The politics of public space concerns how shared environments are produced, accessed, and contested. Public space is never neutral; it encodes exclusions through surveillance, policing, privatization, or commodification. Movements from the agora to Occupy Wall Street reveal public space as arena of democracy and dissent. For landscape and urbanism, this politics challenges design to confront who is included, who is excluded, and under what conditions. Public space is thus both a material site and a battleground of rights, visibility, and power. Landscape architecture is politics.
Growing up on a farm in Tyrol, surrounded by repetitions of natural processes to which rituals and traditions attune, Weinberger developed an understanding of the nature–culture relationship observed from the periphery.
Skin-to-Skin Architecture is about rethinking how we design cities and buildings, not just as objects we use, but as spaces that touch us back. Inspired by the power of skin-to-skin contact in neonatal care, where a caregiver’s touch stabilizes, calms, and connects, we ask: what if our built environment could do the same? In Skin-to-Skin, […]
In this article, we enter into a conversation with Danilo Milovanović (DNLM), an artist based in Slovenia, whose practice in public space leaves behind socio-political and environmentally engaged commentaries. His interventions open up civic debate and make visible the tensions that shape contemporary urban life. Trained in the visual arts, Milovanović positions his practice outside […]
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
Tempelhofer Feld, one of Europe’s largest urban open spaces, has long been a focal point of debate, particularly since its closure as an airport in 2008. Over the years, the site has sparked public protests, legal disputes, and heated discussions about its future. Now, after a highly anticipated international competition, the winning proposals have been […]
Lucia Tozzi is a Milano-based journalist and urban researcher known for her incisive critiques of gentrification, tourism-driven development, and the commodification of public space. Her writing spans cultural criticism, investigative reporting, and political analysis, appearing in publications such as Il Tascabile, NERO, Altreconomia, il manifesto, and other journals. She is the editor and author of […]
The Landscape Architecture Europe Foundation (LAE) has published the 7th edition of its book series, titled Full of Life. With each issue released triennially, the editorial board delves into high-quality landscape architecture projects, tracing the evolution of this young profession and highlighting the significance of addressing climate and social issues while crafting beautiful spaces. The […]
Despite ambitious sustainability frameworks, current modes of urban waterfront redevelopment tend to reinforce existing or create new socio-spatial divides in the city. Although the projects regard urban water as a public good, it is oftentimes the most privileged groups that get to enjoy the improved environmental amenities and reap their benefits, at the expense of […]
The book, Thinking Through Soil: Wastewater Agriculture in the Mezquital Valley, by Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich and Seth Denizen, came out last week, published by Harvard University Design Press. It is an enormous study, partly conducted through the Thinking Through Soil studio course at the GSD, Department of Landscape Architecture, and with the help of the […]
Landscapes of Retreat, a book by Rosetta S. Elkin, is informed by land-based practice, observation, and paying close attention to the multifaceted changes occurring in landscapes and their impact on communities. The second edition of this award-winning book (originally published in 2022), which gained considerable attention within the landscape architecture community, has been released this […]
In December this year, the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation will start to apply to medium and large operators and traders. For micro and small enterprises, the same rules will apply next year. This means that if a commodity, such as cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, soya, rubber, or wood, and products derived from those commodities, […]
Reports of global warming, biodiversity loss, rising anti-democratic states, heatwaves, wars, and sea-level rise are enough to make anyone discouraged. In these times, hope is crucial—it’s the difference between envisioning a positive future and resigning to the present. Hope drives action, while hopelessness paralyzes. It rejects the status quo and aspires for change, making it vital for progress. Hope can grow and strengthen, but it can also fade.
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.
The book reads like a crime novel for landscape architects. It contains much of the stuff we don’t dare to look into, true – mostly because forests fall under the domain of forestry. Designed Forests: A Cultural History uncovers human entanglements with forests as a design metaphor through a series of gripping stories Dan Handel researched in serious depth, not leaving room for much romance. Taking us on a global journey through projects that involve forests as a point of departure, Handel catches us in our preconceived ways of thinking, traversing the undergirding ideas, cutting to the stem of those lines of thought. The book is not an answer to what a forest is, yet we might get an idea of how forest metaphor gets instrumentalized in discourse in spatial design practices and what this metaphor lacks.
BASE is a France-based studio known for its out-of-the-box thinking and unexpected design choices, often introducing challenges that can be overcome through play. Encountering an obstacle in a public space—one that invites engagement and risk-taking—creates a tension that can lead to moments of joyful liberation. A key aspect of BASE’s approach is putting trust in […]
Mnemosyne walks on a Forest Wall What if rural areas took center stage in the movement for resilient, secure communities—getting the same attention as urban environments? What if seawalls and groynes weren’t just lifeless barriers but thriving ecosystems, forests, walking routes for storytelling, art trails and canvases for culture and nature? The growing impact of […]
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?
The book Forest Urbanisms brings together underlying ideas, the concept of forest urbanism, and global practices and research that engage with forests through a critical and nuanced lens. Using the world is forest as the guiding principle, the authors put the forest in a central role of the spatial organization across regions, scales and quantities – from a solitary tree to an interplay of buildings and trees. This expanding notion of forest expects new morphologies and typologies of forest urbanism. The authors open the controversies regarding humankind’s relations to forests and offer thinking tools past the greenwashing paradigms.
The interview with Chloe and Michael Humphreys focuses on the work of The Landscape Studio. They began working in Nairobi in 2014 and in the years, their practice produced numerous private and public projects across Africa, that in essence and with minimal material means, embody the beauty of the locality. Embracing constraints is their design […]
Collectively, all humans experience 8 billion days in 24 hours. That is about 22 million years lived in one day.
