Yale School of Architecture

Jenny Jones: Radical Gardens of Love and Interconnectedness

The 33rd annual Timothy Lanahan Lecture at Yale’s School of Architecture featured Jenny Jones, co‑founder of Terramodto, who presented her firm’s “radical gardens of love and interconnectedness” framework. The talk honored Lanahan’s legacy and linked the event to broader conversations about indigenous land‑back movements and the role of landscape architecture in social justice. Jones outlined five evolving principles that steer Terramodto’s work: modesty, beauty and openness; localization and closed‑loop material cycles; ecosystem‑centric design; community support; and a labor‑and‑care ethic. She illustrated how “test plots” serve as experimental, community‑driven sites for restoring native plants, and how the firm embeds labor equity by involving builders in design decisions. Memorable examples included repurposing a cheap concrete footing into a bench at a Rudolph Schindler apartment, deliberately asking contractors to make details “sloppier” to echo historic craftsmanship, and creating low‑impact nursery structures for the Laguna Canyon Foundation. Jones also paid tribute to co‑founder Allan, whose ethos of elemental simplicity continues to shape the practice. By framing gardens rather than conventional landscapes, Terramodto pushes the profession toward a more participatory, ecological, and socially responsible model. The lecture signals to academia and practitioners that small‑scale, community‑rooted interventions can reshape urban ecosystems, labor relations, and the narrative of landscape architecture.