LA+ Journal: Simulation: Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture [Paperback]

Our epoch has been dubbed the Anthropocene Era to mark the significance of human activities as the greatest force of environmental change. The distinctions between biology/technology, organic/synthetic, and natural/artificial are increasingly impossible to maintain. Cloned sheep, climate models, digitally-printed tissue and lab-grown meat  this is not the nature of our predecessors. This issue of LA+ addresses the theme of SIMULATION in terms of how recent technologies have changed how we understand the nature of nature. From Platos Cave to Baudrillards Simulacrum, simulations were historically understood as counterfeits or facsimiles and were based on the distinction between a model and its copy. Simulations remain central to mediations between reality and its representation; however, the latest forms of simulationwhether genetic manipulation or computer modelingare not seen as impediments to truth and knowledge but as tools to uncover the complexities of nature.A diverse list of contributors critically investigates the theme through a myriad of lenses including biology, computer sciences, engineering, environmental science, industrial design, philosophy, planning, among other fields.In a brief snapshot of the LA+ SIMULATION issue: Through an historical analysis of land use classification systems, architect and planner Robert Pietrusko examines the fallacy of raw data by examining how representational techniques become reality; historian of science Paul Edwards elucidates the making of control earths in climate models; philosopher Etienne Benson tracks the making of the minimal animal in ecological modeling; architect and civil engineer Eduardo Rico and architect Enriqueta Llabres Valls reveal the power of models as surrogates in shaping the material world; historian Gideon Fink Shapiro finds the function of fiction in the landscape imagination; by interrogating synthetic biology, theorist Pablo Schyfter demonstrates the interdependency of representatil‡