Speakers & Moderators

Dr. Bruno Marques is a landscape architect and educator. He completed his Landscape Architecture studies at the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and Berlin Technical University (Germany), followed by his PhD studies at the University of Otago (New Zealand). Bruno has practised in Germany, Estonia, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, having an extensive portfolio of projects. During the past ten years at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, he has developed a comprehensive research agenda to embrace the formulation of frameworks on landscape rehabilitation, cultural landscapes, place-making and Indigenous community health and wellbeing. He is currently the Associate Dean for the Faculty of Architecture and Design Innovation and the President of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA).

TBA

TBA

Professional Position:
• Hou Chin-Tui Chair Professor, Dept. of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University (2014- )
• President, National Museum of Natural Science Foundation (1999-2003, 2005- )
• CEO, Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation and Environmental Protection Foundation (2007- )

Education:
• B.S. 1971-1975 Dept. of Botany, National Chung-Hsing University, Taichung, Taiwan
• M.S. 1975-1977 Institute of Oceanography, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan
• Ph.D. 1979-1983 Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, U.S.A.

Experience:
• 1983-1985 Research Marine Biologist, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego, U.S.A.
• 1985-1990 Associate Professor, Institute of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
• 1987-1990 Director, Institute of Life Science, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
• 1990-1992 Secretary General, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan.
• 1992-1995 Deputy Director, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan
• 1995-1996 Director, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan
• 2002-2005 Director, National Museum of Natural Science, Taichung, Taiwan
• 2005-2008 Director, Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

Human activities are driving us toward the brink of a global biological disaster that could rival anything in Earth’s evolutionary history. Tropical plants are especially vulnerable and disappearing at an alarming rate. While in recent decades conservation strategies have been put in place at local and international levels, tropical plants have been largely neglected because it is difficult and costly to meet their heat and humidity requirements in developed Western countries. Conserving the endangered tropical plant species is critically important for not only restoring the demolished ecosystem in the future, but also safeguarding the invaluable natural resources for the generations to come. The Orchidaceae, with around 28,000 species, is one of the most threatened plant groups, due to climate change, habitat destruction, and overharvest. The Dr. Cecilia Koo Botanic Conservation Center (KBCC), located in southern Taiwan, was established in 2007 with a single mission: to conserve the tropical and subtropical plants, in order to sustain the richest biodiversity on Earth. It focuses on ex situ preservation of living plants and currently houses 34,246 plant species and cultivars, including 9,569 taxa of orchids (around 70% of them are species). Taiwan is home to 470 species of orchids, and 146 of them are endemic. In 2017 KBCC initiated the 100 Species for Conservation Action, including 17 threatened Taiwanese orchids. Hundreds or thousands individuals of each species have been propagated. These plants have been transplanted to their original habitats and shared with local communities. In 2023, additional 15 threatened Taiwanese orchids have been selected for propagation. In order to preserve and safeguard high-quality tropical plant materials for future genomic and transcriptomic studies, a cryopreservation facility at KBCC was established. Organs and seeds of orchids grown in KBCC have been cryopreserved.

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The railway factory of the mid-20th century has transformed into a railway museum in the 21st century. What was once a factory by the fields is now a space between towering buildings, symbolizing the shift from greenery to a concrete jungle. The railway network, once expansive, has become the migratory field for urban floods. This project symbolizes the development of the era, as it addresses how to meet the needs of visitors navigating the museum while also achieving the goal of connecting the city's open green spaces.

Founding Director

Günther Vogt (*1957) studied landscape architecture at the Intercantonal Technical College in Rapperswil after completing his training as a gardener. VOGT Landscape Architects emerged from the former partnership with Dieter Kienast in Zurich in 2000, followed by branch offices in London (2008), Berlin (2010) and Paris (2019). From 2005 to 2023, he taught as a professor at the Institute for Landscape and Urban Studies (LUS) at the Department of Architecture (D-ARCH) at ETH Zurich. In 2012 he was a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and was awarded the Prix Meret Oppenheim in the same year. In 2010 Günther Vogt opened the Case Studio VOGT as a platform for interdisciplinary projects between teaching and practice. As a passionate collector and curious traveller, he searches for ways to read, interpret and describe the landscape, finding answers to questions about future forms of urban coexistence. His work is characterised by an exchange between different disciplines and cooperation with artists.

Making Space Public – Public Space in the Making

This lecture will discuss what it means to design public space in the 21st century. In a world where public space is increasingly under threat from privately-owned urban development, 24/7 survaillance and monitoring of urban space and changing urban climates, designing truly public space requires our special attention. In the lecture, we propose a series of "urban qualities" that we believe make up the ingredients of contemporary public space. The lecture will illustrate these qualities with design examples from the work of VOGT Landscape Architects.

I Ping Huang is the commissioner of the Public Works Department, Taipei City Government. He is expert in Civil Engineering. He has served as the commissioner of the Department of Urban Development, Taipei City Government, commissioner, Urban and Rural Development Department, New Taipei City Government. He is the member of China Engineering Consultants, Inc, which implementing smart, service-oriented R&D training, public services, government, industry, academic and public partnerships to create a balanced transportation system, promote national economic development, engage in public service, and support environmental sustainability.

