Walking with Site: From embodied ritual practice to situated relationship

In landscape architecture, we work with the living world. The language we use to describe this work often relates to how we speak about relationships; we use words like agency, dynamics, boundaries, listening, relationality, and care. When speaking about how landscape architecture interacts with the more-than-human world, a notable gap in this language is consent (Morehouse, 2023). Consent frameworks provide a structure for how to engage in action between living beings (Martin, 2021). They can range in their structure and application, but they are essential for respecting autonomy and for fostering ethical interactions between living beings. We are accustomed to these frameworks in human-to-human relationships, and with imagination, they may also offer an opportunity to expand how we approach and interact with the more-than-human world. Approaching a site and its inhabitants with the intention of seeking consent before taking actions may help to raise our awareness of the living world and its abundant communication back to us. This thesis topic is theoretically centered around using the language of consent in a landscape architecture/design context in combination with a ritual walking practice as a method to realize opportunities of communication and relationship between human and more-than-human agents.

Sited at Milton Airfield in Charlottesville, Virginia, this project was conducted through 12 site visits in February through April 2025. Following an established ritual walking structure, and allowing that shape to change based on the conditions, curiosities, and observations, a relationship to site unfolds through embodied attunement. Walking only happens at the body scale, and observations made in a specific place invite in-situ interaction. Methods of walking and seeking consent are connected through shared grounding in embodied practices. Together they support the development of personal connection. Within an educational context, this method of site engagement offers rich potential for students to experience a gradual familiarity with site to develop over time. Students can integrate their experiences into the ways that think about, approach, and engage with site with an understanding for how building relationships takes time.