Echo(Junwei)

About me

Childhood environment will shape the way how children think about the world. That is how I start to connect myself with nature and landscape.

My growing experience is diversity. I have lived in a remote village, a small town and a city. I spent most of my childhood time with my grandparents in a remote village, where can close to and felt nature. I will be running barefoot on the historical slate with thick moss around the village or lying under the canopy of the tall cypress tree nearby the edge of the village to see the blue sky with pure clouds.

When I got older, I moved with my parents to the city which calls Changde, in the middle south of China. I hate the concrete pavement, smoking chimney and river, which looks like stagnant water with stink. Then I will miss the time in the remote village. However, everything changed when I moved to the city. My village starts to decay. I cannot experience the same thing I used to be. My growing experience made me think about why our surrounding landscape changed like this and how we can bring back nature and the environment as we remember.

Thus, I chose landscape architecture as my major, and the relationship between humans and nature interests me.

Project description

This project explores how people in the Skaftafell area are contributing to vegetation succession through human activities in order to find a balance between man and nature in the context of the global warming crisis. By examining the impact of human movement on seed dispersal and considering the potential for sustainable coexistence, the project proposes design interventions that promote harmony between development and nature. The aim is to achieve an equilibrium where the ecosystem in Skaftafell evolves and adapts, with increased vegetation, improved soil conditions, and a better structure of plant life, while addressing the challenges posed by climate change.

Damage & Potential

The data clearly indicates that summer is the busiest season for the area, the fastest growing period for plants, and the time of year with the highest number of visitors. Concurrently, farmers allow their sheep and cattle to graze in the meadows outside their farms. Historically, overgrazing in Iceland has led to the degradation of meadows. Furthermore, some travelers in Iceland have been known to cause damage to the native habitat.

This reduction in vegetation cover can have a significant impact on vegetation succession. In the initial stages of vegetation succession, such as in moss and heathland areas, human trampling can directly damage the vegetation, delaying the establishment of a stable plant community. This can result in prolonged soil exposure and erosion, reducing the chances of more complex vegetation communities establishing themselves.

People engage in various activities while walking, such as fast or slow walking, standing, ascending, descending, climbing, and sitting. All these actions can interact with vegetation. As people walk around, seeds may inadvertently attach to them. Additionally, the strong winds in Skaftafell can blow seeds away when people are sitting or standing, or the seeds may simply fall off on their own.

Walking Journey

For tourists, this journey is about hiking and enjoying the stunning views of Skaftafell. However, for vegetation, this journey is about helping them spread their seeds to new locations beyond their natural dispersal range. People will start the journey from the beginning point of the S4 trail. First, they will pass through dense birch woodland. As they walk through it, the seeds of birch trees will attach to them unconsciously. After walking up a slight incline, they will encounter Site 1 – the seed bank.