch Arboreal Angler zine by Ian Escher Vierck et al. features over forty handcrafted oversized fishing lures that blend angling traditions, vernacular timber construction, and vintage logging equipment to showcase the critical relationship between Oregon’s river ecosystems and the region’s “big wood.” The publication includes project background, a lure primer, and several detailed diagrams and illustrations.

UBB - 005 PC 002, Fall 2023

Forty pages, black and white (color cover), 5.5 X 8.5-inch format, PNW Tree ID Sign project profile zine at the University of Oregon’s College of Design in fall 2023. Content includes project backstory, creative process, eleven featured works, advanced laser workflow blow-in, and a PSA warning of black-clad Arboreal Goth gangs.

Project and zine production funded by creative practice grants from the OSU Foundation’s Andrew’s Fund and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

UBB-004, PC-001, Fall 2023

Thirty-eight pages, 5.5 X 8.5-inch format, color copier printing, DIY zine featuring speculative design objects and writing by David Buckley Borden et al. Publication includes speculative design writing, project backstory, botanical naming primer, arboreal gothic culture exposé, and a dozen arboreal goth cultivars. Within the watercolor paper cover, one will find a variety of blow-ins including project postcards and a two-color 22 X 22 inch Arboreal Goth Collection 2023 AD black cotton bandana.

Project and zine production funded by creative practice grants from the OSU Foundation’s Andrew’s Fund and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

UBB-003, PC-001, Summer 2023

Forty pages, 5.5 X 8.5-inch format, color copier printing, zine featuring creative writing and speculative design objects by David Buckley Borden and collaborators. The interdisciplinary Forest Fashion project debuted at Lawrence Hall at the College of Design, University of Oregon in the Spring of 2023. The publication includes speculative design writing, project backstory, EWS primer, and twenty featured works of poetic design-fiction exploring backcountry “fashion” in wildfire prone landscapes. Within the etched-canvas waterproof cover, one will find a variety of blow-ins including color centerfold, project postcards, and other creative treats by the collaborative team of designers, artists, and scientists.

Project and zine production funded by creative practice grants from the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and the Ford Family Foundation via the Center for Art Research at the University of Oregon.

UBB-002 PC-001, Winter 2023

Twenty pages, black and white, 5.5 X 8.5 inch format, design zine. PNW Tree ID Sign exhibition guide includes project backstory, creative process, eight featured works, and documentation of work in the field. Hand-sewn silkscreened, waterproof, cover collab by Vinnie Arnone, David Buckley Borden, Helen Popinchalk, and Nancy Silvers.

Project and zine production funded by creative practice grants from the OSU Foundation’s Andrew’s Fund and the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

UBB-001 PC-001, Fall 2022

Twenty pages, 5.5 X 8.5 inch format, artist catalog of Ghost Forests exhibition at Simons University’s Trustman Art Gallery in the fall of 2022. Hand silkscreened cover by Helen Popinchalk, three blow-ins including, but not limited to color-print centerfold, exhibition postcards, 18 x 24 inch silkscreened EWS guide on newsprint, etc.

Project and zine production funded by the Trustman Art Gallery at Simmons University.

Castor Axe (for Nancy Silvers), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 12 × 18 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

HJ Andrews (for HJA LTER community), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 25 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson, and Michael Nelson.

Storm King (for Dr. Mark Schultz), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 32 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Em Grise (for Lina DiGregario),¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 18 × 24 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson

Tree Poisoning Axe (for Ashley Ferguson), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 18 × 24 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson, and Blake Schouten.

Vulcan Made Axe (for Fred Swanson), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 19 × 32 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Quilt Brand Work Gloves & Mitts (for Sabine Winkler), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 30 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Crescent Axe (for Dr. Brooke Penaluna), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 19 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Dynamicut (for Adam DeSorbo and Rex), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Royale Wolf Pack (for Dr. Michael Nelson), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

The Technol Edge (for Dr. Chris Still), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Knot Chomper (for Jeff Billington), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson and Josephine Paik.

Atlantic Axe (for Dr. Matt Betts), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 30 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Gothique Axe (for Cousin Lizzy, (8th cuz, one generation removed)), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 19 × 24 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, R.S. Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson, and Blake Schouten.

Dr. Deeb’s How to Ax (for Amanda Craig), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 16 × 30 inches, 2025. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Boss of the Woods (for Dr. Tom DeLuca), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 12 × 19 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Wizard Axe (for the Puettmanns), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 20 × 30 inches and 8 × 30 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Forest Buck Stop (for the Borden Boys, past and present), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 19 × 30 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Ashley Ferguson.

Benny Axe (for the College of Forestry), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, assorted hardware, and beeswax, 19 × 30 inches, 2025. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson, and Michael Paul Nelson.

Cutt’n Edge (for the Center for the Future of Forests and Society), ¾” AC plywood, milled pine, lasers, 3M blue tape, black ink, two-in-one primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 30 × 36 inches, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Ashley Ferguson, and Michael Nelson.

This collaborative work was funded by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon, the Oregon State University Foundation’s Andrews Fund, the Center for the Future of Forests and Society at OSU’s College of Forestry, and the sale of artwork on this website.

About the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes

The Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL) at the University of Oregon is an internationally recognized center for research-based design and design as research, focused on the role of place in cultural sustainability, and grounded in the arts and humanities. Guided by a team of scholars, students use applied art and design methods to investigate the stewardship of landscapes and culture.

About the Center for the Future of Forests and Society

The Center for the Future of Forests and Society (CFFS) in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University funds research and conducts science outreach related to the solution space for climate change. CFFS prioritizes efforts that bring together an inclusive array of minds, strategies and knowledge to collaboratively address complex issues we cannot solve in isolation.

About The HJ Andrews Experimental Forest

The HJ Andrews Experimental Forest is a world renowned center for research and education about the ecology and management of forests and streams. Located about 50 miles (80 km) east of Eugene, Oregon, the Andrews Experimental Forest lies in the Blue River Ranger District of the Willamette National Forest. Established in 1948, the Experimental Forest is administered cooperatively by the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, Oregon State University, and the Willamette National Forest.

Funding for the research and education programs comes from the National Science Foundation (NSF), USDA Forest Service, NASA, Oregon State University, U.S. Geological Survey, and other sources. In 1976, the Experimental Forest was designated a Biosphere Reserve as part of the United Nations’ Man and the Biosphere Program, and in 1980, the Experimental Forest became a charter member of the NSF’s Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Program, which by 2003 had grown to twenty-two sites around the nation and two in Antarctica.

Photography by Adam DeSorbo.

Download the Advanced Laser Cutter Workflow

For a detailed, step-by-step fabrication tutorial for the Helves and Hallmarks of Collaboration signs, click the link below:

HOW TO…

LAF Fellowship Proposal

Emergent Mutualism; Closing the Science-Communication Gap through Collaboration between Science and Design‍. ‍

As ecological challenges become more acute, environmental scientists are increasingly thrust into the spotlight to communicate vital practical knowledge to landscape architects, policy makers, government agencies, community groups, and individuals. The need for motivating a population of non-scientists to both understand and care about ecology is essential. The urgency of transforming this ecological understanding to direct action is vital. Long-term sustainable practice depends on a heightened ecological awareness. I believe that environmental-communication collaborations between landscape architects and environmental research scientists can foster cultural cohesion around ecological issues. Ultimately, an informed public will become their own empowered advocates and are more likely to collaborate with landscape architects to support long-term landscape stewardship, land planning, and conservation practice. To that end, I would argue that the planet’s climate-crises demands new education models, communication methods, and fluid interdisciplinary models that fill the gap between design and science. Given landscape architecture’s new designation as a STEM industry by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the timing could not be better for forging new collaborative relationships with the hard sciences. I agree with ASLA President, Emily O’Mahoney, that “The STEM designation will be an additional tool in helping decision-makers understand the rigor this discipline demands” (ASLA, 2023).

In order to produce ecologically sensitive design and foster environmental stewardship, landscape architects must be educators. The designer’s role as an educator is certainly nothing new. I agree with Paulo Freire, the Brazilian philosopher, that education is the most transformative value-producing system in society (Freire, 1970). In this ethos, I would say that education is the most far-reaching investment of our collective design effort as landscape architects. Landscape architects have made remarkable investments in meaningful community engagement, education, and empowerment in recent years. However, I would argue that how the profession engages the scientific community and then collaboratively educates the general public is worthy of research, critical review, and the dissemination of evidence-based practice models. Through my own creative practice, working with scientists, and design teaching, I have actively researched and applied communication theory through the development of novel science-communication projects with research forests. To be clear, science-communication is generally defined as activities that communicate scientific information to non-scientists for the sake of knowledge, awareness, and decision-making (Burns, 2003). My own science-communication projects have taken many forms, ranging from environmental art on urban campuses to an art-based interpretive trail. Arguably, many of these media, cultural platforms, and engagement strategies exist on the margins of landscape architecture practice. However, I believe that we need new interdisciplinary methods of communication. To that end, I started collaborating with ecologists in 2016 as a Bullard Fellow in Forest Research at the Harvard Forest. This creative-research driven fellowship produced a series of science-communication based landscape installations, art exhibitions, public talks, and peer-reviewed publications. This watershed opportunity opened the door to other collaborations within the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, including my current projects at the HJ Andrews Experimental Research Forest. The LTER Network is a largely untapped collaborative opportunity for landscape architects as the collection of 27 NSF-funded programs are engaged in researching every type of North American ecosystem. The LTER’s mission “is to provide the scientific community, policy makers, and society with the knowledge and predictive understanding necessary to conserve, protect, and manage the nation’s ecosystems, their biodiversity, and the services they provide” (LTER, 2023). The LTER mission squarely aligns with that of LAF and ASLA.

