1. Please introduce yourself. What is your name, school, major, any future professional plans? 

My name is Thomas Charney and I am currently a Landscape Architecture masters student at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment and Sustainability. My plan for my career in broad strokes is to pursue my passions for Botany, Japanese language & culture, and Environmental Psychology through the field of Landscape Architecture.

I had a long personal journey before discovering Landscape Architecture; I would say it all started in 2014 in Wakayama, Japan when I studied abroad through Youth for Understanding for 6 weeks. I had the good fortune of having an attentive and generous host family, and they often took me  to see many culturally significant landscapes such as Wakayama Castle and Koyasan on weekends. This being the summer before my senior year in high school, the question of what I should study in college weighed on my mind. I have a distinct memory of looking out on the windswept trees of a nearby mountain and thinking to myself “You can study plants for a living, right?” Ironically, I came to know the term 植物学 (shoku-butsu-gaku) before I found its English equivalent, Botany.

This experience inspired me to declare my major to be Plant Biology with a minor in Japanese as soon as I began my undergraduate career at Michigan State University. I thoroughly enjoyed both disciplines as they colored my perspective of the world with their respective depth and complexity. However, I often found the overlap between strictly Plant Biology and Japanese studies to be somewhat sparse insofar as career opportunities. I didn’t have the impression that I could contribute much to the existing literature of Plant Biology research in Japan any better than Japanese nationals and there didn’t seem much opportunity for me to apply Japanese cultural skills to my studies of Midwestern plant communities. After some serious rumination, a career quiz of all things gave me a new idea: Landscape Architecture. My previous way of thinking was constantly trying to put my two interests directly in a line with one another, but by introducing this third discipline, it added a new axis to my thinking and suddenly the opportunities I found were numerous. In retrospect, it’s obvious considering the established gardening culture of Japan, but as is said of Frederick Law Olmsted’s work: Sometimes when the work of human hands harmonizes so well with its surroundings, it’s easy to take it for granted as the work of nature.

Environmental Psychology came into my purview while I applied to graduate programs in  landscape architecture. Through my talks with University of Michigan faculty and students, I found my way to the books With People in Mind and The Nature Fix. Albeit the restorative aspects of landscape was something I took for granted prior, this conscious acknowledgement brought to the fore the many times I sought mental refuge in the landscape. Examples of such moments include my visiting the Isozaki Shrine in Hikone to boost my mental fortitude before exams and my routine walks through Maybury State Park in Novi, MI during a difficult time of underemployment. Once I was accepted to the University of Michigan’s MLA program, I delved into the available literature on Environmental Psychology through the library’s website. It didn’t take long to find concepts such as 森林浴(shinrin-yoku) or Forest Bathing and traditional stroll gardens in this search, and I immediately felt the synergy possible in the field of Landscape Architecture. I then decided that the trinity of Environmental Psychology, Japanese  studies, and Botany would inform my studies at the University of Michigan and set myself to the task of tailoring my curriculum and networks to emphasize them.

This focus at the outset of my studies led me to take Business Japanese courses and to go the Thesis Capstone route rather than the traditional Project Capstone route more typical of Landscape Architecture students. My Business Japanese coursework gave me the opportunity to conduct an informational interview with the Japanese Healing Garden firm, Kurisu LLC; this led to an internship interview and now I am slated to travel to Portland Oregon for the summer of 2022 to work with Kurisu LLC on multiple projects. As for my thesis, I will be studying the Memorial Healing Garden at the Oregon State Penitentiary that was constructed with the aid of Kurisu LLC in 2018. I deeply respect the Memorial Healing Garden’s mission to forward Restorative Justice and it is with great enthusiasm that I find my thesis work to be so aligned with my personal philosophy. For my third and final year of my MLA  coursework, I plan to reinforce the trinity of my studies with an herbaceous plants course, academic Japanese courses, and finalizing the write-up of the Memorial Healing Garden study. I am also looking into the possibility of incorporating Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality technology to my studio projects  as yet another avenue to convey these disciplines.

Looking to the future, I figure I will continue to navigate opportunities and expand my network with this trinity in mind. While taking a break from academics and learning more about Landscape Architecture design work and Japanese Gardening with a more hands-on approach seems appropriate to  me in the interval shortly after I graduate, I have an inkling that becoming a professor in Landscape Architecture may offer the synergy I am constantly looking for in a career. I always thought the idea of bringing American students to Japan and Japanese students to the United States for cultural exchange would be a fulfilling way to give back to the respective communities that supported me to this point.

2. What draws you to horticulture and environmental sustainability? 

I would say my studies at Michigan State granted me a deeper dive into horticulture, and my time so far at the University of Michigan a similar dive into sustainability. Both disciplines continue to draw me in through the passionate people I learn from and collaborate with. I attribute much of what I  know about horticulture to my grandfather, the Michigan State Horticulture Gardens & Student  Horticulture Association, my co-workers in the Telewski Lab & Beal Botanical Gardens, and the nursery people who indulge my curiosities when I shop for plants. As a distinctly human approach to plants, I find enjoyment and depth in comparing the varieties of and uses of plants between individuals and  entire cultures.

To discuss sustainability, I always look to the definition provided by the United Nations:  “Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” I think it’s important to recognize the wide reach of this sentiment, which can be both daunting and inspiring in terms of the many disciplines that can help to realize it as we combat climate change. As for those I have to thank for aiding my understanding of sustainability, my mentors at the Kellogg Biological station, my cohort & faculty in the MLA program, and Creating Sustainable Landscapes LLC are just a few to name. Achieving sustainability requires all hands-on deck and I am happy to have the network I do to collaborate to that end.

Allow me to end with the sentiment that while horticulture and sustainability can and have been at odds with one another, there are intersections that should be considered as sources of inspiration. Concepts such as 里山 (Satoyama) and horticultural technologies’ capacity to make native plants available to professionals and gardeners alike personally inspire me.

3. What is your experience working in your field or in a Japanese Garden? 

I’ve spent several summer seasons in roles related to horticulture and ecology over the course  of undergraduate and into my masters program. I’ve filled roles such as landscaper, nurseryman, natural  science lab assistant, and 3D landscape modeler. And while I’ve read up on and experienced quite a few Japanese landscapes, I have not distinctly had Japanese garden work under my belt up to this point. It is with much gratitude that I will be working with Kurisu LLC to learn about Japanese gardening through experience this summer.

If anyone would like to see a comprehensive list of my professional experiences, I would point you to my LinkedIn account: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-charney

4. How do you envision yourself making an impact with the knowledge and experience you’ve earned in your college career?

In a philosophical sense, I believe if I can provide people a space to set down their conceptual understanding of the world and just be present in landscape or garden, I will have achieved the greatest goal for my career. I can approach this several ways including but not limited to: designing & building a garden, serving as an educator to open students’ eyes to their surroundings, researching effective means of providing a restorative experience in green space, and participating in policy to improve  availability of green spaces to all. There are many hats to wear to forward this single goal, but I believe that’s the beauty of my current studies.