In Lausanne, Switzerland the harmonious relationship of material densification and nature is challenged in the nooks and crannies where a so-called delinquent population vandalizes the built environment.
Tag, You’re It! challenges the ownership of the urban landscape design process by offering up control of material and vegetal palettes in the city. In recognition of the passivity of existing planting schemes and the aggression of emergent delinquency on the site, Tag, You’re It! joins in the most basic form of offering agency back to the public.
By acknowledging both that cities grow from conflict and that emergent paradigms are revealed by challenging the status quo, the site is activated via a participatory process that places landscape at the center of the conflict. We provide only techniques and materials, and the public chooses how and where to deploy vegetation, proliferating the city in a form that does not rely on a preconceived planting scheme. The contradiction of planned landscape is challenged by the emergent possibilities of public agency in the urban environment.
Tag, You're It! earned an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Lausanne Jardins International Garden Festival.
Designed by James Chesnut and Christopher Reznich.