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Niall Kirkwood is the Charles Eliot Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, USA where he has taught full time since 1991. In addition, he served as the Academic Dean at the GSD from 2019-2024.

Over the last forty-five years in design practice and in academic institutions he has carried out built projects, research, and authored key publications that focused on core issues in the design and implementation of designed landscapes in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and SE. Asia. These engage a range of topics related to landscape architecture and contemporary design, the built environment, climate change, and the sustainable reuse of land including urban regeneration, landfill and post-mining site reclamation, environmental site technologies, site implementation and site development in the global post-industrial landscape. In addition, Kirkwood is a leading world expert in the reuse and remaking of global brownfields and their integration of environmental remediation, site engineering, landscape design and cultural and social programs. His English language publications include Manufactured Sites: Rethinking the Post-Industrial Landscape (Taylor Francis/Routledge). Principles of Brownfield Regeneration (Island Press), PHYTO: Principles and Resources for Site Remediation and Landscape Design (Taylor Francis/Routledge), Weathering and Durability in Landscape Architecture (John Wiley) and The Art of Landscape Detail (John Wiley).

Prior to joining the Harvard GSD faculty, he was a registered and licensed architect and landscape architect with 16 years of experience in the private sector carrying out land reclamation and urban development projects in Scotland, European Mainland, Middle East, and the United States

He has given keynote lectures internationally in the last twenty years in Korea, China, Japan, Thailand, Mexico, Ireland, Germany, Russia including the keynote speech for the 2017 IFLA Asia-Pacific Congress (Bangkok, Thailand), 2010 IFLA Annual Conference (Suzhou, China) and 2008 IFLA Annual Europe Conference (St Petersburg, Russia) as well as lectures and seminars in design programs throughout North America, Europe, Middle East, Asia and South-East Asia.

He is a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) USA, and a Honorary Fellow of the Kew Guild, Royal Gardens at Kew, England, United Kingdom and was formerly a member of the Royal Institute of British Architects and The Landscape Institute (TLI), United Kingdom.

TAR CREEK FUTURES:Sustainability, Environmental Legacies, and Reimagining the Landscape of the Quapaw

TAR CREEK FUTURES introduces and explores toxic land regeneration, indigenous ecologies and their combined agency in creating environmental and social equity using critical practices of landscape design and making. The study area is Ottawa County, in the NE Corner of Oklahoma, USA. at the edge of the Ozark Highlands and eastern boundary of the Tallgrass Prairie. This site is the largest and most dangerous polluted landscape of former mining works in the United States, it is part of the Neosho/ Spring River riparian corridor and is home to tribal and non-tribal communities based around former mining centers including the abandoned ‘ghost towns’ of Picher and Cardin. The land and riparian ecology of the region has been devastated by acid mine drainage, land settlement and waste ‘mountains’ of mining spoil. The intellectual question is– how does a tribal and non-tribal culture express itself through design in environmental form in a time of devastation, repair, recovery and transformation? The presentation will illustrate advanced design research at the Harvard Design School that imagines alternative design futures working with the local Quapaw Nation and advances detail design proposals for the transformation of, the mining waste mountains and the intense pollution of local riverways, while reimagining at the same time, the future form of local infrastructure, agriculture, cultural programs and identity.

Chi-Ru Chang is Professor of Landscape Ecology and currently serves as Chair at the Department of Landscape Architecture, Chinese Culture University. She received her Ph.D. in Environment and Master’s in Environmental Management from Duke University, and her bachelor’s in Public Health from National Taiwan University. Her research focuses on cross-disciplinary studies on how humans and natural processes co-determine the pattern and structure of vegetation in the urban environment and their socio-ecological significance at multiple scales. Her methods include on-site surveys of vegetation, spatial analyses of social and ecological components, and interviews of users, designers, and managers of urban greenspaces. She originated the concept of “local cool-island intensity” and pioneered the collecting and translating of scientific information on urban cooling to become applicable to greenspace design. She has also studied the relationship between greenspace structure and fauna diversity. Her current research focuses on the diversity and social-ecological drivers of planted and spontaneous plants in the urban environment, with a special focus on how landscape architects and nature co-define urban vegetation. She also collaborates with fellow scientists from multiple fields to expand the scope of socio-ecological significance, including currently serving as a landscape ecologist and systems moderator for a “from land to sea” multidisciplinary long-term research group in Green Island. Her teachings aim to translate abstract ecological processes and concepts into visible forms to help aspiring landscape architects master ecology-based design.

What Biodiversity Teaches Us about the Relationship between Landscape Architects and Nature

The human-nature relationship has been a central theme in landscape architecture. As landscape architects, we see ourselves as agents and stewards of nature. We design WITH nature. The theme for this year’s IFLA world congress, “Code Red for Earth”, however, highlights how man is impacted by climate change, severe disasters, mass migration, livelihood destruction, land-use change, habitat encroachment, extinction of species, and wildlife crime. The hidden message suggests that Nature is domineering and to be revered, nature is NOT WITH humans. In this talk, I shall share my ponderings of landscape architects’ relationship with nature, based on years of scientific research on how plants and animals are affected by the hidden impacts of our design in urban parks. In most landscape architect’s mind, green space IS nature. Green is good. My data tells me, however, that not all green are equal. Some designs allow for more species of spontaneous plants. Different designs allow for different types of spontaneous plants. Our designs also affect birds that inhabit urban parks. Different designs allow for different types of birds. Butterfly diversity, however, does not seem to be affected by our design, but is instead affected by the site’s affiliation with natural areas. In fact, a specific portion of the bird and spontaneous plant community are also more affected by the site’s spatial, compositional, and structural affiliation with nature than by design. There is also data to suggest that a large part of synanthropes may simply be opportunistic species that benefit from human preferences in landscapes, whereas nonsynanthropes decline because humans disfavor their habitats.