While my design-research with LTER sites has been productive in terms of creating physical objects, installations, exhibitions, and public events, my teaching schedule has left little capacity for critical reflection, writing, and peer-reviewed publication. I believe that this knowledge can contribute to the growing field of design-based science communication. I am also confident that it will develop new insights to strengthen landscape architects’ ability to communicate ecological issues with the rigor of hard science and the cultural nuance of artful design-thinking.

I envision the LAF Fellowship as an opportunity to research and share the theory and diverse practice of science communication with both landscape architecture and research science communities. Central to my proposed research is a deep dive into past practices and current trends of environmental communication by landscape architects with science research communities, specifically ecology and forestry at LTER sites. This research includes a historic survey of past practices for context, but privileges an exploration of new ideas, communication models, and practice modes to move science communication forward within the realm of environmental design practice. In particular, I am interested in answering the question, “How can landscape architects contribute to science-communication projects in order to foster cultural cohesion around ecological issues and help inform ecology-minded decision making.”

My LAF Fellowship project builds off my experience working with research scientists within the LTER network. This primary, practice-based, research would leverage collaborative experiences with the Harvard Forest and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. My critical reflection process would be characterized by post-project documentation, evaluation, internal critique, and partner feedback from LTER collaborators. I see the LAF Fellowship as an opportunity to evaluate these science-communication collaborations, and situate them in design practice, communication theory, and strategic direct-action environmental campaigns.

Through research into other LTER sites and current science-communication trends in landscape architecture I will conduct a literature review and informational interviews with practitioners. This new knowledge would then be synthesized with my past collaborations as case studies to illustrate a variety of science-communication models in terms of their functionality and successes, not to mention limitations and constraints. The studies would include a diversity of recent project types: site-specific landscape installations; narrative-driven exhibitions; art-based interpretive trails; community design-build projects; public art collaborations for direct-action campaigns; tactical pop-up installations for educational community events; and mentored MLA student science-communication collaborations with community conservation partners. These are all project types I’ve developed with scientists in recent years, several of which are featured in my portfolio submission.

The case study method will help answer the driving research question of “How can interdisciplinary science-communication be re-imagined as a collaborative design process for landscape architects and scientists?” However, I do not see these case studies as the final outcome, but a prompt for the development of a series of concise, accessible project-specific “How-to” booklets that combine design thinking, communication theory, experiential design, and public-engagement practice into a free publication to inspire others to engage in interdisciplinary collaboration with science research communities. The closest aspiration that I have found for the final products is perhaps Anne Godfrey’s Active Landscape Photography book series from Routledge. Godfrey’s series presents photography methods and case studies to interrogate relationships between landscape architecture and photography, and ultimately present a variety of creative methods that elevate photography into a rigorous design-research tool for understanding, planning, and designing landscapes. The ultimate outcome of the design-research is a road map to help inspire and instruct allied designers and scientists in collaborative science-communication.

The primary stakeholders for this work would initially be the LTER Network and landscape architects. The general audience is divided into two distinct professional groups, scientific research communities, and landscape architects along with allied environmental designers and planners. The allied design group would include national, regional, and local environmental and planning policy makers and of course members of APA and ASLA. In terms of the scientific community, the LTER Network occupies a rich research niche in a vast constellation of academic institutions and government agencies including NSF, NOAA, NEON, NPS, and other federal agencies working on climate security issues such as the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Interior. I imagine communication professionals at these organizations to be part of the larger target audience beyond the immediate LTER communities.

Although my Fellowship program is proposed as a design-research project, it is also a communication campaign, and ultimately an educational initiative for landscape architects, scientists, and the communities they both serve. My LAF program vision employs a model of stewardship that merges aesthetics, community interaction, environmental awareness, and communication media. Similar to my other public-facing projects, my Fellowship program would include integrated outreach and an ongoing shared narrative to illustrate the research issues at hand. A combination of traditional offline media and social media would promote reflection, critical thinking, and creativity among both scientists and designers. To that end, I look forward to working with LAF staff to coordinate these engagement efforts. I am also privileged to receive dissemination support, including additional matched funding from the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes and the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest LTER program to help the promotion and community-building around this research proposal.

David Buckley Borden

Eugene, Oregon

9/15/23

Works Cited:

ASLA News. Department of Homeland Security Designates Landscape Architecture a STEM Discipline, American Society of Landscape Architects, https://www.asla.org/NewsReleaseDetails.aspx?id=63963. July12, 2023.

Burns, Terry W. Science Communication, a Contemporary Definition. Sage Publishing, 2002.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum International Publishing Group, 1970.

Godfrey, Anne. Active Landscape Photography Methods of Investigation. Routledge, 2022.

Landscape Architecture Foundation, LAF Fellowship in Innovation and Leadership,https://www.lafoundation.org/what-we-do/leadership/laf-fellowship. September 13, 2023.

LTER Vision. Long-Term Ecological Research Network, National Science Foundation, https://lternet.edu/about/. September 14, 2023.

Update: Finished work from the LAF Fellowship can be found here. A new public talk entitled, Forest Collaboratory; A Place-Based Approach to Interdisciplinary Collaboration, summarizes the project with a forty-minute lecture, and can be scheduled here.

Whats Your Sign? Act 1., 12-Up, digital print, 8 × 10 inches, 2024.

What’s Your Sign? Act 1., exhibition, University of Oregon’s College of Design, Lawrence Hall, October 1 to November 21. A public reception was held on the evening of November 13th. Photography by Ignacio Lopez Buson.

What’s Your Sign? Act 1., project publication, 7 ×10 inches, 72 pages, digital printing, Summer 2025

The EWS Signal Stool features two-in-one functionality; in addition to protection against electrocution, this stool includes six double-sided EWS communication slats for the stool top. Set the stool on its side for a dependable low-tech comm system. Dozens of messages are available, ranging from “Wake Up the Fire Warden” to “Lightning Warning,” not to mention informal reports and requests such as “Beans Depleted” and “Send TP.”

Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, and Jenny Ginn.

The Trojan Monkey Stool is controversial. For hidden under its mountain goat pelt top, lies two 1980s vintage, monkey wrenches nestled into two custom black velvet slips. With a lightning-fast flip of the lid, the heavy-duty wrenches are at the ready to defend mother earth and to do so “without compromise” in the poetic spirit of Edward P. Abbey.

Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Asa DeWitt, Isaac Martinotti, and Sabine Winkler.

The Big League Smoke stool features a beautiful fire-crew rendering by Kennedy Rauh and a colorful underside that casts an eerie orange glow that is reminiscent of a dangerous smoke filled atmosphere.

Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Kennedy Rauh.

The Lookout’s Best Fren stool features an upholstered stool with a hand silkscreen-printed, satin-stitched padded top for a lookout’s tired feet or an impromptu visitor from the valley below.

Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Helen Popinchalk, and Nancy Silvers.

The Boom Boom Stool features a two-in-one AM-NOAA weather radio and state-of-the-art “black” bands for optimal mountaintop reception. Considering the critical influence of weather systems on wildfire behavior, the NOAA radio is deemed essential equipment for all lookout tower personnel. The AM radio ensures classical music availability in times of low morale.

Collaborators: William Bonner and David Buckley Borden.

The Carpenter Mountain Stool features a data-rich narrative about the landscape surrounding Carpenter Mountain at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. Every side of the stool speaks to the interconnected dynamics between forest management and wildfire ecology. The data is backed up with an interior fire-proof safe containing hard copies of recent relevant research publications.

Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Adam DeSorbo, Michael Nelson, and Blake Schouten.

Some of the 2023 Fuller Design Fellowship team with the Lookout Lightning Stools at the Forest Field Reports exhibition, College of Forestry, Oregon State University, fall, 2023. Clockwise from top: Sabine Winkler, Blake Schouten, Asa DeWitt, Adam DeSorbo, Liska Chan, Nancy Silvers, Ashley Ferguson, Jenny Ginn, David Buckley Borden, and Michael Nelson.

Lightning Stool Lot Bandana, 20 x 20 inches, 2023-2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Ashley Ferguson, and Blake Schouten. Purchase your own Lightning Stool Lot Bandana here!

The Lightning Stool Lot project was funded by design-research grants to David Buckley Borden as part of his Fuller Design Fellowship at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes. Additional financial support for project fabrication was provided by the Oregon State University Foundation’s Andrews Fund as part of Borden’s design-research residency at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. Collaborating landscape architecture graduate students at the University of Oregon were also funded through the sale of artwork on this website.

