Paradigm Shift (Kuhn)

Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1962), described paradigm shifts as moments when the dominant framework of knowledge breaks and a new one takes hold. Science, he argued, does not progress smoothly but through ruptures that redefine what counts as truth. The concept has spread far beyond science, sometimes overused as a cliché for any change, landscape architecture conferences included! Yet its core insight remains: paradigms are not eternal, they collapse, and when they do, reality itself is reorganized in thought, not only intellectual but social and institutional.

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 […]

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. […]

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.

»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 […]

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