My graduation project proposes an ecological and economic model for rewilding San Miguel Island by re-claiming disused architectural, industrial, and infrastructural landscapes and harnessing their unique microclimates to grow native and endemic Azorean flora.  

It ties the island’s burgeoning ecotourism industry to the preservation of its cultural and ecological landscape by weaving a 75km trail across San Miguel’s historical, cultural, and natural features. In exchange for access to the trail infrastructure, hikers provide the labour to maintain and expand the rewilded landscape.  

Over time a new, synthetic form of Azorean ‘wilderness’ emerges that at first resemble the forests of the past but represent something new – a dynamic, hybrid ecology that adapts to the conditions of a post-human landscape and a changing climate for the benefit of humans and more-than-humans.

Umberto Eco’s conception of an ‘open project’ – an artwork in process without a fixed conclusion, ending, or meaning – continues to inspire my approach to design as a speculative, iterative form of research. 

I have always been inspired by the perceived tension between humans and ‘nature’ and the posthuman – a movement to expand the scope of design beyond the human by rejecting the notion that the environment is a conceptually or morally neutral space. 

I’m also inspired by designers and theorists exploring how digital tools can be used to see into the past and project into the future. Landscape architects Christophe Girot and Bradley Cantrell advocate for the use of digital tools to synthesize and animate the instable forces that shape a landscape and have inspired my own digital practice over the last two years. 

What have been the highlights of your time at ECA and Edinburgh? 

Edinburgh is such an exciting place to study landscape architecture! The constantly changing weather and dramatic topography invite endless interpretations of the landscape.  

While here I was also involved in ESALA Climate Action, a group of students and staff working to address the Climate Emergency in the school’s pedagogy, research, and community practices. This was an amazing opportunity to get to know colleagues from outside the MLA program. 

How have the events over the past two years affected your work? 

With opportunities to conduct in-person fieldwork limited by travel restrictions, I turned to simulation in lieu of observation as a way of developing a more objective and nuanced view of landscape dynamics. The challenges posed by working digitally forced me to learn new tools and changed the way I think about design and ultimately inspired my PhD proposal. 

Have you got plans for after graduating? 

I will be starting in the Doctor of Design program at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in August where I will continue to refine the digital design methods I began developing at ESALA.