Landscapes of Retreat
ROSETTA S. ELKIN

Landscapes of Retreat are portraits of climate adaptation. Retreat is found in the land that is left behind as settlement patterns shift due to a changing climate. The term landscape refers to the earth animated by the aliveness of creatures and organisms, and the term retreat suggests that human patterns are not fixed but might also be enlivened. Taken together, the stories in this book suggest that communities are more likely to adapt to change when the landscape is appreciated, so that retreat can be valued. The results cutacross history, fieldwork, citizenship, and geography in order to rethink and rework “change” as a means toward shared climate futures.

Landscape—The earth animated by multispecies activity, including layers of habitat from foundations to footprints.

Retreat—Habitation patterns that meaningfully engage processes of the landscape from climate dynamics to coastal erosion.

This publication is an expression of the collaborative spirit of Practice Landscape, a research­-driven, process oriented design studio created by Rosetta S. Elkin in 2006. Practice Landscape engages with nature and culture in correspondence, working across narrative and image­-based methods that bridge gardening, cura­tion, and publication. Rosetta is also Associate Professor and Academic Director of Landscape Architecture at Pratt Institute, and an Associate of the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. Her work pays attention to how humans order, archive, and examine the natural world across time, as expressed in her publications, including Plant Life: The Entangled Politics of Afforestation and Tiny Taxonomy: Individual Plants in Landscape Architecture.

Winner of the 2024 J.B. Jackson Book Award Landscape Studies Initiative, University of Virginia.


Landscapes of Retreat, Second Edition is available for purchase through K. Verlag.