Forest Fashion, Lookout Edition

Anthropological collections of the Anthropocene have rapidly developed from an obscure forward-thinking speculative niche in academia to an ever-growing market of everyday objects, unrealized Pollyannaish technologies, and nuanced narratives that span the spectrum of hope and opportunity to that of despair and existential threat. The collection of objects featured in this publication, dubbed Forest Fashion, Lookout Edition represents timely knowledge in the midst of planetary crisis. The Forest Fashion collection presents an opportunity for environmental understanding, specifically, the reconciliation of past Western land management practices and contemporary conflicting cultural histories, common practices, and collateral environmental legacies. These complex notions and wicked problem sets are embodied in Forest Fashion as everyday objects and tools associated with backcountry hikes to wildfire lookout towers in the Cascade Mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Anthropologists posit that every designed object possesses reams of cultural backstory—every stitch, screw, and graphic adornment presents a story of creative expression and folk knowledge. Some of these narratives are clearly evident in formal details, such as the mouth-sized spout on a canteen, or the flared axe handle designed for safe ergonomic destruction. Other stories are only revealed upon rigorous design research, including the acquisition, restoration, and re-creation of objects lost, looted, carelessly abandoned, and/or intentionally ruined.

That said, every object in the Forest Fashion collection communicates a story of human creation, resiliency, and adaptation. The collection’s significance is more than a curated material culture of forest-related objects, tools, and oddities, it is a rich tome of ecological and cultural lore articulating the complicated relationship between Homo sapiens and the forests of the Pacific Northwest.

Environmental Wayfinding System

Building off traditional North American folk pictographs, the Environmental Wayfinding System (EWS) is a reimagined folk communication tool that serves as a graphic survival-code for people navigating environmental collapse. Some symbols communicate opportunities for potable water, free charging stations, clean campsites, dry firewood, and welcoming “safe” communities. Conversely, other symbols warn of environmental threats and misfortunes including arson wildfires, barren farmland, superfund sites, chemical plumes, monoculture landscapes, and pandemic hotspots.

The Environmental Wayfinding System is a living graphic language that is constantly evolving in response to ecological developments and consequential cultural phenomena. Like many underground communication systems, EWS is most often informally shared amongst its users. EWS is fairly unique in that its adoption transcends class, race, social status and other tribal affiliations and identities. EWS seems to appeal to anyone interested in survival. So, it is not surprising that EWS symbols have been recorded across North America ranging from the hills of the Rust Belt and the desiccated flats of the Dust Bowl 2.0 Region to the swamped back alleys of American coastal city states.

In the semiotic tradition, EWS is a learned communication system. As such, it is not surprising to see EWS signs and symbols incorporated into homemade items as a means to teach this survival knowledge to the young. Documented examples of EWS objects include baby quilts, bandanas, lightning stools, hand tools, and even toys for children. There is also an emerging grassroots movement to standardize EWS in an effort to make it more accessible across all resiliency-indexed social strata.

EWS Map Case

The EWS Map-N-Chart Case is a faithful reproduction of an iconic map case favored by long-distance through-hikers, wildfire fighters, and USFS lookout personnel. As such, the waxed-canvas case is almost waterproof and offers two see-through UV-resistant polymer windows for viewing maps, reports, conversion tables, and EWS charts. The map case also boasts an internal pocket for essential Rite in the Rain field books, and two felt hoops: one for a dry-erase marker and the other for an EWS grease pencil. The case features four steel D-rings for easily lashing the case to shoulder straps, backpacks, pack mules, or a low-torque electric-powered ATV.

EWS Map-N-Chart Case, cotton canvas, felt, museum board, Canadian paper pulp, polymer, thread, 13 x 15 x 2 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Nancy Silvers.

Mega Drought Dehydration Gauge Canteen

This Mega Drought Dehydration Gauge Canteen belonged to a young scientist who studied snowpack modeling for flood forecasting, water resource management, and climate studies. The scientist was lost in an avalanche during the late winter 2021 field research season in the Cascades of Southern Washington. His hand-engraved canteen was found the following summer off the coast of Sendai in the Tohoku region of East Japan.

Mega Drought Dehydration Gauge Canteen, etched aluminum surplus canteen (40-ounce), enamel paint, para cord, 9 x 5 x 3 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Gallows Humor, Blake Schouten, and Nancy Silvers.

Cathartes Aura Cooling Bag

Most water is not for drinking. This curious-looking canvas handbag, the Cathartes Aura Cooling Bag is modeled off antique water bags that were once used at remote logging sites for cooling down overheated horses, oxen, and “steam donkeys.” Loggers would fill the water bags with cold mountain run-off and then cache the bloated bags in snowpack. The graphic on this bag captures the likeness of the breezy cleaner, Cathartes aura (AKA the turkey vulture) and prompts meditations on high atmospheric heat, low water levels, and a short life punctuated by a long death.

Cathartes Aura Cooling Bag, cotton canvas, upcycled tin spout and clasp, recycled plastic cap, thread, para cord, and wood handle, 12 x 10 x .25 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Asa DeWitt, Nancy Silvers, and Sabine Winkler.

Douglas Cookie Eye Pillow

How can lookouts breathe with all that wildfire smoke? They breathe easy with this two-ply mask in the face of wildfire smoke, as well as wood product mills from the valley below. The EWS symbol for “shifting ecosystems” graces the left cheek, while the mask’s interior features a series of wetland symbols printed on red organic cotton. This handmade lookout mask also features an aluminum nose clasp, which appears to be fashioned from a 12 oz beer can. The hand embroidered eye-pillow provides additional comfort on smoky sleepless nights.

Douglas Cookie Eye Pillow, cotton canvas, elastic band, thread, and patience, 7 x 4 x .125 inches, 2022. Collaborators, David Buckley Borden, Nancy Silvers, and Sabine Winkler.

EWS Blaze Axe

The EWS Blaze Axe is used to hack/carve Environmental Wayfinding System symbols into objects, both natural and man-made. Be it in snags, backsides of sanctioned signs, trail shelters, kiosks or outhouses at the trailhead, this axe will make the mark. The Blaze Maker Axe is issued with canvas safety covers (shown) and directions (not shown) for safely carving symbols into wood, plastic, pressed steel, and sedimentary rocks formed from layers of sand, silt, dead plants, and animal skeletons.

EWS Blaze Axe, recycled miter saw blades, heavy-weight cotton canvas, thread, hair ties and para cord. 14 x 1 x 6 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Christian Delano Borden, Nancy Silvers, and Sabine Winkler.

Commemorative Oil Cans

This small chainsaw oil can was discovered in the McKenzie River Ranger Station parking lot along Route 126 in Blue River, OR. The hand-etched oil can appears to be a logger’s commemoration of a successful (profitable and injury-free) Holiday Farm Fire salvage logging operation. This type of “lumberjack folk art” has become increasingly prized by collectors as traditional saws, public working forests, and the working-class folk that cut these forests dwindle with each passing harvest season.

Commemorative Oil Cans, etched steel, dirt, blood, and paint, 2.5 x 2.5 x 1 inch, 2023. Collaborators: Rachel Benbrook, David Buckley Borden, and Blake Schouten.

Tandem Timber Haul Straps

This pair of log moving straps, along with other two-person tools, such as the “misery whip” saw, are categorically “slow and low” impact logging tools. This pair of straps are “faithful reproductions,” and prime examples of early timber technology. Interestingly, the 1/8” satin-stitch EWS symbols spin contrasting tales of radical enviro protection (bottom strap) and tough guy timber corporate testimony (top strap). These symbols are a lovely example of critical, narrative-driven, material culture. Conceptually, the pair of haul straps seem to communicate an opposing, yet balanced, collaborative forest management practice.

Tandem Timber Haul Straps, heavy-weight cotton canvas, wood handles, paracord, thread, 9 x 48 x 1 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Blake Schouten, and Nancy Silvers.

Forest Flask

The Forest Flask can be a wildfire lookout’s savior. This particular customized fire extinguisher backpack features a five-gallon capacity chrome-plated aluminum tank, remote heat and humidity sensors, OTF knife with clip, and a ventilated air-cooled backrest. The brass slide-action pump is hand-operated and paired with a rugged thirty-inch double-braided oil-resistant hose. The high-viz EWS graphic on the backpack is equal parts safety feature and district statement to which the Forest Flask belonged. This Forest Flask has no apparent makers-mark, nor agency brand.

Forest Flask, 2 oz. etched aluminum 5 gal. canister, rubber hose, metal knife, bronze water pump, tin telescopic antenna, sensors, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 7 x 12 x 15 inches, 13 lbs. net weight, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Blake Schouten, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Escher Vierck.

Hot Log Mitts

This pair of restored Hot Log Mitts were discovered in 2022 in a dusty storage space in an old dairy barn just outside of Tillamook, Oregon. These emergency fire mitts are remarkably bulky, but necessary when surprise wildfires douse any superficial notions of fashion. The mitts’ off-white color initially puzzled design-researchers. They now believe the mitts were made from light-colored material in order to highlight any burn holes or tears in the flame-retardant wool. Yet others posit the white material was used in the spirit of the old woodsman saying, “Good wood is the wood you got.”

Hot Log Mitts, cotton canvas, felt, thread, wood dowels, insulated with common sense and precaution, 8 x 15 x 4 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Sabine Winkler, and Nancy Silvers.

Comfy Camp Slippers

The Comfy Camp Slippers are an interesting modern hybrid of vintage trail slippers, house shoes, and Crocs. In the tradition of back-40 thrift, these slippers (size 9.5 women’s, wide) are fashioned from materials on hand (felt, cardboard, and a decommissioned fireproof wildfire shelter). These slippers keep toes toasty (but not toasted) when the sun sets, temp drops, and the “owl coos for yous.” The topside satin-stitched “Comfy Camp” symbols make these slippers a bona fide luxury in any fashion camp, high or low.

