Thomas Charney 

See full poster here!

Exploring North American Japanese Gardens
An analysis probing the question: does climate or population best predict the development of Japanese gardens?
Winter 2023

My role: Concept development, GIS data collection, analysis, and map generation
In collaboration with Walter Hunt

Many Japanese gardens pursue "authenticity." Which is to say they strive to look like gardens from the Japanese mainland in aesthetic and design. However, given Japan's subtropical climate, this may prove to be a struggle for other climates in terms of plant selection. Following that logic, one may hypothesize the highest density of recognized Japanese gardens would be in a similar climate - but one may also suggest the number of people in an area would have a stronger effect on whether a Japanese garden is developed. Here, we evaluate the the density of Japanese gardens recognized by NAJGA to see if there is a greater correlation to precipitation or population density.