When one starts to think about time in that way, it seems inevitable to envision the collective impact of human life on Earth.
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 […]
“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”
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 […]
This article by Kelly Shannon and Donielle Kaufman was first published on 9 January 2018. With the recent fires around Los Angeles, we are bringing it into focus again in early 2025 as it sheds light on processes and hidden corners of the context that brought about California’s ‘wildfire epidemic’.
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 famous Bartleby quote: “I would prefer not to”, is often the paradoxical silent monologue of a professional working in development. You need the job but you don’t always believe the project’s brief is fully justified, in line with the values and needs of users, sometimes even feels forced to produce revenue which can put […]
Giovanni Aloi is an author, curator, and creator with a PhD from Goldsmiths University, focusing on natural history in art representation. His work examines depictions of flora and fauna to uncover societal values and foster shifts in these through critical reflection. Through publishing, curating exhibitions, delivering talks, and editing Antennae: The Journal of Nature in […]
Dr. Jevgeniy Bluwstein, a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies at the University of Bern, examines how the reductive Western view of landscapes reinforces colonization through exclusionary conservation practices, focusing on a case study of Tarangire National Park in Tanzania. Introducing the term “landscapism,” meaning the “double movement of colonizing landscapes/landscaping colonies,” Bluwstein offers a critical perspective, advocating for viewing landscapes through a lens of relationality.
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 […]
As we confront the growing ecological crisis, it becomes increasingly difficult to argue that harmonious aesthetics, designed primarily for pleasure and ease, are always the most effective mode of expression. Perhaps there is space to question whether ecological efforts demand a different aesthetic attitude, one less fixated on traditional notions of balance and spatial conformity and more open to dissensus and confrontation.
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 […]
Caio Reisewitz has created an artistic intervention in the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion, titled “Suspendre el Cel”. To Suspend the Sky is the artist’s reference to activists shamans Davi Kopenawa and Ailton Krenak, alluding to Indigenous practices and beliefs of Amazonian people that the earth is made out of the sky, so the sky […]
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.
FOREST ENCOUNTERS: short stories, flash fiction, poetry, essays The European cooperation project FOREST ENCOUNTERS is looking for representations of different encounters with the forest from both human and non-human perspectives. The FOREST ENCOUNTERS project explores and proposes diverse imaginaries, concepts, and practices around the following questions: What and how can we learn with and through […]
The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) has opened a call for nominations for Landslide, the foundation’s annual thematic report about threatened and at-risk landscapes. Landslide 2024: Demonstration Grounds will focus on sites associated with demonstrations and movements. “These multiple associations are waiting to be unlocked at almost every historic property or cultural landscape that has served […]
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 […]
We continue with French philosopher Michel Foucault. In his 1967 speech to an architecture audience, he introduced the concept of “heterotopia”. It was published in 1984 as an essay, Des Espaces Autres (Of Other Spaces), and it deals with the nature of space and its relation to society. Heterotopias are unique spatial entities that challenge conventional notions of space and compel reflection on the social, cultural, and ideological matters of our world.
Today’s most urgent topic for all professional groups everywhere must be how to give our planet and its inhabitants possibilities to survive. Never before has the professional field of landscape architects shifted its goals so quickly, as we have seen only over the last few years. The focus for landscape architecture nowadays is clearly sustainability. […]
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 […]
»Paradigm shift« has been, for at least a decade now, one of the most used phrases in landscape architecture. We use it mainly to address the need to focus on design with natural processes in mind. This is important as it concerns our core values, attitude towards nature, the understanding of natural processes and the […]
Climate activists group Extinction Rebellion (XR) sabotaged multiple golf courses around Spain. Spain is currently facing a severe drought while the golf courses are still being irrigated. According to XR, Spanish golf courses use more water than Madrid and Barcelona together. They planted some shrubs and perennials directly into the golf course and set a […]
Rotterdam Rooftop Days (Rotterdamse Dakendagen) is an annual festival that promotes rooftop living and emphasises the potential of roofs in mitigating issues of public space, empowering communities, reducing urban heat, increasing urban biodiversity, urban food production etc. It features Knowledge Day, Rotterdam Rooftop Walk, various cultural events and, most importantly, establishes a network of permanently […]
In this essay, Zaš Brezar writes about the role of urban roofs in our collective memory. Illustrating the meaning of roofs through a selection of cultural references from films and music. The article is a part of Living Roofs focus on Landezine that is going on in October and November 2022.
João Nunes is the general coordinator of PROAP, an internationally recognized landscape architecture firm with offices in Portugal, Italy and Angola. In the video, Nunes describes the development of PROAP in the past 25 years and then presents their LILA 2021 winning project: Quays of the River Schelde in Antwerp. The project won (ex-aequo) the […]
Liam Young is together with Kate Davies running the Unknown Fields project. They travel around the world and explore landscapes behind objects we used on a daily basis: materials for our phones, fabrics for clothes, lithium for batteries … We caught Liam in Ljubljana, where he was narrating Unknown Fields film live.
During all the media coverage—particularly in the United States—of Hurricanes Harvey (Category 4, 17 August-1 September), Irma (Category 5, 30 August-12 September), Jose (Category 4, 5-22 September) and Maria (Category 5, 16-30 September), the flooding and subsequent trail of destruction in Houston and southeast Texas, South Florida and the Caribbean, there was ceaseless talk of […]
