About the Fellowship
New as of 2020, the Jane Silverstein Ries Foundation Traveling Fellowship program supports local rising professionals in landscape architecture who seek to conduct interdisciplinary design research through travel and exploration. As a result, this program advances the profession through design research and collaboration.
Through this opportunity, JSR will sponsor a Fellowship for one or more applicants with awards up to $5,000. Fellows can propose travel anywhere in the world for any duration, and agree to present a summary of their fellowship experience and outcomes to the community upon their return.
2020 JSR Traveling Fellowship Winner
CALI PFAFF | BEYOND HOUSE PLANTS: ABSTRACTED ECOLOGIES OF THE CAPE FLORAL KINGDOM
Abstract
This proposal aims to explore the unique flora of the Cape Floral Kingdom in South Africa to expand our field’s knowledge of indoor planting communities. Through the work of naturalistic plantsmen, such as Piet Oudolf, Claudia West, and Dan Pearson, advanced study of outdoor planting communities has seen its rise. Within our field, however, indoor planting ecologies are still murkily understood. High-functioning ecosystems have the capacity to improve human health as well as the health of the plants that sustain them. With the average American spending 90% of their time indoors, these novel ecologies have the potential for profound impact and represent a largely untapped market within our field.
The Cape Floral Region was selected for study for two key reasons. The first is great abundance of house plants that come from this area: pencil cactus, asparagus fern, string of pearls. The second is the ecological uniqueness of this region and the environmental threats it faces. The Cape Floral Kingdom is the smallest floral kingdom in the world and among the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Human impacts ranging from development to climate change have put enormous pressure on this delicate ecosystem. This proposal will use on-the-ground study of this region to inform the design of indoor, constructed systems and how indoor planting design can preserve, and connect viewers to, a vanishing ecosystem.
Meet Cali
Cali Pfaff is a landscape architect and urban planner, based in Denver, Colorado. Cali founded Studio Campo — a landscape architecture and plantsmenship practice — in 2019 to explore the potential of plants to enrich human experience. She is a graduate of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, PUC Rio de Janeiro, and Brown University. Cali was previously an Associate at Public Architecture and Design Workshop. She has a background in design writing and publishing, including work for Harvard Design Magazine, Metropolis Books, and Next City.
Cali’s design work has received national recognition from the American Society of Landscape Architects and has been featured in Landscape Architecture Magazine, Landscapes, the Denver Post, and the Harvard Gazette. Cali was a member of the Professional Community Advisory Board for Colorado State University and is a frequent guest lecturer and critic at universities. Cali is Creative Director of the sustainable vineyard and winery, Left Coast Estate, that her family runs in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. The estate is the Oregon field office of Studio Campo and acts as a proving grounds for experimental planting design and ecological restoration.
