Co-habitation refers to the shared occupation of space by multiple species, actors, or communities, foregrounding entanglement rather than separation. It resists the human-centered notion of habitat, instead emphasizing interdependence and negotiated survival. In urban and landscape theory, co-habitation marks a shift from ownership of territory to relational dwelling. It suggests that architecture and landscape must accommodate more-than-human agencies. The term is both ecological and political, exposing tensions in how living together is sustained.
Landscape architecture should engage intensively with conviviality—it has the capacity to unify many issues in current theoretical debates and connect the discipline to the global network of the conviviality movement.
Multispecies Urbanism (MU) concept proposes that cities be designed and governed for the multispecies whole. In her manifesto, artist, infrastructure activist, and researcher Debra Solomon argues that healthy urban environments for humans are inseparable from the flourishing of other species and their microbial consortia. MU treats ecological labour—cooling, water buffering, pollination, soil formation—as infrastructural work […]
An essay on how we push animals into playing roles — from fables and films to renders of biodiversity and art — tracing how these projections tame, abstract, or estrange, and how synurbists and artists unsettle the human–animal divide.
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 […]
In the U.S., lawns cover nearly 2 percent of the land surface and, as researcher Cristina Milesi revealed using satellite data, “could be considered the single largest irrigated crop in America”—their total area is three times larger than that of irrigated cornfields. The infatuation with lawns runs so deep that, in some cases, failing to […]
Krater includes no landscape architects and follows no formal landscape architecture plan. Yet it is an intervention in landscape that stands as a provocative inquiry into the status of abandoned plots embedded within the urban fabric. The project poses fundamental questions: is a site truly ‘neglected’ if a thriving biotope has already taken hold? Could such a space, in its self-organized vitality, already constitute a form of an urban park? How to organize the social dimension? Krater unfolds as an expedition into landscape itself—an open-ended investigation in which fragmented architectural elements function as instruments of observation, experiment, and reflection. The site operates as a living laboratory, challenging conventional practices of open space production and the disciplinary boundaries of landscape architecture. It addresses relevant uncertainties the Anthropocene entails, engaging critically with issues of multi-species coexistence and the contested notion of environmental harmonization.
At a time when landscape architecture often seeks to simulate nature through aesthetic approximation or even mimicry, Krater seems oblivious to such representational impulses. Its proposition is radical in its restraint: rather than imposing form, it frames this ‘third landscape’ as a space of ecological processes, social encounter and experiment, revealing alternative logics of co-inhabitation, agency and design—logics that may become increasingly relevant as landscape architecture confronts its own ecological, ethical and epistemological limits.
– from the award statements
The park operates as a life-catcher, drawing in both human and non-human agencies. It is conceived as a public space whose primary function is ecological, where human presence is invited yet not prioritized. Through a subtle modulation of topography, the park amplifies the temporal rhythms of tidal fluctuations, transforming a gently graded surface into a dynamic substrate for biodiversity and spontaneous development.
While introducing softness to the pragmatism of an urban harbour environment, the design employs a sober formal language – orthogonal gabions and descending stair-like structures serve as deliberate counterpoints to the unpredictability and apparent disorder of non-human life processes. In this clear interplay between geometric precision and biological contingency, the park stages an ongoing negotiation between control and emergence, order and flux. It becomes not only a site of encounter but also a quiet manifesto on the coexistence of human intention and ecological autonomy.
– from the award statements
In Copenhagen’s new climate park form radically follows nature Copenhagen’s latest and most radical climate park, Grønningen-Bispeparken, transforms a derelict, barren grass area into a cohesive 20,000 m2 lush, playful, biodiverse, and art-filled urban nature park for all. Grønningen-Bispeparken is not a romantic promenade park but a transformative paradigm shift in urban development, where form […]
Converting grey infrastructure into green socialstructure leads to more inclusive, adaptable, and environmentally resilient public spaces that serve both ecological and social functions. The benefits extend beyond aesthetics – these transformations drive economic growth, improve public health, and mitigate the effects of climate change.
