Speculating Tradition
traditions are inventive and innovative
As one year laps since October 7th and the 2024 National ASLA begins in Washington DC, foreign policy continues to inform Americans relationship with the environment. With growing environmental concerns, it’s imperative we look beyond modernity.
Bombing the desert
Since its inception, Israel has promoted itself as “blooming the desert.” Despite the posture, the United State’s ironclad alliance with Israel has sent billions of dollars to military aide which has lead to thousands of pounds of explosives dropped on the Levant. Under the presumption of peace and prosperity, “turning gaza into a parking lot” or “bombing Palestinians into the stone ages” is somehow meant to bolster a vision for the Middle East which will advance a more civilized world. However, when modern warfare and modern development has created the climate crisis we are in, are we really in need of a tabula rasa agenda which will pave the way for another planned unit development or skyscraper?
Lo-TEK
Julia Watson, the keynote speaker for the 2024 National ASLA conference, has promoted an alternative vision called Lo-TEK (local, traditional ecological knowledge). By revisiting the ancient and accumulated environmental wisdoms of indigenous societies, Lo-TEK promotes alternative ways of living with nature. While learning from non-Western societies is maybe novel for the West, learning from the past to make future decisions isn’t. For example, many Enlightenment thinkers were drawing upon ancient philosophers to form new state configurations outside the Church. Despite Arabs translators playing an important role of reviving Greek literature, whether in government or academia how many examples are there of people learning and understanding the multiple overlapping MENA (Middle East & North Africa) dynasties, philosophies, cultures and technologies for the betterment of the West?
Traversing Tradition
Traditional knowledge can provide many possibilities for our modern world. While there are many parts of the world which are worthy of study, the Arab world is not only often neglected but attacked as a source of inspiration. For my graduate thesis, I’m interested in exploring how the modern world can benefit from traditional water infrastructure knowledge of the Palestinian village of Battir as a case study. While the work is still nascent, one of the objectives of the work is encourage designers and engineers to widen their aperture for what is innovation especially from places which are often not given the proper attention.