Comfy Camp Slippers, up-cycled fireproof wildfire fighter tent, felt, thread, museum board, 3 x 4 x 9 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Nancy Silvers, and Sabine Winkler.

Lil’ Boo Comfy Camp Slippers

Little boos need creature comforts too. These kiddie-sized T-3 Comfy Camp Slippers are the ultimate in fawning camp-parenting. Fireproof soles are still standard for these cuties.

Lil’ Boo Comfy Camp Slippers, up-cycled fireproof wildfire fighter tent lining, felt, thread, museum board, size T3, 2 x 3 x 5 inches, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Nancy Silvers, and Sabine Winkler.

Folding Tabletop Map (in camp-ready fashion), etched wood, upcycled aluminum cooler-stand, canvas, lasers, 22 x 22 x 30 inches, 2023. Collaborators: Rachel Benbrook, David Buckley Borden, and Asa DeWitt.

The Forest Fashion project was funded by design-research grants to David Buckley Borden as part of his Fuller Design Fellowship at the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes at the University of Oregon. Additional financial support for project fabrication was provided by the Oregon State University Foundation’s Andrews Fund as part of Borden’s design-research residency at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest. Collaborating landscape architecture graduate students at the University of Oregon were also funded through the sale of artwork on this website.

EPA-B Boat prototype models, plywood and assorted recycled maritime hardware and chemical applicators, dimensions vary, 2023-2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Isaac Martinotti.

The EPA-B fleet employs classic remote-controlled tech to help monitor water quality in public waterways. In addition to sampling water for eco-toxins, the fleet also supports the enforcement of EPA regulations, informing communities of water issues, calling out industrial offenders, and supporting community events centered on gathering and creating joyful shared experiences in public riverside parks. Each boat has a special role to play in the mission of grassroots activism; the name of the ship generally describes the singular role it plays in the campaign against industrial pollution offenders and other like-minded assholes. Although the EPA-B maiden fleet is remarkable for its range, additional boats are currently in dry-dock development, thanks to public suggestions.

Design Research Associate, Janessa Beltran, presents an early full-scale prototype of an EPA-B boat, circa 2025.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Impaler,’ commonly known as the “river pike pine” has a medium-to-large-sized cone. It is found in cool riparian valley systems and is associated with river log drives of the 19th and 20th century lumber trade in North America. Notwithstanding its industrial past, the tree’s iconic cone is prized by tree huggers for its sharp uni-terminal point. The pike tip is covered in a red macro-plastic cap per the Gothic Herbarium safety code.

Fun Fact: A Pinus sabiniana ‘Impaler,’ can be seen on the fireplace mantel in the background in the famous “familial crisis” scene in the 1971 film, Sometimes a Great Notion, starring Paul Newman and Henry Fonda.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Barbus,’ commonly known as the “barb pine” or “sloth hooker,” is considered to be an arboreal anachronism. The umbos of the cone evolved along with the giant ground sloths, including Megalonyx, who were widespread in North America up to the Wisconsin Ice Age. The barbed pine cone adapted to attach to the sloth’s woolly coat in order to spread its seeds over a long-range as the sloth would walk great distances in search of food.

As land sloths slowly went extinct, early Homo sapiens learned to cultivate the barbed pine specimen for its unique Velcro-like characteristic and commonly used the clingy cone as a practical joke during tedious hunting and gathering trips.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Grapnelia,’ commonly known as a “grappling foothills pine” or “gray Batman hook pine” is a large-sized pine tree endemic to California. The tree is easily identified by its sharp spiny cone and grappling hook-like terminus. The cone, about the size of an American football, is spiked, relatively heavy (up to three kilograms), and is a known “public safety hazard” during even the most mild wind events. Despite the cone’s dangerous reputation as a “widower,” dendrophiles are still seduced by the cone’s remarkable gnarly appearance and size.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Forksis,’ commonly known as the “pitch fork pine” is a small-to-medium-sized pine. It is native to western North America, primarily from British Columbia to northern California and as far east as Idaho. It is found in environments that most other tree species find unsuitable for growth, such as acidic, sandy soils, not to mention disturbed landscapes of political unrest and cultural upheaval.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Whack Bat,’ commonly known as the “grenade pine,” is a common seed bomb cultivar found west of the Rocky Mountains. The fire-activated oblong cone with its single stem pin and large ring is rumored to be the inspiration for the fictitious game of “Whack Bat” in the 2009 cult classic film Fantastic Mr. Fox. As a result of the Andersonian association, the ‘Whack Bat’ pine strobili are bona fide trophy cones.

Caveat emptor: unscrupulous cone traders have been known to pass off the common “ringworm pine” cone (easily identified by its double stem pin) for the premium price of a ‘Whack Bat’ cone. Nihilo sanctum estne?

Pinus sabiniana ‘Tines,’ commonly known as the “spork pine,” is a medium-to-large sized pine cultivated for its tolerance of dry urban environments. It was specifically cultivated for the North American market and is typically found to the left of the feeble plastic knife.

Pinus sabiniana, ‘David’s Bowie,’ commonly known as a “bowie knife pine,” or simply, “knife pine,” is a large pine prized for its sharp pointed cone and cutting edge. The bowie cone has an uncanny resemblance to the Americana hunting knife of the same name. The red safety cap highlights the potentially lethal tip of this bizarre Pinus sabiniana cultivar. The cone is a colorful pop in any teenager’s pine cone war chest of crude blades and spent shells from the local sand pit range.

Pinus sabiniana ‘Anglerus,’ commonly known as the “lure pine,” is a medium-sized pine cultivated for its cone’s curious appearance of an oversized fly fishing lure. Today, the prized cones can be found in glass display cases in high-dollar eco-tourism hot spots, i.e., Jackson, WY. The dyed turkey feathers are an after-market phenomenon that is generally frowned upon within serious collector circles. Other popular materials for customizing cones include: chicken contour feathers, bison pantaloon hairs, and ungulate vibrissae, especially Quey brand elk whiskers.

The Arboreal Goth Cone Collection is a speculative-design project exploring gothic hybrids of ecology, industrial material, collector culture, and late-capitalism in North America. The original “art cone” concept stems from an obscure pine cone artform practiced by USFS lookout personnel stationed in wildfire watchtowers throughout the Pacific Northwest.

The mixed-media objects are created from old logging tools, foothill pine cones, macro plastics, oil-based paints, and natural oils and waxes. Dimensions vary by cultivar, 2023-2024.

Arboreal Goth Cone Collection collaborators: Vinnie Arnone, William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Mike Demaggio, Adam DeSorbo, Asa DeWitt, Ashley Ferguson, Helen Popinchalk, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Escher Vierck.

Photography by Adam DeSorbo.

The complete catalog of the Arboreal Goth Cone Collection is available from the Unfinished Book Bureau and can be purchased here.

Rachel Carlson sports the Science or Death Flag, which is equipped with common field research tech to celebrate the critical collaboration between science and society. 

The Science or Death Flag was inspired by three years of critical conversations of concern for the PNW ecosystems and the populations that call them home. The field equipment (heat guarded sensor, anemometer, and thermometer) symbolizes a culture of rigorous research and knowledge. The Gothic flourishes and the six stripes in the canton are a public acknowledgment of the ongoing sixth mass extinction. 

Science or Death Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2021. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Michael Demaggio, and Ian Escher Vierck.

Sabine Winkler presents a high-viz EWS Camp Flag, in the classic black-white-red colorway, to announce a welcoming "safe camp" amidst local environmental collapse.

The EWS Camp Flag features a not-so-secret message in the graphic-folk language known as the Environmental Wayfinding System (EWS). This fire-retardant fabric flag is flown outside community centers, public spaces, open-homes, and backwoods camps to welcome folks to learn about EWS and how to use the environmental communication tool to navigate challenges on the path to global ecological collapse. All are welcome. 

EWS Camp Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Sabine Winkler.

Ed Abbey waves a Collective Action Power Flag as an urgent call for creativity-powered collaborative action.

Collective Action Power Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Jack K. Byers, and Asa DeWitt.

Charles Young presents the Lame Duck Flag and an aggressive stance against invasive species along the Willamette River in Eugene, Oregon.

Lame Duck Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2021. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Michael Demaggio, and Ian Escher Vierck.

Ashley Ferguson captures the industrious Castor canadensis spirit with the PNW Eco Engineer Flag.

Eco Engineer Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2023. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Michael Demaggio, and Sabine Winkler.

Julia Butterfly Hill stands tall to protect and to serve trees with the 44th Regiment Tree Guard Flag in hand.

44th Regiment Tree Guard Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2021. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Sabine Winkler, and Ian Escher Vierck.

Aldo Leopold honors the Hot Ashes for Trees Flag, in deference to the never-ending cycle of wildfire ecology within the PNW.

Hot Ashes for Trees Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2024. Collaborators: Jackie Barry, David Buckley Borden, Michael Demaggio, and Sabine Winkler.

Winona LaDuke channels the Ride the Lightning Flag to serve as a towering lightning rod for environmental justice.

Ride the Lightning Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2021. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, and Sabine Winkler.

John Muir was a goth and has the Arboreal Gothique Flag to prove it.