Landscape Architects design greenspace primarily for humans. This inadvertently alters the habitat of other species, shifts species composition, and may unintentionally exacerbate global biotic homogenization and reduce global biodiversity. If we want to become the champions of Nature-Based Solutions, we need to understand that biodiversity, especially the diversity and composition of spontaneous species, are the messengers from nature. We need to learn how to listen to them.

Dr. Christina (Ida) Breed is a registered professional Landscape Architect and Associate Professor at the Department of Architecture, University of Pretoria. Her research is concerned with open space design and how it relates to natural and cultural contextual issues and local identity in sub-Saharan Africa. She demonstrates the importance of landscape designers in shaping green infrastructure, urban ecology and social-ecological systems. The findings of her research are relevant to national health and urban biodiversity conservation, indicating the importance of quality open space criteria in the Global South. She is trained in urban ethnography and uses qualitative research methods but enjoys working transdisciplinaryly. She has strong industry ties and was the president of the Institute for Landscape Architecture in South Africa (ILASA) 2016-2018. She has also been a panelist for ILASA and IFLA World design competitions and a peer reviewer for international journals. Since 2021, she has been the local principal investigator on two research projects in collaboration with the University of Aarhus, Denmark, funded by the Danida Fellowship Center.

If It’s Green It Has to Be Nature

Researchers and planners increasingly consider the systematic integration of green infrastructure concepts in urban planning as an essential approach to tackle significant current and future challenges. To achieve this, as built environment design professionals, we can no longer look at nature as a nice-to-have asset; it must become the living heart of all urban space. Sub-Saharan African cities face rapid urbanization, unregulated land-use practices, and poor enforcement of policies. These cities are rich in biodiversity and retain natural ecosystems, but struggle to address the depletion and degradation of existing green infrastructure, which increases vulnerability to climatic hazards. Landscape designers are critical in optimizing the benefits derived from urban green spaces. Yet, we must creatively and systematically explore how we can actively shape urban ecologies to deliver context-specific empirical bases for green space intervention decisions. Design experiments offer one concrete avenue to bridge research and practice, with opportunities for implemented projects in real-world settings to serve as learning sites. In this presentation, we share some learning from recent projects and experiments in Africa.

- We found evidence of native plant preferences by insects and people and that they offer natural adaptation to regional climatic extremes.
- The potential for designers to strengthen bonds with urban nature lies in the creation of aesthetic experiences that build on existing local affinities to landscape character and indigenous species.
- We found that local knowledge and connections to nature can inspire nature-based design solutions.
- Landscape designers can influence plant selection, increasing urban ecosystem services and benefits.
- We found that live projects create a setting for seeking alternative solutions in design processes and outcomes.
- Our research shows that collaborative strategies that allow greater access and the active, diverse use of green space could provide much-required cross-sectoral support and management.
- We propound that learning, care and stewardship of nature can enable human well-being and steady but much-needed transformative change.
- We currently investigate the challenge of establishing participatory partnerships as mechanisms to consolidate diverse priorities and co-develop technical and financial alternatives for a new green era.

Dr. Ellen Fetzer holds a diploma and a doctoral degree in landscape architecture from Kassel University in Germany. She works full time at Nürtingen-Geislingen University in Germany where she is primarily coordinating the international masters in landscape architecture. Beyond landscape architecture, she is passionate about computer-supported collaborative learning in transnational settings, systems thinking and social innovation. Ellen is currently president of ECLAS (www.eclas.org), the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools. Her most recent initiatives are a thematic network on landscape economy (TELOS) and the development of OLA, the Open Landscape Academy, a global network for democratic landscape transformation.

Democratic Landscape Transformation: Towards an Open Landscape Academy with a Global Mission

Over the past year, we have invited the European academic community to co-create a collective vision of how higher education institutions can address the global and local need for democratic landscape transformation as a foundation for deep and long-term sustainability. The university sector has substantial infrastructure and intellectual property, which should be activated in support of civic engagement as a distinct Third Mission Strategy. Landscapes are the concrete spatial context in which sustainability challenges become visible, relevant and a permanent subject of democratic discourse. Universities are part of these landscapes and share them with civil society and many interest groups. The ‘landscape approach’ is an invitation to co-create sustainable futures, locally, and with everyone involved who is living and acting in these landscapes. Co-creation and innovative governance are more necessary than ever, but across sectors, there is limited capability for cultivating truly co-creative approaches.

