Community planting day at Elephant Hill, Fall 2022 
Catalina Test Plot Photo Credit: Rio Asch Phoenix 
Check Damn at Catalina Test Plot, Fall 2023 Photo credit: Rio Asch Phoenix 
Planting the rare Catalina Ironwood, Fall 2023 
Workday at campus Test Plot, Spring 2023 
Contour mapping and solarization at Elephant Hill 
Elephant Hill, Winter 2022 
End of semester celebration at Rio Test plot, Spring 2022 
USC campus Test Plot, Spring 2022 
Overlook the LA basin from Baldwin Hills Test Plot, November 2021 
Planting day at Baldwin Hills, November 2021 
Rio Class 2 
Student monitoring at Rio Test Plot, Spring 2021 
Students at Baldwin hills Test Plot, Fall 2021 
Test Plot at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, 2021 
Test Plot at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, 2021 
Test Plot at Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, 2021 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Elysian Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Elysian Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Elysian Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Elysian Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020 
Test Plot at Rio de Los Angeles State Park, 2020
Faculty: Jen Toy, Alex Robinson, Jenny Jones2020 Students at Rio de Los Angeles State Park: Robert Andrade, Siwei Chen,
|
TEST PLOTABOUT Test Plot was founded in 2019 as an ongoing experiment in community landcare. As a California nonprofit, we build Test Plots, experimental restoration gardens that volunteers steward themselves from initial planting to establishment and beyond. Through design, teaching, and land-based research we reimagine degraded ecologies and establish longer-term care based relationships between communities and landscapes. Each Fall, we offer a Test Plot elective, a hands-on course open to students across the University, that centers on the design and installation of a Test Plot. In previous years, these plots have been located in neglected corners of urban parks and open spaces across Los Angeles. Students partner with local residents, organizations, growers and land managers to develop a strategy and workplan for the plot, culminating in a community planting day timed to coincide with winter rains. Alongside the installation, students are asked to develop strategies for multi-year maintenance, ongoing restoration and monitoring. Over the course of the next 2-3 years, local residents or organizations take over the monthly maintenance of the plot, while students continue to monitor and conduct research. We track seasonal updates and observations on the Test Plot LOG. The pedagogical aim of the Test Plot curriculum is to provide hands-on learning (i.e. dirt under the fingernails) and introduce a design approach that is flexible, experimental and incremental. As a counterpoint to Design projects that often wipe the slate clean to provide utopian visions for something “better,” the Test Plot coursework asks, what if we instead focused on taking care of what we have? Students are introduced to topics such as community-based land care, design through maintenance, tended wilderness, models of reciprocity, novel ecosystems, regenerative landscapes, projective ecologies, design activism, and subversive stewardship. From a professional practice perspective, the coursework challenges students to break down the silos between design, installation and maintenance. We seek to train future landscape architects to understand that design isn’t done when the drawings are complete, and that the ongoing care of a landscape is equally important to that of the initial design. Design and maintenance – designers and landscapers – should be partners and collaborators, rather than adversaries between “skilled” professionals and “unskilled” laborers. Lastly, through Test Plot, we ask students to consider what land and what communities are valued and invested in? It’s not a coincidence that neglected, mis-managed lands are often found in under-invested low income neighborhoods. While the disciplines of conservation and restoration have typically focused on areas outside our cities heralded for their “pristine wilderness,” what of our urban nature, or what ecologists call novel ecosystems: human built landscapes characterized by non-native species, altered processes, new interactions and human influence. There is little scientific consensus on how to manage these lands and many ecological, economic and social questions are still to be answered. Test Plot thus acts as a living laboratory, embracing this gray area and seeking to creatively connect communities – both plants and humans – on the margins. TEST PLOT GUIDING PRINCIPLES
TEST PLOT COURSEWORK FA 2010 USC ARCH 642 – RIO DE LOS ANGELES STATE PARK 6 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY WITH JENNY JONES SP 2021 USC ARCH 590 – LANDCARE IN THE FIELD 2-3 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY FA 2021 USC ARCH 642 – BALDWIN HILLS 6 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY SP 2022 USC ARCH 590 – LANDCARE IN THE FIELD – USC CAMPUS 2-3 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY + ALEX ROBINSON FA 2022 USC ARCH 542 – ELEPHANT HILL 2 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY SP 2023 USC ARCH 590 – COMMUNITY STEWARDSHIP MODELS 2-3 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: JEN TOY FA 2023 USC ARCH 542 – GREEN RAVINE ON CATALINA ISLAND 2 UNITS INSTRUCTOR: ALEX ROBINSON OTHER ACADEMIC PROJECTS SP 2023 USC RESEARCH GRANT – GIANT KELP CARBON SEQUESTRATION FACULTY: AROUSSIAK GABRIELIAN, ALEX ROBINSON, JEN TOY SP 2023 TEST PLOT LOG FACULTY: JEN TOY, ALEX ROBINSON STUDENT INTERNS: DANIELA VELAZCO, NINA WEITHORN SPONSORS The Master’s Program in Landscape Architecture + Urbanism and the Landscape Justice Initiative would like to acknowledge the The Grant & Shaya Kirkpatrick Landscape Architecture + Urbanism Leadership Fund for sponsoring this important project. USC Wrigley Institute, School of Architecture collaborate to test sustainable landscape design methods // by Vanessa Codilla in USC Dornsife News (2024) Community Landcare With USC Architecture’s Test Plot Initiative: Test Plot Emphasizes Experimentation, Learning And Community-Building // USC Architecture News (2023) ZINE: One Year in Landcare: A Practice Guide // Un Año en el Cuidado de la Tierra: una Guía de Prácticas by Jen Toy, Morgan Rose, Lucia Bayley, Dante Iniguez (2023) Elephant Hill Test Plot Wins PANDO DAYS ’22 Award! The Lab In The Backyard: USC’s Landscape Justice Initiative aims to give students grassroots perspective on their field by Patrick Sisson // Landscape Architecture Magazine (2022) View Student Work for Fall 2020 Arch 642l: Landscape Architecture Design: Land + Labor: Rio De Los Angeles Test Plot |