Arboreal Goth Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2023. Collaborators: Vinnie Arnone, David Buckley Borden, and Asa DeWitt.

Nancy Silvers wrestles the Hazardous Monkey Flag to give voice to the latent activist in all of us. 

The Hazardous Monkey Flag captures the spirit of the Enviro Barn Quilt project with a remix of graphic traditions from quilt blocks, hazardous-material signs, and taxidermy. The “monkey wrench” quilt block design (made from deconstructed hazardous-warning signs) radically screams for change. The layered graphic also slyly captures an abstract bear skin rug found in corporate cave dwellings of yore.  

Hazardous Monkey Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2024. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Ashley Ferguson, and Sabine Winkler.

PNW Tree ID Signs, Ghost Forests Exhibition, array of nine mixed-media signs, recycled oak flooring, India ink, acrylic paint, and lasers, dimensions vary, Trustman Gallery, Simmons University, Boston, Massachusetts, 2022.

Pseudotsuga menziesii, Douglas-fir, has a large range west of the Rocky Mountains, from the northern tip of Vancouver Island down to the coastal and mountain ranges of central California. It prefers elevations from sea level up to 5,000 feet, sometimes more. Its needles are spirally arranged, with a slight twist at the base. Its mature cones are tan and have a unique 3-pointed bract that extends beyond the scales which evokes an abstract form that looks vaguely like the tail and hind feet of a frantically scrambling mouse attempting to hide just beneath the scales. Douglas-fir trees yield the most amount of timber in North America, making the Doug-fir one of the most economically important trees in the world. The tree is closely associated with the people and timber industry of the PNW, so it is no wonder that our friend Dougie is the state tree of Oregon, and is still the best-selling wood species at Jerry’s Hardware in Springfield, Oregon.

Picea sitchensis, Sitka spruce, occurs within a thin strip on the Pacific Coast of Oregon into Alaska, often only reaching a few miles inland. It is a PNW costal icon, making its home along the shores and inlets of a moss covered, moist landscape. Its stiff and sharp needles are glaucus with two strips of stomata on the underside. The tan colored, medium-sized cones are soft, papery, and pale brown. When dry, these cones make the best, out of tune mini xylophones to run a finger across. The Sitka spruce was a central species of a nearly lost ecosystem, the tidal forest. Today, most of the tidal forests have been logged, diked, and converted to farmland and luxury seaside homes. What little remains of the Sitka spruce forests is a somber testament to Homo sapiens’ collective environmental values.

Other Oregon Coast ghost forests, such the Neskowin Ghost Forest were likely created when the Cascadia subduction earthquake in 1700 AD covered the tidal forest with debris from a massive tsunami.

Pinus sabiniana, gray foothills pine, is endemic to California and the Klamath Mountains eco-region of Oregon. The gray foothills pine can be easily identified by its tremendously large cones and long drooping needles. The infamously large cones of the gray foothills pine are specially adapted to the sloped and grassy environment it resides in.

After growing three to five years on the tree branch, the foothill pine cone will detach and roll downhill (hikers beware). The falling cones are heavy enough to cause injury or death to Homo sapiens and have been nicknamed “widow maker cones” due to fatal tales of backcountry misfortune.

Pinus contorta, lodgepole pine, is a hard pine located from the shore of the Pacific Coast to the PNW sub-alpine mountains. The lodgepole pine can tolerate many harsh conditions, such as clay soils, freezing temperatures, and even the pumice ridden soils of central Oregon which can sometimes reach 140 degrees during the summer (Arno, 2020). Its egg-shaped cones are prickly and serotinous, needing fire to release its seeds. The cones’ size and mass make it a choice selection in the suburban sandlot game known as “pine cone war.” The fire-activated oblong cone is rumored to be the inspiration for the game of “Whack Bat” in the 2009 cult classic film Fantastic Mr. Fox. Due to the Andersonian association, the ‘Whack Bat’ pine strobili are coveted souvenir cones in Hollywood, California. The sign features a billow of smoke as a gentle warning to alert folks that they have entered the potentially dangerous Pinus contorta ‘Whack Bat’ zone. Trail users beware!

Pinus lambertiana, sugar pine, can be found throughout the mountains of Oregon and California in moist environments. Its needles are found in fascicles of 5. The overall form is recognizable for its large crown of majestic outreaching branches. Not only is the sugar pine the largest pine in the world, it also bears the largest cones of all pines, with the largest recorded specimen clocking in at an impressive 22 inches. No fooling! When green, the pendant cones can weigh two to four pounds, making them the weapon of choice for petty squirrels overhead.

There were several uses for the sugar pine. Native peoples ate and harvested the tasty seeds and used them in a variety of ways, including roasting, boiling, baking into cakes, or pulverizing into a nut butter spread. The sweet resin was chewed as gum sparingly due to its laxative qualities (Arno, 2020).

Taxus brevifolia, pacific yew or western yew, is a tree species in the yew family Taxaceae and is native to the Pacific Northwest. It is a small evergreen conifer, thriving in moisture dappled sunlight, and tends to take the form of a shrub. With the passing of time, it will eventually take the form of an understory tree, hiding beneath the towering Douglas-firs and western hemlocks. It can be found sparsely in the southern Alaska Panhandle all the way down to the San Francisco Bay area, as well as extending east to the northern Rockies.

The pacific yew houses a legendary poison, which is toxic to humans, especially children. All parts of the tree are toxic, so kindergarteners beware on forest field trips! The yew is known for its small, violently red, berry-like cones also known as an aril. Only the female trees produce these pea-sized poison pills. Each aril contains one toxic seed surrounded by bead-shaped fleshy pulp. The needles are flat, double ranked, and deep green.

The whimsical-looking bark of the pacific yew appears to have leaped straight out of a fairy tale, as it is scaly gray on the outside and bright purple on the inside. During the 1990s the pacific yews’ bark was discovered to house the chemical known as Taxol (or Paclitaxel) that can inhibit ovarian and breast cancers. The chemical was extracted from trees in the Pacific Northwest for roughly ten years before pharmaceutical companies switched to agricultural plantations, later synthesizing the drug (Arno, 2020). This controversial harvest of a seemingly unforgivable poison allowed the shade loving pacific yew to come into the light of popular culture for a few years, helping cancer patients, before fading back into humble obscurity and avoiding prolonged exploitation.

Sources:

Arno, Stephen, and Ramona Hammerly. Northwest Trees. Mountaineer Books. 2020, pp. 30-35, 61-69, 83-91, 101-110, 117-122.

Jensen, Edward. Trees to Know in Oregon. Oregon State University. 2010, pp. 11-13, 20-21, 28-29, 36-37, 42-44, 107-108.

“Pinus strobus.” Edited by Christopher J. Earle, Pinus strobus (Eastern White Pine) description - The Gymnosperm Database, 6, Aug. 2023, Pinus strobus (eastern white pine) description (conifers.org)

“Pinus sabiniana.” Edited by Christopher J. Earle, Pinus sabiniana (Foothills Pine) description - The Gymnosperm Database, 26, Feb. 2023, Pinus sabiniana (gray pine) description - The Gymnosperm Database (conifers.org)

The Landscape Makers exhibition was a maker-driven art + design event featuring the work of Fuller Design Fellow David Buckley Borden and his collaborative team of Studio Fellows. The landscape-inspired work explored cultural narratives of PNW forests through interior installation, design objects, and interdisciplinary environmental-communication. The exhibition featured refined design-research work created by Borden and a team of artists, designers, and select graduate students enrolled in the Master of Landscape Architecture Program at the University of Oregon.

The public exhibition was also a snapshot of an ongoing creative project, Lookout Landscape, a multi-site interdisciplinary creative project with the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes, the Center for Art Research, the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest, and the Spring Creek Project for Ideas, Nature, and the Written Word. The Lookout Landscape project is an emerging collaborative, community-driven endeavor led by David Buckley Borden and Colin Ives, as CFAR Affiliate facilitators. The project uses an environmental lens to highlight the maker-culture within the state of Oregon by including the process and input from a variety of creative individuals, ranging from forestry research scientists to indigenous land stewards from both local and regional communities.

Recycled aluminum hazardous-material signs, primed wood siding, wood glue, and sheet metal screws, 2021-2022. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Seth Eddy, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

This series of large-format mixed-media barn quilt designs are inspired by regional Pacific Northwest narratives in response to the 2020 wildfire season, which was noted as one of the most extensive seasons on record. The 44-inch square quilt-block patterns are created from recycled hazardous material signs to communicate community memorial, testament, critique, respect, and celebration of wildfires as an ecological phenomenon. While telling the story of the 2020 fire season, the work addresses larger issues of climate change, human impact, industry, personal experience, community activism, and the future of wildfire response in the PNW forests.

Some quilt designs, such as Monkey Wrench and Burnt Bear Paw are reinterpreted traditional folk patterns that continue to resonate with contemporary environmental narratives. Other designs were created anew in response to local community chronicles. These neo-folk pieces, with titles such as Wind Event, Back-40 Block Aid, and Chevron Fossus Mortis, push the folk tradition into new narrative territory as humanity reckons with novel ecological challenges brought on by climate change.

One-inch plywood, aluminum haz-mat signs, bullseye primer, and assorted hardware, 60” x 60”, 2021-2022. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Nancy Silvers.