I will present the current version of the ‘Charta for Democratic Landscape Transformation’ that is guiding the actions of the Open Landscape Academy (OL). I will also elaborate on the organizational model of OLA. During the session we can collectively address the following questions in order to build the Open Landscape Academy as an evolving common good: (1) How can universities develop sustainable partnerships with their local communities to address local landscape challenges? (2) How might universities collaborate globally to exchange and learn from each other on how these community partnerships can be cultivated? (3) Which values will guide our actions towards democratic landscape transformation? (4) How might these values influence our current teaching and research practice?

The Open Landscape Academy is a three years ERASMUS+ cooperation project funded by the European Union.

Dr. Julian Raxworthy is an Associate Professor and Discipline Lead in Landscape Architecture at the University of Canberra and Principal Landscape Architect at FREE-RANGE LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS, his practice since 2008. Before joining the University of Canberra, he held faculty positions at RMIT and QUT in Australia, and internationally at the University of Cape Town, and was a visiting professor at l’École nationale supérieure de paysage Versailles and the University of Virginia. In 2004, he co-edited The MESH Book: Landscape & Infrastructure, published by RMIT Press, and in 2011, Sun Publishers in Amsterdam released Sunburnt: Landscape Architecture in Australia, which he co-authored. His most recent book, Overgrown: Practices Between Landscape Architecture and Gardening, was published in 2018 by The MIT Press and supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. His current research, for a book provisionally titled Latent City, explores the intersection between ideology and land tenure, natural systems, and the experience of landscape.

Cultivating the Art of Maintenance: Plants, Technology, and Design

Technology and art in landscape architecture are closely tied to the dynamic nature of plants, which continue to grow rather than degrade over time, unlike the inorganic materials of architecture. I explore this relationship through the concept of the “Viridic,” developed in Overgrown, a book informed by my experiences as a landscaper and gardener before studying landscape architecture, and my reflections afterward. This lecture will introduce the concept and address feedback from practitioners who found the book’s aims highly relevant but sought greater alignment with their professional practice. In response, I am developing a new body of research at the University of Canberra, pursued through teaching and academic work with students on projects across the campus. This research merges education and professional practice, reflecting on design, construction, management, and institutional factors within client organizations—something I investigated recently during a sabbatical in the United States, where I spoke with managers of projects like the innovative Brooklyn Bridge Park in New York, which involved funding models developed at project inception to sustain maintenance. I will conclude by speculating on how maintenance practices can be reimagined as a design tool to support landscapes that are “anti-fragile”—a concept from Nassim Nicholas Taleb—by introducing “Viridic Disturbance,” a method that leverages plant vigorousness and blurs the distinction between desired and weed species. This approach suggests a new way to both practice and manage landscapes, fostering collaborative relationships between people and plants, and allowing landscapes to evolve into something exciting and novel.

Karen M’Closkey is associate professor of landscape architecture and co-founder of the Environmental Modeling Lab (EMLab) at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design. She is co-founder, with Keith VanDerSys, of PEG office of landscape + architecture. Their work focuses on the opportunities and limitations enabled by advancements in digital modeling, and how the assumptions embedded in our methods and tools shape our understanding of landscapes and environments. Their work has been acknowledged through numerous publications, exhibitions, and awards, including a PEW Fellowship in the Arts. They are authors of Media Matters in Landscape Architecture (forthcoming), Dynamic Patterns: Visualizing Landscapes in a Digital Age (2017) and guest editors of LA+ GEO (2020) and LA+ Simulation (2016), where Karen currently serves as editor in chief.

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Dr Aikaterini Gkoltsiou is assistant professor at the Laboratory of Floriculture and Landscape Architecture, Department of Crop Science, at the Agricultural University of Athens (AUA). Her research interests include Landscape Character Assessment, Landscape Management and Landscape Design. She has a Ph.D. in Geography from the University of Aegean in Greece, a master’s in landscape architecture from the University of Edinburgh, U.K., and a diploma in Αgriculture from the Agricultural University of Athens, Greece.

She is the President of the European Region of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA Europe) (2021-2025), former IFLA Europe Vice President of Professional Practice (2019-2021), Delegate of PHALA-Greece in IFLA Europe (2016-2019), as well as past president of the Panhellenic Association of Landscape Architects (PHALA) for six years (2016-2021). As such she is involved in many working groups and networks in European Commission and Council of Europe. She is the editor and contributor to the IFLA Europe position papers on “Biodiversity” and “Circular Economy”, Stormwater management: Climate change and new solutions for water management in the city, Trees in the mediterranean city Beyond climate change: good rules for a new coexistence between humans and trees.

She has more than 25 years of experience as a Landscape Architect, specializing in planting design, biodiversity, and landscape reclamation projects. Recently, one of her biodiversity projects was included in IFLA Europe’s annual exhibition. She is also a partner of AGRODESIGN (www.agrodesign.gr), to promote agritourism and landscape design. She is also the co-author in books for High Schools and Universities, she wrote articles in many scientific journals and technical reports, on Landscape Character Assessment, and Landscape Architecture.

From 2002, she is participating as project manager and scientific adviser in EU research programs related to Landscape Character Assessment and Landscape Architecture. She has a certification of teaching qualification of Trainers for Adults of non-formal education recognized both in Greece and in EU member states and she was participating in many lifelong learning programs for adults. She has also been certified on public participation methods and since then, she is trying to raise awareness among the civil society, private organisations, and public authorities about the value of landscapes and their protection.

