Project write up: Research and Co-Design for Autonomy in Himalayan Climate Adaptation (2024)

Dane Carlson, Sonam Lama & Yungdrung Tsewang Gurung

In the Nepali Himalaya, Lubra village is being slowly buried by climate crisis-induced mud flows. The aim of this project is to develop a climate migration plan for Lubra through a co-design process centering place-based knowledge and experience. 

Methods objectives:

• Develop an applied research process tying climate-oriented landscape architecture practice to theories including autonomous design and design justice. 

• Co-produce a body of village landscape knowledge with all community members and socio-cultural groups through small group meetings, individual interviews, and in-situ landscape mapping. 

• In small co-design workshops, use scenario planning methods to design desired futures for village migration, and paths toward those futures, specific to each community group. 

• Following the conclusion of co-design, develop a draft migration plan, present this draft for feedback at an all-community meeting, and finalize the plan in response.

Outputs objectives:

• Produce a village migration plan proposing spatial strategies for the village’s uphill movement over the coming months, years, and decades.

• Rather than novel design intervention, document proposed spatial strategies as situated within a continuum of changing landscape practices, labor arrangements, climate-induced landscape shifts, identity, and community-government relationships.

• Drawing on lessons learned, produce scholarship and a methods framework facilitating future design supporting community-led responses to climate crisis.