ABSTRACT
Sites exist as dynamic expressions of structures and flows. Within this dialectic, conceptions of site can emphasize cultural and physical boundaries, or focus on the flows of energy, organisms and materials across those boundaries. In the context of a rapidly-changing global climate, the traditional emphasis on boundaries for defining a site is limiting and even dangerous. In order to respond to climate change and its secondary and tertiary impacts within a highly-interconnected world, sites should be conceived as a nexus within systems of flows. Flows of energy (fire), materials (water, sand), and organisms (people, for example) are increasingly likely to overwhelm the physical and legal boundaries of sites, particularly those that have been defined in proximity to a shoreline, a forest canopy, or a territorial boundary. Now more than ever, sites matter as flashpoints on a changing planet. The ways that designers and planners conceive of sites are likely to change in relation to the observed impacts of intensified or muted biophysical flows. But new priorities in the definition and representation of sites will also mark changes in how knowledge can be gained about the world, the place of humans within that world, and human values.