Invest in Landscape: A European Landscape Architects’ position towards a New Green Era

During the last ten years, the impacts of climate crisis are becoming more obvious. From the Mediterranean Sea to the Arctic Circle, entire ecosystems are collapsing, and communities suffer from the consequences from the irreversible loss of biodiversity, affecting the supply of safe drinking water, contributing to poor air quality, threatening food security, decreasing the resilience of communities, and wiping out cultural practices. At this point, it is becoming more evident the important public role of landscape in cultural, ecological, environmental and social fields, as important part of the quality of life for people everywhere and a key element of individual and social well-being.

Landscape Architecture profession which applies aesthetic and scientific principles to the analysis, design, planning and management of both natural and built environments (as defined by the European Landscape Convention) is facing the challenges to conserve, develop and manage our landscapes, to ensure climate resilience, as an extension of the European Green Deal or the new European Bauhaus Declaration (Council of Europe, 2020). Therefore, it is imperative that Climate challenges are part of the design, planning and management of landscapes, which are fundamental resources for the welfare of future generations. The presentation aims to analyze, in this new Green Era, the role of Landscape Architects to address all these challenges and the issues of sustainability, climate resilience, quality and health of landscapes, biodiversity loss, from a policy perspective. Through a European policy overview related to landscape and environment, the necessity for a holistic more inclusive landscape approach will be introduced.

Society needs new perspectives to decision‐making, progressive policies, and a universal commitment to innovative ideas. By initiating the New European Bauhaus in 2020, the Commission has already assigned Landscape Architects a key role in the transition to an innovative construction and landscape industry and the associated building culture of sustainability. The necessity to design with nature, introduce a more natural shape for cities, utilizing nature-based solutions and thus bringing cities function closer to the cycles of nature became imperative.

To achieve the aforementioned goals, the European Region of the International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA Europe) promote the linkages and connections between policies and practice, reinforced by incentives, new structures and systems, as well as the importance to focus on the ‘co-production of solutions’ across disciplines and professions. The presentation will conclude with the position and the latest actions of IFLA Europe in relation to the European Commission and Council of Europe new legislation and initiatives affecting our landscape and environment.

Dr. Kuang-Yu Wang is a landscape architect and associate professor in the Department of Landscape Architecture, Chung-Yuan University where, beside teaching, he actively participates in public landscape projects and serves on juries for various landscape awards.

After received a bachelor degree in Economics in Taiwan, Dr. Wang went to the US and received a bachelor (BLA) and a master degree (MLA) in Landscape Architecture. Returned to Taipei, he worked for more than fifteen years in landscape architecture professional practice and teaching part-time in universities. After he received a PhD degree in Geography, Dr. Wang turned to full time teaching while maintaining close professional contacts in landscape architecture.

Dr. Wang is the author of the book” Reading the Five Dimensions of the Landscape”. The book stresses the importance of clarifying the concepts of landscape for the landscape architecture profession and using the five interlayered landscape dimensions to offer new perspectives on landscape architecture. He believes that a landscape professional should think like a philosopher, distinguishing the nature and value of things while acting like an engineer, embodying ideals through valid methods, knowledge, and techniques. And above all, a landscape professional should have the heart of an artist, pursuing creativity and beauty.

His interests include the history of landscape architecture, landscape studies, landscape design and planning theories. Recently, he has been focusing on using the ideas of the five dimensions of the landscape to explore new approaches to landscape architecture, and on employing 'food' and 'art' as tools for the interpretation, representation and management of landscape embedded in sustainability, locality, vitality, inclusivity, and with vivid identity.

Action Follows View: Reading the Five Dimensions of the Landscape, Exploring New Perspectives in Landscape Architecture

After many years of professional practice and teaching in landscape architecture, I understand that significant effort and attention have been devoted to practical knowledge and technical skills in landscape design and planning. However, the fundamental questions of 'What is landscape?' and 'What constitutes the concept of landscape?' lie at the core of landscape architecture. These questions do not have fixed answers and require constant examination to embrace new perspectives and discover new possibilities for the landscape architecture profession.

How a professional understands “landscape” will determine the value he/she places on it and actions he/she will take to intervene. In other words, the view of landscape influences fundamentally how and in what way the landscape profession involves itself in a landscape. The view of landscape gives direction guiding the professional performance and as an impetus driving the use of knowledge and technical skills to provide solutions to landscape issues. Indeed, the limited views of what we know about a landscape result in limits to creative solutions to landscape.

The presentation clarifies the concept of landscape through five interlayered dimensions. Using examples based on these dimensions, it illustrates the link between the view of landscape and taking action within it, which could lead to creative solutions for landscape issues and new perspectives in landscape architecture.

Professor at Shinshu University. Ph.D. in Design from the Graduate School of Design, Kyushu University. His specialties include design science and landscape design. In recent years, he has been involved in both the practical work and research of reconstruction planning following the Great East Japan Earthquake. In this field, he has received the Outstanding Award at the IFLA AAPME Award (2018), the IFLA APR Luminary Award (2023), and the Good Design Award (Urban Planning Category) in 2021. On the research front, he received the Heisei Memorial Research Grant from the Japan International Award in 2021.

