Zihao Zhang

City College of New York | CCNY · Spitzer School of Architecture

This paper investigates the idea of cultivated wildness at the intersection of landscape design and artificial intelligence. The paper posits that contemporary landscape practices should overcome the potentially single understanding on wilderness, and instead explore landscape strategies to cultivate new forms of wild places via ideas and concerns...

There have been theory-based endeavours that directly engage with AI and ML in the landscape discipline. By presenting a case that uses machine learning techniques to predict variables in a coastal environment, this paper provides empirical evidence of the forthcoming cybernetic environment , in which designers are conceptualized not as authors but...

This paper maps out a new paradigm of prototyping that acts as an alternative to the model-making paradigm. By juxtaposing the cybernetics movement with landscape design, the authors have mapped out a development in landscape discourse that mirrors the movement of cybernetics in the 20th century and early 21st century. The early deterministic and l...

This position paper argues for, and offers, a critical lens through which to examine the current AI frenzy in the landscape architecture profession. In it, the authors propose five archetypes or mental modes that landscape architects might inhabit when thinking about AI. Rather than limiting judgments of AI use to a single axis of acceleration, the...

This position paper argues for, and offers, a critical lens through which to examine the current AI frenzy in the landscape architecture profession. In it, the authors propose five archetypes or mental modes that landscape architects might inhabit when thinking about AI. Rather than limiting judgments of AI use to a single axis of acceleration, the...

This paper introduces ELUA, the Ecological Laboratory for Urban Agriculture, a collaboration among landscape architects, architects and computer scientists who specialize in artificial intelligence, robotics and computer vision. ELUA has two gantry robots, one indoors and the other outside on the rooftop of a 6-story campus building. Each robot can...

This paper introduces ELUA, the Ecological Laboratory for Urban Agriculture, a collaboration among landscape architects, architects and computer scientists who specialize in artificial intelligence, robotics and computer vision. ELUA has two gantry robots, one indoors and the other outside on the rooftop of a 6-story campus building. Each robot can...

This paper presents a case study of establishing a landscape laboratory – the Ecological Laboratory for Urban Agriculture (ELUA) within the City College of New York’s landscape architecture program. In the past two decades, many university landscape architecture programs have incorporated laboratories with machines and a “laboratory culture” as bot...

This article maps out landscape architects’ expertise in multidisciplinary, comprehensive climate adaptation discourse. Systemic frameworks and process-driven approaches in contemporary Landscape Architecture discipline can become a powerful tool for harnessing unprecedented solidarity for climate actions across fields. However, landscape expertise...

This paper investigates a type of “post-digital” practice that constructs “evidence” instead of“data” and relies on the “narrative-driven” instead of “data-driven” method to influence public opinion. This approach to digital landscape practice addresses the dilemma in the “post-truth era,” in which public opinions are driven by emotion and empathy...

Crowdsourced Personal Weather Stations (PWSs) adoption has been growing rapidly and provides the potential to fill in hyper-local rainfall observation gaps. However, current adoption patterns exhibit spatial biases that must be understood when using the data for modeling and decision-making. Here, we first examine the PWS rainfall spatial represent...

Taking on a historical lens, this paper traces the development of cybernetics and systems thinking back to the 1950s, when a group of interdisciplinary scholars converged to create a new theoretical model based on machines and systems for understanding matters of meaning, information, consciousness , and life. By presenting a genealogy of research...

Taking on a historical lens, this paper traces the development of cybernetics and systems thinking back to the 1950s, when a group of interdisciplinary scholars converged to create a new theoretical model based on machines and systems for understanding matters of meaning, information, consciousness, and life. By presenting a genealogy of research i...

In this chapter, we trace the evolution of a collaboration, from submission of a grant proposal through the first year of research, focusing on the kinds of expertise both shared and gained by the members of a team Gorman gradually formed with the goal of gaining sufficient T-shaped and interactional expertise to understand whether and how sensors,...

Lagoon-barrier systems are a dynamic coastal environment. When an ephemeral connection between a lagoon and the ocean develops, it has significant impact on hydrology, sedimentology and ecology. Increasingly, human actions and sea level rise also influence lagoons with the potential to increase their connectivity with the ocean. The Muni-Pomadze la...

The authors examine the problem of integrating urban sensing into engaged planning. The authors ask whether enhanced urban data and analysis can enhance resident engagement in planning and design, rather than hinder it, even when current urban planning and design practices are dysfunctional. The authors assess the outcomes of a planning and design...

The discipline of landscape architecture has developed an ecological design framework that relies on process-based strategies and systems thinking to manipulate the environment. In this essay, we want to unpack and articulate this landscape design paradigm with the notion of attunement. But before moving into Morton and his attunement concept, we w...

There have been theory-based endeavours that directly engage with AI and ML in the landscape discipline. By presenting a case that uses machine learning techniques to predict variables in a coastal environment, this paper provides empirical evidence of the forthcoming cybernetic environment, in which designers are conceptualized not as authors but...

Being able to create data is important for designers to frame problems and ask the appropriate questions in the big data world. In this paper, we present the Community-Centred Urban Sensing approach and introduce the DIY (Do-It-Yourself) urban sensing strategy. This strategy possesses great potential for designers to create multi-dimensional, multi...

Current ecological thinking posits humans as the major contributor to the changing environment. Drawing ecological theories from science and philosophy, this paper suggests that designers should prioritize the study of human interactions with the environment in landscape research, and thus, human factors need to be addressed in developing and conce...