Ian Quate and Colleen Tuite are the co-founders of “nomadic landscape architecture studio” GRNASFCK, based in New York City. The two began collaborating as graduate students at RISD in 2011, bringing Quate’s knowledge of botany and landscape architecture together with Tuite’s art practice background to focus on “the geologic past and speculative future”. Tuite is currently an independent art practitioner and Quate works as a designer for Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects.

Their work under GRNASFCK is not that of an average landscape architecture firm, instead focusing on “unsettling easy or comfortable ideas about the relationship between architecture and ecology” – and their approach to the drought is no different. Their critical focus on geological time frames California’s drought as unique in the historical context of human civilization, where the overwhelming tendency in dealing with droughts is to simply up and leave.

From GRNASFCK's position on the opposite side of the country, the drought has also taken on a mythical role, often rife with media distortion or misinformation. GRNASFCK’s critical work with ecological systems and speculative futures provides an invaluable perspective on the drought within the anthropocene, and we're thrilled to count them on Dry Futures' jury. They'll also be at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, leading a "psycho-ecology para-tour" in collaboration with MANIFEST.

Have an idea for how to address the drought with design? Submit your ideas to the Dry Futures competition!