Japan, despite its limited land area, boasts some of the highest levels of biodiversity in the world. This is closely linked to both environmental and cultural diversity. As evidence, the variety and names of traditional Japanese colors are significantly more diverse than the standard colors used internationally. Additionally, there has historically been a wide range of diversity in the styles of gardens and towns, created by nobles, samurai, and regional warlords. However, in modern Japan, the diversity of its regions and people's lifestyles is being lost, and the biological and natural diversity that we can be proud of around the world is also being lost. In my presentation, I would like to discuss the diversity that arises from the connection between ordinary people and the unique characteristics of their land. This is because the theme of preserving rare species tends to be skewed towards the perspective of affluent individuals in developed countries protecting the poor, the weak, or the marginalized. As a result, discussions of diversity as seen from the lives and living environments of ordinary people are often overlooked. Furthermore, the conservation of biodiversity through protected areas or genetic preservation is highly specialized, with weak connections to the everyday lives of ordinary people, and involves significant costs. In particular, with the increasing risks of climate-related disasters and the widening economic gap leading to more conflicts globally, I believe that focusing solely on the preservation of minorities (such as endangered species) is insufficient for maintaining overall biodiversity, environmental diversity, and cultural diversity. I will introduce two related topics. The first is about the environmental gradation and biodiversity created by ordinary people, as seen in Japan’s satoyama landscapes. The second is the significance of understanding the potential and limitations of environments as gradations, as discussed in Ian McHarg's "Design with Nature." I will present specific examples related to both topics. Ecologists and conservationists may not be comfortable discussing biodiversity conservation about people's lives and living environments. I hope that raising the question of "gradation" will provide a hint for solving problems and creating new biodiversity for landscape architects and researchers, who have designed compelling relationships between space and people through the concept of figure and ground.

RLA / P.E.Jp(Urban and Regional Planning)

President of Takano Landscape Planning Co., Ltd.
Chairman of Consultants of Landscape Architecture in Japan / Chairman of Landscape and Business Development Association Japan

Norihiro KANEKIYO was born in 1957 at Kagawa Prefecture Japan. He graduated from Chiba University. He has experience in overseas projects such as Malaysia, France, Taiwan, Middle East and other countries. After returning to Japan, he has been involved in projects of various scales, from private gardens, large-scale parks, regional planning, and national level land-use planning.

He received the Japan Institute of Landscape Architecture Award in 2008, the Sato International Exchange Award in 2017, and the Kitamura Award in 2022 from Parks & Open Space Association of Japan. He is a co-author of "The Work of Landscape" (Shokokusha, 2003).

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Expert in smart and resilient urban planning, ecological theory, regional economic integration, industrial transformation, urban and rural redevelopment, and land and regional development trends. Actively fosters academic and municipal collaborations between Taiwan and Germany. Key contributions include shaping the 'Zero Emission Urban Development Autonomous Regulation' and advancing the International Building Exhibition (IBA) in Kaohsiung.

Landscape's Response Strategies for Social Common Good in Climate Change Adaptation

In the 21st century, the world is facing the challenge of climate change, and it is clear that landscape also plays an active role and function. Among the new claims, we note the latest developments and demands of Urban Nature Pact. This proposition, which advocates that urban development must be a new process of City with Nature in the form of a new dimension and a positive perspective through the United Nations Convention initiative, obviously brings new challenges to the landscape profession as the implementation of this urban development task.

Another issue that is of greatest concern to various global climate change adaptation policies and actions is the common good of society, that is, how to take into account the different conditions and gaps in the actions of different groups in society to promote climate change. The social consequences of these actions often have different capacities and special vulnerabilities. When human beings look forward to a better urban and rural living environment under the impact of climate change, it is obvious that the topic of how to respond to the landscape in Urban Nature Pact must be discussed in depth in advance.

This article will use Urban Nature Pact as a text to explore the important perspectives and strategies needed for the development of the landscape profession in response to social challenges.

Ying-Chao Kuo is the principal architect of Bio-architecture Formosana (BaF) - a Taipei based architectural design firm. BaF has been one of the leading architecture firms in Taiwan, and its works range from culture, education, transportation, hospitality, workplace and housing for both public and private sectors. The Bei-Tou Library project completed in 2006 is Taiwan’s first certified green architecture project. The timber library timber is the most published Green building in Taiwan and was selected as one of the 25 most beautiful libraries in the world by U.S.-based cultural news website Flavorwire.

Focusing on sustainability and circularity design, he incorporates biological-intelligence (BI) design approach, a design philosophy of the company, into the creation of architecture. Ying-Chao has won numerous awards for his design in sustainability and was the recipient of the 12th Awarding of Outstanding Architects in Taiwan in 2011. He has taught in several university as an Associate Professor.

More than 70 years ago , nature conservationist Aldo Leopold ,in his groundbreaking work “The land ethic” , urged that the ethic dealing with man’s relation with land should be in place along with the ethics dealt with the relation between individuals ,and the relation between the individual and society. Till now, the human-land relation ,in Leopold’s words, is stil strictly economic, entailing privileges but not obligations.

