In complex, socio-ecological urban ecosystems such as Los Angeles, where millions of individual landscape decisions shape the region’s collective relationship with water. The Mosaic Machine is an interactive installation that visualizes this interconnectedness—inviting participants to see how personal choices ripple outward to impact urban watersheds at a larger scale.

Drawing inspiration from the theme of the conference as well as critical literature on urban ecosystems (see Pickett, McGrath, and Cadenasso, 2013) the installation explores the concept of mosaics of choice—how the preferences and actions of individuals, shaped by policy, culture, and economy, aggregate into spatial patterns with far-reaching ecological and social consequences.

What we Asked:

How might we make the often-invisible connections between private landscapes and public watersheds tangible, playful, and participatory? Rather than focusing on prescriptive solutions, how could we encourage curiosity and engagement with the broader ecological consequences of our everyday landscape decisions?

How do individual preferences—rooted in aesthetics, tradition, and lifestyle—scale up to influence the function and resilience of urban ecosystems? And how might we use interactive design to illuminate these processes, transforming abstract ecological relationships into something physical, immediate, and collective?

What we Discovered:

Through the course of the Climate Gardening Conference—hosted by TreePeople in Los Angeles—the installation became a dynamic platform for interaction. Participants, ranging from master gardeners to urban policy experts, engaged with the machine by selecting landscape typologies that resonated with their own values, aspirations, and lived experiences.

As the installation filled with colorful orbs, a mosaic of collective choices emerged—revealing patterns of preference, trade-offs, and the cumulative impact of individual decisions. The evolving composition of the watershed table illustrated a key theme of the conference: that the landscapes we cultivate at home are not isolated, but rather interwoven within the broader hydrological and ecological systems of the city.

Building on the framework of process mosaics, choice mosaics, and outcome mosaics (Pickett et al., 2013), The Mosaic Machine provided a real-time visualization of how personal and institutional decisions influence ecological functions at multiple scales. Just as urban design is shaped by intersecting economic, regulatory, and cultural forces, so too is the urban watershed—an emergent pattern shaped by thousands of small, individual choices.

The project reinforced an essential truth: landscape choices are not simply aesthetic or functional but also ecological and political. They shape biodiversity, water consumption, and climate resilience in profound ways.

What we Did:

Commissioned by TreePeople for the Climate Gardening Conference, The Mosaic Machine was conceived and designed by Commonstudio co-founders Daniel Phillips and Kim Karlsrud. The installation took the form of a freestanding interactive contraption, designed for both indoor and outdoor environments.

At its core, the experience was intuitive: symposium-goers were invited to select a landscape typology—ranging from Traditional to Ecological—via a series of custom gumball machines, each vending a colored orb representing their choice. Once dispensed, the orbs traveled through a network of clear tubes before cascading onto an inclined watershed table, where they accumulated in distinct patterns dictated by hydrology, gravity, and participant interaction.

As the day progressed, the machine became a living data visualization—demonstrating in real time how individual choices scale up to shape the urban landscape. The installation served as both a conversation starter and a physical reminder that water-wise landscapes are not just theoretical ideals but collective, evolving realities.

By making these abstract relationships visible, The Mosaic Machine invited participants to see their own landscapes as part of a larger system—one in which every choice, no matter how small, contributes to the ever-changing mosaic of Los Angeles

What Else?

• This installation was lovingly constructed by Ken Mori in Los Angeles.