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 […]
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.
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 […]
Soil is a strange soup of minerals, organic matter, gases and liquids, bound to mediate between lower and higher strata. While one can think of soil eating as bizarre, one can also imagine taking minerals in a form of a pill and why one wouldn’t eat forest soil or soils outside polluted areas? It gives […]
Harvard Design Press is pleased to announce the release of Thinking Through Soil: Wastewater Agriculture in the Mezquital Valley, by Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich and Seth Denizen. The event will take place on April 24 and is free and open to the public. Registration and login are not required to view the livestream. Event Description To […]
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.
What do we actually know about the ground on which we stand, and how does it relate to our landscape projects Interventions on the surface of the landscape affect the underground as much as they are conditioned by it. Many processes pass through the grade of the ground, relating to water, energy, ecology and vegetation, with trees bridging above- and below grade. Organic matter is created in the ground, carbon is captured and stored there, and it is the habitat of various species. If we, as landscape architects, aim to incorporate ecology and hydrology into project development, the design phase must incorporate a thinking of above- and below grade as one.
The Dutch Landscape, The Ultimate Guide for Study, Professional and Personal Use by Alexandra Tišma[1] and Han Lörzing[2] is a “text-book” and a thorough yet very accessible guide on landscapes in the Netherlands – described from many angles and scales, historical, geographical, geological and biotic layers, cultural landscapes, from development, and planning to conservation – […]
A post-industrial park is typically a sexy landmark, easy to make a story of, photogenic, and a palimpsest in itself. It presents a victory of public use over the private and industrial by opening previously closed-off spaces. A post-industrial park offers some crucial topics of remediation, adaptive reuse, and social integration, among others. For a […]
Sarah Cowles of Ruderal presents their design for the Betania Garden near Tbilisi, Georgia, which was awarded LILA 2023 Special Mention in the Garden category. We start the discussion with an update on Arsenal Oasis, another LILA-winning project from 2021 (See the presentation). For the Betania Garden, the LILA 2023 jury wrote: At first glance, […]
»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 […]
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, […]
Katarina Bajc is a landscape architect, currently working as a researcher at HafenCity University in Hamburg.