For the past 25years, Baf has been exploring the contents of the relation between the built environment and the nature through our projects in Taiwan, from south to north , west to east. The bottom line is: the built environment should serve not only human beings, but all the living beings who share this planet with us.

Previously involved in research projects and didactic activities at the Accademia di architettura in Mendrisio and the International Institute of Architecture in Vico Morcote, the Berlage Institute in Rotterdam, the Barcelona Institute of Architecture, the Canadian Centre of Architecture in Montreal, the Archivio Cattaneo in Cernobbio, and the Shih Chien University and the Huafan University in Taipei, Alessandro Martinelli is Associate professor at the Department of Landscape architecture, the Chinese Culture University, Taipei. He is also the editorial director of ListLab Publisher (listlab.eu), Chair of the IFLA Education & Academic Affairs Committee, and immediate past chair of the IFLA Asia Pacific Region Education & Academic Affairs Committee (iflaworld.com). Finally, he works with BIAS Architects & Associates (biasarchitects.com) on design and curating projects concerning the public space today.

Chia-Lin Tsao is a licensed architect in New York, advocator in people-oriented cities and educator in landscape architecture and urban design. He got MAUD in Columbia University and PhD in Urban Design in Oxford Brookes University. He had participated in the design of Central Plaza and Waterfront Park in MM21, Yokohama, Japan. He had won the 1999 Design Award of Landscape Architecture, and 2003 Design Award of Public Space in Taiwan Ministry of Interior. He is the authors of two books, Time and Space of Campus Planning (1999) and WW2 Industrial Heritage, The 6th Japanese Naval Fuel Plant in Hsinchu, Taiwan, THEN and NOW (2021). He is one of the speakers in 2024 TEDx Taichung. In recent years, through lectures, interviews, writings, teachings and design practices, he strongly advocates cities in Taiwan toward people oriented. He is currently the Dean of School of Design, professor in Department of Landscape Architecture and Director of the Center of Urban Planning and Design, Chung Yuan Christian University.

Associate Professor of the School of Resource Conversation and Forestry, National Taiwan University, former Director of the Biodiversity Research Center of National Taiwan University (2020/2-2023/7), and concurrently serving as Chairman of the International Climate Development Think Tank (ICDI) since 2022. Currently, he is a member of the Ministry of Environment’s Voluntary Greenhouse Gas Reduction Review Committee (2019 to date) and a member of the first Environmental Impact Assessment Committee. Specializing in forest management, forest carbon sink trading applications, biodiversity conservation, climate change education and promotion, ecological service value estimation and nature-related financial disclosure (TNFD).

TBA

Gloria Pungetti is Professor in Landscape Science and chair of CBLS, the Centre for Biocultural Landscape and Seascape at the University of Sassari, IT, as well as Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society, UK and Life Member of the University of Cambridge, UK. She is also founder of CCLP, the Cambridge Centre for Landscape and People, from where she has developed for over 30 years a holistic approach to landscape research, linking nature with culture and theory with practice.

She has been awarded prestigious international fellowships and has cooperated worldwide with universities, organisations and local communities, promoting bottom-up and participatory approaches for biocultural heritage and traditional ecological knowledge.

Gloria has coordinated international projects and conferences on landscape, seascape and islandscape, reflecting the integration of their cultural and spiritual values into nature conservation and biocultural diversity. She is author of over a hundred international academic articles and books, including Ecological Networks and Greenways; Sacred Species and Sites (Cambridge University Press, 2004 and 2012), The Right to Landscape; Island Landscapes; Routledge Handbook of Seascapes (Routledge, 2011, 2017 and 2022).

TBA

Matt Miller currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer for the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards (CLARB). At CLARB, Matt manages and collaborates with the staff team in its execution of the annual scope of work approved and funded by the Board of Directors. Matt also serves as a spokesperson for CLARB and as an ex-officio member of the Board of Directors.

Previously, Matt has served various leadership roles in professional associations including, Executive Director & CEO at the American Welding Society (AWS), Chief Operating Officer for NACE International, and the Director of the SAE Foundation and Pre-Professional Programs at SAE International.

Matt earned a Bachelor of Science in Education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1997, a Master of Science in Instructional Technology from Duquesne University in 2000, and a Master of Science in Nonprofit Management from Robert Morris University in 2010.

Matt is currently serving as Chair on the Board of Directors of the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives (CESSE).

Monica Kuo is the Professor of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Chinese Culture University, Taiwan. She is a committee of Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan, committee of the Cultural Investigation Central Committee of the Ministry of Culture, committee of the Cultural Assets Review Committee of the Ministry of Culture, committee of public art deliberation of the Ministry of Transportation and Communications and municipal consultant of the Taipei City Government. Monica Kuo has served as the chairman of International Federation of Landscape Architects - Asia Pacific Region (IFLA-APR), dedicating international and Asia-Pacific region and academic exchanges. Also, Professor Kuo has served as the Chairman of Taiwan Institute of Landscape Architects, the Executive Director of the National Park Association in Taiwan, and a multi-spectral action planners such as "life aesthetics", "beauty promotion", "cultural asset layer", and "cultural city preservation" education and supervision.

