South Dakota Transect: 44 Degrees North

HONOR AWARD

Communications

Sioux Falls, SD, USA | Thomas Schneider, Student Affiliate ASLA; Carter Roberts, Student Affiliate ASLA; Rachel Drietz, Student Affiliate ASLA; Erika Roeber, Student Affiliate ASLA; Kyle Franta, Student Affiliate ASLA; Caleb Tschetter, Student ASLA | Undergraduate | Faculty Advisor: Kevin Benham
South Dakota State University

PROJECT STATEMENT

South Dakota Transect is an accordion book that transects the state of South Dakota in half from West to East along the 44th parallel and looks at the plant material along that parallel through its association and dependence on climate, temperature, precipitation, soil substrate, top soil, organic matter, water holding capacity and other cultural requirements. The state of South Dakota, located in the Northern Great Plains, is divided in half by the Missouri River. At first glance, the state appears to have a fairly homogenous distribution of plant material, but through this transect, the diversity of plant material across the state is revealed and clearly articulates the differences in plant populations and the reasons those specific species populate the regions across this particular stretch of the Northern Great Plains.

PROJECT NARRATIVE

For the past decade, schools of landscape architecture have jettisoned plant materials in their curricula as a result of an increasing emphasis on landscape urbanism, urban infrastructure, and larger scale regional planning. This accordion book, produced in a planting design course, argues that the two are not mutually exclusive and expands the scope of planting design to include and emphasize the factors that determine the location of native species within a given biome.

As such, the students developed a simple framework to illustrate the relationship between climate, temperature, precipitation, soil substrate, and water holding capacity and the plant material present in a given location. For that framework, the students chose to strike a line through the 44th parallel and develop a section through the state of South Dakota. This division holds particular resonance by the fact that the state is almost perfectly situated in the middle of the Continental United States, the state itself is divided in half by the Missouri River and the students then chose to divide the state in half horizontally along the 44th parallel.

The resulting accordion book transects the state and elucidates the particular relationships that determine the plant material in a specific locale. At first glance, the state appears to have a fairly homogenous distribution of plant material, but through this transect, the diversity of plant material across the state is revealed and clearly articulates the differences in plant populations and the reasons those specific species populate the regions across this particular stretch of the Northern Great Plains.

The accordion book will be reproduced and distributed to design professionals in the state of South Dakota with the intent of providing those professionals with a useful tool in their design arsenal for implementing planting designs that are aligned with the cultural requirements of each specific biome and region in the Northern Great Plains.

“This project disseminates in a very clear and legible way critical information to the client, the public, and the profession. The simplicity of the graphics is stunning. I loved the relationship of the plants to the ecological zones. I loved the information.”

- 2016 Awards Jury