Shared personal knowledge and familial storytelling is the creative crux of folk design tradition, including quilt-pattern making. The Make Your Own Haz-Mat Quilt piece built off this tradition of voice and creative empowerment to function as a low-tech interactive work that invited gallery guests to create their own designs by manipulating a grid of sixteen independent flip placards. Each flip placard included 15 haz-mat sign options, giving users 240 permutations to play with in the creation of their own personal environmental statement.

Full-scale prototype of modular landscape installation element, nominal 4” x 6” timbers, structural screws, primer, acrylic paint, aspirin, and Band-Aids, 7’ x 14’ x 18’, 2022. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

Tree Guard No. 01 is a provocative pop-dipped reinterpretation of the urban steel tree guard. The modular prototype is inspired by timber-framed barn-building and high-visibility destruction/construction barriers. This dramatic tree guard is intended to capture human attention, land stewards’ imagination, and the value of the potential tree within it. Although the tree guard is displayed in a gallery setting without the central tree, the prototype was further developed as a series of public landscape installations on contested land under threat of development in Eugene, OR. The Tree Guard No. 01 was created in the spirit of Jack K. Byer’s mantra, “Protect to Study; Study to Protect.”

Vernacular mixed-media panels, wood, marine-grade polymer canvas, and assorted hardware, 44” x 44” each, 2021. Collaborators: William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Kennedy Rauh, and Ian Vierck.

Every landscape has an association with a material culture. How can a material, be it from nature or the human hand, influence the cultural identity of a people, their sense of place, and their land-use practice?

Buffalo Plaid or Buffalo Check is a plaid pattern created by large blocks formed by the intersection of two different color fabrics, typically red and black. The tartan-inspired plaid (the Gaelic for pladjer) pattern was introduced to North America by Jock McCluskey, a descendant of Rob Roy, who traded the heavy Scottish blankets with Native Americans and other European trappers. The iconic pattern is now synonymous with both the timber industry and outdoor recreation in Oregon forests.

The four iconic “Buffalo Plaid” inspired patterns (two-inch, one-inch, glitch, and bespoke) were handwoven with marine-grade fabric by Kennedy Rauh. The fabric patterns were then framed with wood CNC-cut panels. The graphic icons within the panels are representations of North America’s classic ecological engineers, the bison and beaver.

Beyond Scaled-Models for Buffalo Plaid Panels. Lookout Landscape Studio Fellows, Overlook Field School alums, MLA graduate students, and Landscape Makers (left to right); William Bonner, Hannah Chapin, Kennedy Rauh, and Ian Vierck.

Woodshed installation, cheap lumber, split firewood, haz-mat signs, primer, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 44” x 48” x 64”, 2022. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Hannah Chapin, Kennedy Rauh, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

The Carbon Storage Woodshed is a modest reminder that wood (both dead and alive) plays a proactive role in the process of capturing and storing atmospheric carbon dioxide. The shed is also a pointed prompt that calls on the timber industry to play a landscape stewardship role in carbon sequestration of the Pacific Northwest forest ecosystem.

PNW Forest Flag display, marine-grade canvas, paracord, cedar poles, and antique logging tools (river pike, pike and hook, and bark spud), dimensions variable, 2021-2022. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Hannah Chapin, Michael Demaggio, and Ian Vierck.

This series of large-format 3’ x 5’ flags captures a few principle interests (wildfire ecology, wildlife habitat, and science in society) at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest in Blue River, Oregon. The PNW Forest Flags are an extension of a series of collaborative fabric works by Boston-based artist Michael Demaggio and David Buckley Borden. This particular vexillography series began during Borden’s Overlook Field School Artist Residency in the summer of 2021. The ongoing collaborative environmental flag project continued with additional creative contributions from Hannah Chapin, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

Yellow pine wood, blue tarp, marine-grade polymer canvas, brooder lamp, 40-watt bulb, paint, vinyl, and assorted hardware 46” x 46”, 2021. Collaborators: William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Pat Falco, Kennedy Rauh, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

Light box designs were used to explore local environmental issues, rural and urban. These prototype studies also tested material-interplay between wood, fabric, graphics, color, and lighting.

Many thanks to Tom Coates for his guidance and assistance with our CNC robot collaborators on the series.

Wood, marine-grade fabric, brooder lamps, paint, and assorted hardware, 46” x 46”, 2021. Collaborators: William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Pat Falco, Kennedy Rauh, and Nancy Silvers, 2021-2022.

Vernacular architecture installation, wood, marine-grade canvas, hardware, and miscellaneous forestry, safety, and firefighting tools, 4’ x 3' x 5’, 2022. Collaborators: William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Hannah Chapin, Michael Geffel, Kennedy Rauh, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

The Community Wildfire Tool Shed was an experimental re-interpretation of a backcountry USFS storage shed. The shed presents both traditional tools and speculative design solutions for community firefighting, both past and future. The modular paneled structure was a creative exploration working toward the design and fabrication of a full-scale lookout tower for the Lookout Landscape project with the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest et al.

Interior architecture installation, CNC-cut wood panels, marine-grade fabric, upcycled wind gauges, recycled hazardous-material signs, vintage fire warden phone, paint, assorted hardware, and media players with projectors, 11’ x 11.5’ x 11.5’, 2022. Collaborators: William Bonner, David Buckley Borden, Hannah Chapin, Kennedy Rauh, Nancy Silvers, and Ian Vierck.

Hybrid landscape “architecture” merging iconic design elements of a backcountry open-door outhouse and vintage PNW wildfire lookout tower. This full-scale prototype was a design opportunity to explore modular structure construction, narrative-driven panel design, kinetic instrumentation, and the material culture and operation of a typical USFS lookout tower. The interactive structure was functional, complete with standard waterless plumbing (Jerry’s five-gallon bucket), fire marshal phone, USGS maps, two iconic lookout tower shutters in the event of inclement weather and other lookout “creature comfort” ephemera.

The Loo with a View, a fun (however practical) structural study draws heavily on William Bonner’s Air Shed thesis project with David Buckley Borden, Dr. Fred Swanson, and others at the HJ Andrews Experimental Forest.

Special thanks to Tom Gottelier of Designers on Holiday for sharing their architectural expertise with the team.

The Landscape Makers team members are grateful to Fuller Director, Liska Chan, and Fuller Lab Director Michael Geffel for championing this collaborative project. David Buckley Borden’s Fuller Design Fellowship, the collaborative interdisciplinary work, and resulting exhibition was generously supported by the Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes.

About the Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes

The Fuller Initiative for Productive Landscapes (FIPL) is an internationally recognized center for research-based design and design-as-research, focused on the role of place in cultural sustainability, and grounded in the arts and humanities. Guided by a team of scholars, students use fieldwork and art methods to investigate the ongoing stewardship of landscapes and culture.

The FIPL has four primary goals:

1. Reclaim second nature – the productive landscape – as a central inquiry within the discipline of landscape architecture.

2. Centralize praxis and material experimentation within the landscape curriculum.

3. Connect University of Oregon students to globally significant places, practices, research, and pedagogies.

4. Enhance the arts and humanities as modes of inquiry within the curriculum.

The FIPL holds a series of events over the academic year, in both Oregon and Pennsylvania, connecting students to critical ideas in landscape architecture through art inquiry, fieldwork, collaboration, and learning from experts in the field. The events are structured by an annual theme within the framework of productive landscapes. The FIPL runs three annual signature events: a summer field school that is an immersive, intense experience for a small group of students, initiated by a lecture open to the public, and a preparatory spring seminar open to any University student. The annual events alternate between different physical settings, learning modes, class size, and inquiry media to provide a wide range of opportunities for learning. The FIPL leverages the signature events as the basis of landscape architectural research, forging connections between collaborators, and resulting in the dissemination of arts and humanities-based landscape architecture research through publications, design competitions, and exhibitions.

Wayfinding Barrier, No. 2, installation at Harvard Forest, 2 x 3.5 x 4 feet, wood, acrylic paint, vinyl, sheet metal, aluminum tape, and recycled ant nests and specimen box, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Salua Rivero.

Hemlock Memorial Shed, installation at Harvard Forest, 8 x 8 x 9 feet, wood, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Lisa Q Ward.

Sixth Extinction Flag, installation at Harvard Forest, 5 x 5 feet, canvas, thread, nylon rope, and grommets, 2017. Collaborators: Jackie Barry, David Buckley Borden, and Dr. Aaron Ellison. Photography by Salua Rivero.

Fast Forward Futures, installation at Harvard Forest, 4 x 8 x 26 feet, wood, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, and Salua Rivero.

Fast Forward Futures, installation at Harvard Forest, 4 x 8 x 26 feet, wood, acrylic paint, and assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, and Salua Rivero.

Insect Landing, installation at Harvard Forest, 4 x 6 x 6 feet, recycled wood, and acrylic paint, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Dr. Aaron Ellison, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, CC McGregor, Patrick Moore, Salua Rivero, and Lisa Q Ward.

Double Assault, installation at Harvard Forest, dimensions variable, acrylic paint, wood, vintage buzzsaws, and assorted hardware, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley, Jack Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Salua Rivero.

Bio Resource Plug, installation at Harvard Forest, 1.25 x 1.25 x 2.5 feet, wood, acrylic paint, steel., and PVC tubing, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and blacksmith Brian Hall. Photography by Neil Pederson.

