Sasaki Day Award: Zoey Wang

LAST research assistant Zoey Wang has received a Sasaki Day award from the University of Illinois Department of Landscape Architecture for her thesis "Butterfly / Urbanism."

"Butterfly / Urbanism proposes to enhance the Monarch Butterfly habitats through a new approach to agriculture economy as well as strategic urban design. This project asserts that, in order to integrate Monarch Butterfly habitat with a new urbanism system, precise ecological, unconventional agricultural, as well as social/economic design strategies must first be developed. The project reflects the migration of the Monarch Butterfly as a dynamic flow which could elicit economic opportunities in the territories they stopover. By strategically planting milkweeds and nectar plants, this project controls the Monarch Butterfly migration route by manipulating the proximity to their habitats and catalyzes the food chain. What comes with the catalyzed food chain are opportunities of milkweed economy and entomophagy economy which piggybacks on the existing economic system."