So, the real question is not whether cities can do this. The question is: Why aren’t they?
At a moment when another “inanimate natural entity”, the Taranaki Maunga, a mountain in New Zealand, is granted personhood, The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, Australia, is holding an exhibition, Reimagining Birrarung, Design Concepts for 2070, on the future of Yarra River, it’s catchment area and people, envisioned by landscape architects. The exhibition […]
Del Tredici’s argument is that these spontaneous plants are “de facto native urban flora” considering the novel conditions produced by humans. It is an argument against perceiving spontaneous vegetation including invasive, non-native plants and plants considered as weeds, to be less worthy. Labelling a plant “invasive” or “weed”, says Del Tredici, gives people the licence to blame it for ruining the environment and to get rid of it.
“The tool is trying to counter the friction of power and reposition power as cooperation and co-creation early on to generate mature design briefs from the get-go. And that the process of participating for all parties is not a drudgery of boredom, frustrations and resulting anger or dismissal of feedback loops”
Domesticated and genetically engineered organisms are usually overlooked by natural museums and institutions for cultural history. There is no space for artifacts such as dogs, chickens and corn. The Center for PostNatural History is the sequel to the natural history museum, and takes agriculture’s evolution as a starting point. CPNH focuses on the deliberate alterations […]
Laura Cipriani is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Delft University of Technology and a founder of Superlandscape, a landscape and urban design firm. She holds a Ph.D. in Landscape Urbanism from IUAV, a master’s degree in landscape and urban issues from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a master’s in Architecture from IUAV. […]
Planet City is a worldbuilding project by Liam Young, envisioned as a multilayered city, occupying as little as 0,02 percent of Earth’s surface yet hosting all of the human population. Planet City is testing the Half-Earth idea by Edward O. Wilson, where we put aside half of the planet, to keep biodiversity. We spoke with Liam Young about the idea and the exhibition he curates, Visions of Planet City.
“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. […]
In the conversation with the landscape architecture professor, artist and writer Denise Hoffman Brandt, we speak about the morality issues attached to “doing good” while debunking Ian McHarg’s problematic position in Design with Nature. In the conversation, Brandt points out how our assumptions about nature shape our actions, why stewardship is problematic and what landscape […]
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 […]
Open Landscape Academy invites you to join an online seminar from April 3 to June 2 on Democratic Landscape Transformation. The seminar focuses on building a prototype collaborative model that “engages academic and local knowledge, professionalism and creativity, giving privilege to the perspectives of the historically underserved communities who have not had access to landscape […]
When we speak of Nature in cities, the question we want to stress is, is nature in cities natural or in fact an artefact? When we speak of natural processes, they of course take place but apart from spontaneous nature, left to random succession, emerging in spaces that Gilles Clément calls the third landscapes, there […]
Tim Waterman is Professor of Landscape Theory and Inter-Programme Collaboration Director at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. He is Chair of the Landscape Research Group (LRG), a Non-Executive Director of the digital arts collective Furtherfield, and an advisor to the Centre for Landscape Democracy at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. He is also […]
Urban biodiversity? Yes, please! Nevertheless … … Due to the transitional phase of our understanding of nature in the light of the Anthropocene, there are still some important notions, contradictions and misunderstandings that need to be addressed. To do so, we will operate with terms like nature, ecology, biodiversity, landscape, and aesthetics, and we’ll focus […]
We are thrilled to share with you the interview with LILA 2022 Honour Award winner Gilles Clément. The interview was conducted in Paris in November 2022 by Zaš Brezar and Joost Emmerik. The editors wrote in the award statement: Gilles Clément (1943) is a French landscape architect or better ‘paysagiste’, having a more garden design-related […]
Rhys Williams is a lecturer at Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, The University of Edinburgh, UK
website: www.seenotherwise.me
