Reseachers in this cluster study the productive landscape that includes farms, forests, and power and waste infrastructures as a central inquiry within the discipline of landscape architecture. Historically, landscape architects synthesized environmental conservation, productive landscapes, and aesthetic theory in their work. In the latter half of the 20th century, design of the productive landscape largely shifted to other professions and industries, separating working landscapes from ecological or aesthetic landscapes; research on productive landscapes seeks to explore and bridge this rift. We use the agricultural Willamette Valley and the extractive landscapes of the Pacific Northwest as our laboratory, leveraging the department’s Urban Farm in Eugene and Fuller Center for Productive Landscapes in Pennsylvania as intellectual homes for experimentation and collaboration. Faculty members within the department working in this realm offer the potential to connect research to campus and regional partners such as the University of Oregon’s Food Studies Program or the US Forest Service’s H. J. Andrews Experimental Research Forest.

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