Research by design is a method where design itself operates as a mode of inquiry, producing knowledge through iterative experimentation. Unlike applied research, it does not merely test hypotheses but generates insights by making, modeling, and reconfiguring. The process privileges exploration over solution, where speculative proposals expose hidden relations and possibilities. Research by design situates the studio as laboratory, where practice and theory co-produce understanding.
Scientific research into animal behaviour still rests on many deeply ingrained assumptions about what is deemed to be “natural” human behaviour. For example, men—males—are assumed by nature to be more dominant and aggressive than women—females. And if men are violent, then the violent behaviour of other male animals in the wild can supposedly be explained […]
Anna Thurmayr and Dietmar Straub, operating from Winnipeg, Canada, approach landscape architecture less as a matter of monumental authorship and more as a form of quiet insurgency. Their practice resists spectacle, embracing instead small yet resonant gestures, collective processes, and deep attentiveness to context—whether planting 20,000 crocuses into a lawn or constructing an ephemeral Snow […]
Exploring the interplay between low-res design and the transience of landscapes, this essay foregrounds the notion of resolution, enquiring about a dynamic interaction with landscapes in flux.
Landscape Research Group (LRG) is a long-standing international and interdisciplinary community founded in England in 1967, dedicated to advancing landscape research. Landscape is a field of interest for many professionals, including geographers, archaeologists, ecologists, lawyers, urban planners, landscape architects and others, whose work can be reciprocally informed by sharing research and practices. LRG is a […]
In 2014, in its first summer of opening, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (QEOP) had a problem with audience diversity. Although residents in the park catchment were ethnically and racially mixed, its usership was disproportionately white. My doctoral research1 found that the predominantly white Anglo-European park designers and client team had created a landscape which did […]
Today, the possibility arises to define a new design approach to address issues of environmental and social justice in the urban context. Based on an integrated understanding of the interdependencies involving human and environmental relations, the applied-philosophy approach for landscape architectural practices induces a paradigm shift in spatial design. Rather than applying downstream solutions to […]
The boulevard of Nice, a Christmas market in Berlin or the headquarters of a Dutch newspaper – the past decade has seen a rising number of attacks with a vehicle as a weapon. Following these attacks, city officials started to look differently at their public space. How do we keep our public spaces safe and […]
Sara Eichner is a visual artist and designer with a keen interest in data visualisations and cartography. She works with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and programming languages like Python and uses design software to translate data into comprehensible visual stories. Her work is people-centred and she often uses data to represent less-heard voices. Eichner is […]
In the current debate about climate change and its disruptive effects on the health of people and ecosystems, the reclamation of the ‘right to the environment’ has gained momentum, both in theoretical accounts and in legal documents. Yet, it is useful to make a first distinction between the right to the environment and the right of the environment.
Landscape architects usually think of compact greenery as the sound buffer minimizing noise pollution but we rarely think about specifically designing with sound, acoustics of space and the soundscape present at the site of intervention. Especially in the art scene, the sonification of plants, microbes, underwater creatures and their otherwise unheard processes, gained special attention […]
“Excerpts from a project on Trees and Beasts” Denise Hoffman Brandt© Denise Hoffman What do we actually mean when we talk about nature? As a professor in a discipline that since the early 1970s has, mostly, claimed to practice “design with nature”—referencing Ian McHarg’s book (1969) of that title—that’s a question I have often asked. […]
This summer, throughout Switzerland, you can attend the curated observation of the ongoing phenomenon of glaciers melting. Art installations, performances and exhibitions, scattered about the Alpine landscape, are informed by this exclusive moment in climate history that will forever change our landscapes. The melting progresses with the proportion of the loss of albedo surface. Although […]
In the talk, Lydia Kallipoliti – #architect #educator #researcher #thinker – presents her newly published book Histories of Ecological Design: An Unfinished Cyclopedia, followed by a Q&A where we talk about the intentions of writing the book, about how the “waste speaks of the incomplete perception of the World”, the psychological profile of ecological designers and […]
Mar 13, 2024, at 5 – 6:15pm CET Online Available Register Now “The threatened demolition of Mary Miss’ pioneering and influential site-specific installation Greenwood Pond: Double Site in the permanent collection of the Des Moines Art Center is the impetus for a 75-minute webinar about the significance and importance of land art by women artists. […]
Soundscapes The experience of silence and sound in the landscape International Landscape Study Days Thursday 22-Friday 23 February 2024, Treviso and online Friday 16 February 2024, from 5 pm, online preview The 20th edition of the International Landscape Study Days, organised by Fondazione Benetton Studi Ricerche, will be held in Treviso (at the Palazzo Bomben […]
The Harvard Graduate School of Design organized a two-day conference titled Forest Futures: Will the Forest Save Us All? It is open to the public and available via streaming. Planetary survival in the Anthropocene crucially depends on the stewardship of resilient forest ecosystems worldwide—at the scales of wilderness, planted forests, metropolitan tracts, and the urban […]
Günther Vogt probably needs no introduction in our profession; he has been an important practitioner for a couple of decades now, appreciated globally for his rich, non-linear and adventurous design approach. Initially, his education was more in the direction of botany. He later shifted to landscape architecture by studying in Rapperswil, Switzerland. After his study […]
New Video Oral History with Julie Bargmann, Inaugural Recipient of the Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, released by The Cultural Landscape Foundation Eighteenth in an ongoing Pioneers of American Landscape Design® video oral history series that documents, collects, and preserves first-hand information from pioneering landscape architects The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) today announces the release […]
Dr. Stephan Brenneisen from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences has been researching urban biodiversity and roofs for over 25 years. In a video presentation, he talks about his findings. We asked him specifically to speak about what to keep in mind when designing biodiverse roofs. What can landscape architects learn from his extensive experience, […]