“Exchange Tree,” installation at Harvard Forest, 8 x 10 x 12.5 feet, wood and acrylic paint, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Dr. Aaron Ellison, Salvador Jiménez-Flores, and Salua Rivero.

Hemlock Hospice Tour Helmets. installation at Harvard Forest, customized safety helmets, 2017. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden, Jack K Byers, Dr. Aaron Ellison, and Salua Rivero. Photography by Patrick Moore.

Conventional hazardous material signs are reimagined as traditional quilt blocks.

Concept sketch of unsolicited proposal created by Borden to illustrate the large-format barn quilts installed on the west side of the abandoned dairy barn at Buford Park in Eugene, Oregon.

Enviro Barn Quilts on display at Landscape Makers exhibition, LaVerne Krause Gallery, Lawrence Hall, University of Oregon, Winter 2022.

The final series of large-format mixed-media barn quilt designs were inspired by regional Pacific Northwest narratives in response to the 2020 wildfire season, which was noted as one of the most extensive seasons on record. The 44-inch square quilt-block patterns were created from recycled hazardous material signs to communicate community memorial, testament, critique, respect, and celebration of wildfires as an ecological phenomenon. While telling the story of the 2020 fire season, the work addresses larger issues of climate change, human impact, industrial practice, personal experience, community activism, and the future of wildfire response in the PNW forests.

Some quilt designs, such as Monkey Wrench and Burnt Bear Paw are reinterpreted traditional folk patterns that continue to resonate with contemporary environmental narratives. Other designs were created anew in response to local community chronicles. These neo-folk pieces, with titles such as Wind Event, Back-40 Block Aid, and Chevron Fossus Mortis, push the folk tradition into new narrative territory as humanity reckons with novel ecological challenges brought on by climate change.

Select Enviro Barn Quilts reconfigured as a stand alone cube for a pop-up community event at the University of Oregon’s Urban Farm in the fall of 2021.

Artist rendering of historic use of silk “EWS decoder” scarf within a snowy New England landscape, circa 1860.

Environmental Wayfinding System interpretation pull-out (unfolded) from A People’s Guide to Ecological Collapse, staple-bound, folded, Canadian forest pulp paper, and petrochemical feedstock ink, 10 × 15 inches, 2025.

Charcoal facsimile of field documentation of EWS symbols found in Toronto railyard, circa 1933. Author unknown.

Charcoal facsimile of field documentation of EWS symbols found along Oregon coastal trail, circa 1929. Author unknown.

Charcoal facsimile of field documentation of EWS symbols found on Kansas barn, circa 1936. Author unknown.

Charcoal facsimile of field documentation of EWS symbols found along Chesapeak Bay docks, circa 1927. Author unknown.

Charcoal facsimile of field documentation of EWS symbols found in Harvard Forest, circa 1953. Author unknown.

Reproduction two-color silkscreen-print on 20" square cotton bandana. Limited-edition of 100. Collaboration between Jenny Ginn and David Buckley Borden. Available for purchase here.

Environmental Wayfinding System, No. 1., 18 X 24 inches one-color silkscreen print on 100lb Chipboard Kraft French Paper. Signed and numbered. Edition of 10. Collaborators David Buckley Borden and Helen Popinchalk. Print is available here for purchase.

Tigard Universal Beacon at dusk, Spring 2021. Photography by Alicia J. Rose.

Tigard Universal Beacon at night, Spring 2021. Lighting Design by Chris Herring. Photography by Alicia J. Rose.

Tigard Universal Beacon, tower detail, Winter 2021. Photography by Alicia J. Rose.

WIP photography; installation by Pike Awning on day one of two-day fabric install.

Study drawing with scaffolding installed on site in background.

Field test of fabric performance on scaffolding mock-up.

Early concept drawing of tower component.

Early concept drawing of fabric wrap and colorway.

Early concept drawing of colorway and night time performance.

“New England Futures Scenario Quadrant,” digital drawing, 7.5 x 11 inches, 2016. Illustrative New England quadrant visualization featuring government and population as two driving scenario forces. Illustration based on photography of Fisher Museum land-use diorama at Harvard Forest. Collaboration with Jonathan Thompson et al.

“Future New England Landscape Scenarios No. 2 of 4; High Population and High Government,” digital drawing, 7.5 x 11 inches, 2016. Illustration based on photography of Fisher Museum land-use diorama at Harvard Forest.

“Future New England Landscape Scenarios No. 4 of 4; Low Population and Low Government,” digital drawing, 7.5 x 11 inches, 2016. Illustration based on photography of Fisher Museum land-use diorama at Harvard Forest.

“Future New England Landscape Scenario No. 22,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2016. 

Illustration based on audit of Harvard Forest lab meeting at which researchers shared findings from scenario focus group in Burlington VT.

Sea levels rise by 22 feet. “Climate Change Refugees” flee East Coast. Cape Cod Diaspora inundates Vermont commons and coopts town meetings. Dairy farms lose ground to “Field & Stream” condo development. First covered car wash bridge opens in summer of 2049 in West Arlington, Vermont.

“Landscape Futures Prop Kit,” wood, rope, paper, acrylic, recycled knobs, dials, and miscellaneous hardware, dimensions vary, 2016. Collaboration with Dr. Matthew Duveneck.

Pedagogical props as teaching tool for landscape futures outreach. Kit of familiar forms serve as prompts for understanding scenario computer modeling and implications of future New England landscape scenarios over the next 50 years.

“Climate Change Data Stick,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2017. 

Illustration series exploring speculative design as medium to communicate feedback loops between culture and environment within future New England landscape scenarios. 

“Timber Drone,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2017. 

“Back 40 Eco Monitor,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2017. 

“Suburban Backyard Filter System,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2017. 

“EAB Pestilence Woodshed,” digital illustration, 8 x 10 inches, 2016. 

“Wildfire as Ecological Constraint,” digital illustration of physical prop, 8 x 10 inches, 2016. 

Don’t Give Up Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2018. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

An Appeal to All Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2020. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

Local Extinction Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2019. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

Royal Wetland Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2021. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

Sixth Extinction Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2019. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

Bunk Hill Flag, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2018. Collaborators: David Buckley Borden and Michael Demaggio.

Wetland Command Flag 2.0, marine-grade canvas, 3 x 5 feet, 2020. Collaborators David Buckley Borden, Michael Demaggio, and Ian Escher Vierck

Commemorative Ice Picks, concept sketch based on vintage ice picks, Winter 2024.

Site map with major beloved features and assets, both cultural and environmental. The creative direction for this series of proposal drawings embraces the site’s land-use and local history; natural, cultural, and shared.

Local geologic stratum serves as the visual framework to communicate the team’s empathetic approach to the master planning and the implementation process.

Artifacts found on site are recast as potential site futures with the addition of simple annotation. Traditional annotated drawings, a staple of landscape architecture and planning practices, are playfully upended to communicate design intentions, including inspiring visions for the future based on local land-use history.

This John Audubon inspired representation poetically presents the team organizational chart as an ecosystem diagram. Local flora and fauna graphics speak to the team’s dedication to landscape stewardship and its environmentally sensitive ethos. The non-hierarchical organization is a nod to the fact that the collaborative structure is dynamic, responsive, and inter-dependent. However, the team’s function is firmly centered on the needs of local communities.

This inspired reinterpretation of a wind rose diagram casts the landscape’s land-use practices in terms of sustainability from the past into the near future. The diagrams communicate an understanding of sustainable practices in a simple four quadrant wind rose format. Iconic Hudson River images serve as the graphic texture to the diagrams and nod to the site’s rich history.

Historic photographs of on-site brickmaking are presented as a visual metaphor that liken brickmaking to the team’s planning process, which is driven by a generative feedback loop between culture and ecology.

As with many creative collaborations, the exchange of novel ideas, applications, and critiques influences all active participants. Creative influence tends to flow both ways when it comes to generative feedback loops. This tendency is often strengthened within the context of an interdisciplinary team. There are clear examples of Borden’s direct influence on Agency project work. The effect of Agency, as a design culture and group of individual designers, also influenced Borden. For example, Borden’s diagrams on collaboration and experimentation, developed for an independent publication on interdisciplinary science-communication clearly builds off graphic tropes he was exposed to while in residence at Agency Landscape and Planning.

The Agency AIR presented Borden with opportunities to leverage pre-existing work from his back catalogue of landscape-related artwork. For example, to round out a creative direction for an RFP, Borden combined select “Environmental Flag” graphics with site photographs to produce a series of stylized page dividers for the final submission over the course of an afternoon. These drawings are a simple case of leveraging an artist’s creative capital to add value to a new collaborative effort. It represents a practical win-win opportunity for both the visual artist and the landscape architecture and planning studio.

Novel Ecosystem Generator made in part from recycled research field equipment at the Harvard Forest. Array of centrifugal fans spin with breeze.

Safety feature turned op art detail on backside of Novel Ecosystem Generator.

Novel Ecosystem Generator, concept model, wood, rubber bands, acrylic paint, 2 x 7 x 21 inches, 2019.

The culmination of the Hibernaculum Residency was an immersive exhibition at the Innovation and Design Building in Boston's Seaport District. The multidisciplinary installation featured a variety of work ranging in scale and media. Much of this work included collaborative design and production with a cast of collaborators ranging from painters and lettering artists to wood workers. View select Gallery installation work here. 

