During the Spring 2015 semester of my undergraduate studies, I was involved in the design and implementation of a permaculture food forest on the UMBC campus. This was one of several projects undertaken by students of professor Jill Wrigley's Food Justice course. In addition to said course, I attended a bi-weekly meeting hosted in Baltimore by the Baltimore Orchard Project in order to learn about the care of fruit and nut trees and the beneficial effect they can have in urban settings. The above depiction is the original plan I designed which was the basis for the shape of the food forest. 

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This project has its own section on my website because it was my very first experience designing a landscape - a sort of test to see if landscape architecture was something I might enjoy and want to pursue further. As you can probably guess, I loved the process! A lot of what I learned during that design process grew into a deeper curiosity for how landscapes can challenge social inequality. Our field is so much more than creating attractive places. While that is a big part of it we also have the ability to prove that both people and earth's natural systems can mutually benefit and progress by working together. I strongly believe that my LARC colleagues and I have an instrumental part to play in a most beautiful future.