Emancipation in landscape architecture can signify the release of landscapes from colonial legacies, neoliberal logics, and the extractive practices of the Capitalocene. It also entails freeing landscapes from aesthetic regimes—the picturesque, harmony, or “naturalness”—that dictate how they should appear and be consumed. Emancipated landscapes need not serve as mirrors of identity or Genius Loci; instead, they open toward their own becoming, indeterminate and unclaimed. In this sense, emancipation extends to the spectator, who is no longer guided by prescriptive design cues but enabled to discover alternative ways of dwelling. Landscape becomes a platform where identities are loosened, expectations suspended, and other modes of inhabiting the Anthropocene may emerge.
The jury recognized the imaginative adaptive reuse of a former wastewater infrastructure, from a discarded concrete object into a lively playscape that engages children in an unusual setting and encourages them to discover new means of play. It is precisely the abstract dimension of the playground, these unique specifics, that separate the playscape from strictly catalogue-based playgrounds and contribute to children’s emancipation and development. In doing so, it affirms play as a creative, cognitive, and social practice—contributing to children’s emancipation from rigid, predefined systems of interaction. The result is an outstanding playscape, both ecological due to adaptive reuse and socially fulfilling.
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 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”
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 […]
Almost every park needs a playground area and children’s playgrounds are one of the toughest typologies to design. The equipment available is either ugly or beyond budget, especially in the public realm. Then the programme is repetitive — poles, slides, swings, climbing walls, sandpits. For the designer to cover the developmental needs of all ages […]
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.
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