Conservation Design Workshop, April 6 - 8
April 09, 2018
Collaborative Design and Design Systems address real world problems by, well, getting out in the real world. Our Conservation Design workshop, led by program chair Peter Schoonmaker, introduced students to landscapes and stakeholders beyond Portland. We visited the iconic "Shire" on the Columbia River, where the campaign to protect the Columbia River Gorge was launched. We spoke with conservationists and planners in Hood River, looked at recreation use in Smith Rock State Park, sage grouse habitat in eastern Oregon, and old-growth juniper woodlands in central Oregon. Along the way we saw the effects of gentrification across the state, and noted divergent attitudes and common values held by rural and urban community. Moving toward understanding, time for some problem definition.