The foundation of the Hibernaculum is a series of one-page landscape installation proposals. Proposals are intended to meet at the intersection of popular culture and pressing ecology. Accessibility to the general public is central to each proposal as a means to promote greater landscape appreciation and environmental awareness. Select proposals were constructed on site at Eagle Lake and/or in the Innovation and Design Building gallery. View select one-page proposals here. 

A series of light-touch landscape installations were made in and around the property of the Trifecta Editions residency. For example, hand painted sign (pictured) with lettering artist John Cronan. Other installations include Hibernaculum Woodpile Target, Wetland Forest Flag, Geologic Site Marker and more. View select on-site installations here. 

The Hibernaculum project features a collaborative silkscreen print series with Trifecta Editions. The print series, inspired by time spent on Eagle Lake, center on the ecology and natural history of the Adirondack Mountains. View select prints here. 

Camp Bug Out Pack, bricolage sculptures, wood, antler shed, paracord, acrylic paint, vinyl, canvas, wood glue, assorted hardware, leather mitts, and upcycled junk, dimensions vary, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Crap Creek Paddle, upcycled wood paddle, broken BB gun, canvas, rawhide, and assorted hardware, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Our Dear Slingshot, antler shed, paracord, rawhide, and rubber tubing, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Downeast Home Hatchet, reclaimed 10” Dewalt chop saw blade, copper rivets, hickory handle, paracord, and vinyl, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Downeast Home Hatchet (detail), reclaimed 10” Dewalt chop saw blade, copper rivets, hickory handle, paracord, and vinyl, 2019. The Borden Boys.

David’s Bowie Knife, reclaimed knife blade, antler shed, copper rivets, and paracord, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Fishing Jam, reclaimed ribbon spool, wood, fishing line, Jasmine’s childhood bobber, paracord, glue, and Guinness can tab, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Signal Mitts and Swappable Symbols, leather mittens, canvas, paracord, glue, and thread, dimensions vary, 2019. The Borden Boys.

CDB Camp Bug Out Stove, upcycled cans, Maine license plate, and assorted hardware, 2019. The Borden Boys.

Sasaki on-site installation crew taking a break for the flash bulbs.

Fig. 13.3 Spatial patterns produced by three groups of processes. (a) Separate patterns; (b) planned refers to the area as a whole; (c) unplanned refers to the area as a whole, though some or many places are highly planned and designed. Green area = natural vegetation; white = agriculture; coarse grid = residential; fine grid = commercial. 

Fig 12.8. Models of mosaic sequences. Each area starts 100% dark green and is progressively replaced by a white new-land-type (light green is simply used to identify locations of new land type during the 10% to 50% replacement period). White land type surrounds the landscape. Illustration based on original figure prepared by Kristina Hill. 

Fig. 9.10 Six types of landscape based on predominant spatial pattern. (Adapted from Forman (1990b).

Fig. 4.13. Shapes suggesting past origin, present functioning, and future change.

Fig.9.12. habitat interspersion, adjacencies, and convergency points.

A result of interspersing more than two habitats is to produce convergency points ('junctions' or type of 'convert'). Design (a) has one convergency point, while design (d) has two. Such locations are of special importance to certain species. Convergency points are important well beyond wildlife habitat. They are often funnels for flows of water, eroded particulates, and mineral nutrients, as well as for moving animals. Thus, they are ideal locations for predators and hunters. Indeed, for the same reason, they are ideal for wildlife-observing blinds and platforms (Forman, 2006). Convergence locations are also ideal for ecological-based landscape interventions such as hibernaculum (Borden, 2014). 

Fig. 3.13. Eight common boundary surfaces

Fig 3.12. Wildlife usage and movement relative to boundary curvilinearity. Woodland is pinyon-juniper and grassland is grama-sagebrush. Scattered green dots represent elk (Cervus) and mule deer (Odocoileus), based on track and scat densities. Solid arrows indicate much movement, dashed arrows, intermediate movement, and dotted arrows little movement. P = predator movement (coyote, Canis). Summary patterns based on unpublished data of R. Forman, D. Smith, and S. Collinge from near Taos, New Mexico (USA). 

Fig. 7.4 Flow rates and stream-bottom particle sizes along river mosaic. Numbers 1 to 8 are sections along the river differentiated by a distinct change or boundary. Dotted line = hillslope. Material entering laterally from a tributary or in subsurface flow also passes through patches and boundaries. Flow rates and particle sizes are represented by large, medium, and small arrows and circles.

Fig. 2.3.  Generalized patterns of wind speed and productivity in a field. Relative to average wind speed over forest, thick arrows in field indicate accelerated, and dashed arrows reduced wind speed. Un-shaded areas of field indicate low plant productivity. 

Fig. 9.1. Flows or movements in an ecosystem cluster and a catena. (a) Flows between a patch and its surroundings in relation to distance and ecosystem or land use type. Amounts of flow indicated by arrows line weights. (b) Flows among five soils in a catena. Adapted from Hole & Campbell (1985) and Woodmansee (1990). 

Fig 10.8. Downwind smoke and pollutant deposits related to temperatures above the ground. Adapted from Geiger (1965). 

Fig. 6.9. Distinctive windbreak patterns around pastures. (a) to (d) Suggestions for the northern Great Plains of North America (Dronen 1988). (e) used successfully in North America in conjunction with Today I Learned (TIL) education movement (Borden 2014). Orientation is determined by wind and snowstorm directions.

Ecosystem in action.

Mixed media: Ink, graphite, colored pencil and carbon transfer on paper, 8.5 x 11”, Winter 2012.

As the keystone species of North America’s Great Plains, bison (buffalo) shaped America’s grassland ecological system for millenniums. Before man re-shaped this vast ecosystem with sprawling networks of housing, agriculture, industry and infrastructure, the American Bison were the crucial player in maintaining this delicately balanced land of grass, fire, and migrating herds. Today, less than 1% of America’s “pre-discovery” prairie grasslands remain and approximately only 4,000 “wild” buffalo remain, down from an estimated 80 million buffalo in the mid-1800’s.  

Mixed Media Series: Pencil, ink, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", October 2009 to present, Series of 73 as of May 2015.

Buffalo Head Source: Harper’s Magazine. Publication date and artist unknown.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2012.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2010.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, digital typography on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2011.

“In Cornwall, Connecticut, and wherever iron was made in the Birkshires, you may still see where burning mounds were: the hardwood is coming back in those hills, except for the chestnut, which reaches about ten feet before it browns and succumbs to the blight of 1904.” (Sloane, 1965)

If you didn’t know better, you might believe the chestnut tree is making a comeback. The chestnut blight (caused by infection of Diaporthe parasitica, a fungus imported from Japan on nursery stock) is a cruel organism; just as the chestnut sapling appears to have made its triumphant return and is ready to shoot up to be a mighty tree of yore. It doesn't. The diseased tree remains in a sad arrested state of poor health.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2011.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, water color paint, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2010.

Mixed media: Pen, pencil, carbon transfer on paper, 8" x 10", Spring 2010.

The Massachuset and Wampanoag tribes called the land Borden grew up in “Nanamooskeagin,” or “land of many beavers.” Sadly, the only castor canadensis Borden seen in his hometown are found on the Abington town seal at the top of property tax bills.

Silkscreen print on Rives BFK grey paper, 8 x 10", Spring 2013.

Beaver Head Source: Curious Woodcuts of Fanciful and Real Beasts, Gesner, Konrad, ed. New York Dover Publications, Inc. 1973.

Tossed Wall

The Tossed Wall is architectural evidence of agriculture. As fields were cleared for tilling, these stonewalls were literally tossed into existence, one stone at a time, at the edge of an agricultural field. The form of a tossed wall is loose and often far wider than tall. The builder’s goal was to dump the stone, stacking it up was unnecessary. 

Disposal Wall

Similar to the Tossed Wall, the Disposal Wall is also a byproduct of agriculture. In some cases the Disposal Wall was initially a Tossed Wall that had been rebuilt in an effort to tidy up the farm. The Disposal Wall is built from two single stack walls, where the resultant void is filed with smaller fieldstones. This type of disposal wall is evidence of successful agriculture.

Pasture Wall

The Pasture Wall, also known as a farm wall, was built to contain livestock and is the most common type of stonewall in New England. This wall is characterized by large stones and typically lacks the smaller stones of an agriculture related wall. The wood rails that once made up most of the wall’s height and ensured that livestock stayed put, have long since rotted. 

Gentleman's Wall

The Gentleman’s Farm Wall or Estate Wall is neither the direct result of agriculture nor husbandry, but is a statement of values and achievement. This wall communicates pride, order, and wealth by means of craftsmanship. The wall’s tight one-over-two construction, consistent batter, and capstone, were of significant expense and beyond the reach of most thrifty New England farmers.

Whiskey Wall

The Whiskey Wall is arguably the most misunderstood and misclassified stonewall typology. There is serious debate as to the exact origin of the name. Some historians claim it is called a Whiskey Wall because it was built under the influence of whiskey. As one can easily imagine, “walling under the influence” lends to poor construction practice and eventually leads to the wall’s failure. Others claim it is called a Whiskey Wall because it was destroyed by drunk hunters, likely trying to flush out an animal from within the wall.