In 2018, she took the Program Director of "The color coating project of the nostalgic pier of Zhengbin Fishing Port" of the Keelung City Government, awarded the International Institute of Architects (IFLA) 2002 Grand Landscape "Seaside Landscape Construction Excellence Award", and was awarded the National Outstanding Construction Award for "Land Area" in 2002. Construction Special Contribution Award, in 2022, the Architectural Institute of Taiwan Lifetime Achievement Award and the Taiwan Architectural Society Lifetime Achievement Award.

Dr. Shiau-Yun Lu is the current Director-General of Taiwan's Ocean Conservation Administration (OCA), and associate professor at National Sun Yat-sen University. She holds a Doctoral Degree in Design (DDes) from Harvard University, Master in Landscape Architecture from UPenn, the U.S. Dr. Lu specializes in marine spatial and environmental planning, including marine and coastal planning, design and management. Her research focuses on marine spatial planning, island environmental changes, coastal wetland planning and design, green port city, climate change coastal adoption the application of GIS in marine environmental management. She integrates eco-based environmental planning and design in her research to address the challenges of coastal area development, particularly in coastal cities and wetlands. Additionally, Dr. Lu has extensive experience participating in international research projects, and her work emphasizes sustainable development models and the impact of human activities on marine and coastal ecosystems.

Deputy Director General, National Land Management Agency, Ministry of the Interior,R.O.C.(Taiwan)
Adjunct Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University.

Education
Doctoral, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University
Master, Graduate Institute of Urban Planning, National Cheng kung University
Bachelor of Engineer, Department of Urban Planning, National Cheng kung University

Main Professional Experience
Senior Lecture, Department of Geography, National Normal University (2008- )
Lecture, Department of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chung Hua University (2002-2006)
Section Chief of Planning, Urban Regeneration Office, Taipei City Government. (2008-2010)
Sub Section Chief of Comprehension Planning, Urban Development Department, Taipei City Government

Research and Teach Fields
Urban History
National Planning
Urban Sociology
Spatial Theory
Planning History
Urban Regeneration
Comparison of Urban Design and Community Empowerment in Asian City
Governmentality and Governance
Housing and Architectural Theory and Policy

Yu-Feng Wang, Deputy Secretary-General of Taipei City Government, holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor's from TungHai University. She has held leadership roles in urban development, including Commissioner of Taipei’s Department of Urban Development and Director of New Taipei City’s Urban Redevelopment Office，and also has held the deputy Commissioner of New Taipei City’s department of Cultural Affairs.

With extensive experience in urban planning and cultural affairs, Yu-Feng has contributed significantly to shaping the urban landscape of both Taipei and New Taipei City, focusing on sustainable development and infrastructure improvement.

Dr. Chingwen Cheng is the Director of the Stuckeman School and a Professor of Landscape Architecture at Penn State University, USA. As a researcher, educator, and practitioner, she advocates for meaningful engagement and integrating justice goals at every stage of the design process. Dr. Cheng is a pioneer in developing the Climate Justice Design framework, emphasizing collaborative, place-based approaches to co-design nature-based solutions with stakeholders and communities in the interconnected social-ecological-technological systems.

Dr. Cheng is a registered Professional Landscape Architect (PLA) in the United States and actively contributes to professional organizations. She has served as Past Chair of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) Environmental Justice Professional Practice Network (EJ PPN) and has been involved in ASLA's Climate Action Plan Advisory Group, driving initiatives for equitable, sustainable, and resilient landscape architecture practices. Dr. Cheng currently serves as the immediate Past President on the Board of Directors of the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA) and is the Chair of the CELA 2025 Conference, scheduled for March 27-29 in Portland, Oregon. Her leadership in bridging theory and practice from local to global continues to shape the future of landscape architecture education and professional practices.

Chingwen Cheng holds a PhD in Regional Planning from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Science in Horticulture and Landscape Architecture from National Taiwan University.

Jeff Hou, FASLA, is Provost’s Chair Professor and Head of the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore. In a career that spans the Pacific, Hou has worked with indigenous tribes, farmers, fishers, and villagers in Asia and inner-city immigrant youths and elders in North America on projects ranging from wildlife conservation to bottom-up community placemaking. Hou is a community-engaged scholar with a focus on public space and democracy, community design, civic engagement, and urbanisms in Asia. He was previously a Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he directed the Urban Commons Lab and was the department chair from 2009 to 2017. In 2023, he was elected Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) and received the Outstanding Educator Award from the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture (CELA). His collaborative publications received the EDRA Places Book Award in 2010, 2012, and 2018. Hou received his PhD and M Arch from the University of California, Berkeley, MLA from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B Arch from the Cooper Union.

Dr. Su-Hsin Lee is one of the most influential professors in leading Taiwan’s environmental planning, tourism and leisure recreational development. She is currently the Honorary President of the Taiwan Institute of Landscape Architects and professor in the Department of Geography, National Taiwan Normal University. She received her PhD degree in Park Recreation and Management from the Pennsylvania State University.

Involving in both practical and academic area, she served as president of Taiwan Institute of Landscape Architect, the Outdoor Recreation Association of R.O.C. and chairman of World Leisure Chinese Taipei. She has served as the Dean of the College of Humanities and Arts at National Kinmen University and as the Chair of the Department of Architecture at Feng Chia University. She was Fulbright scholar in 2013 and visiting professor of University of Illinois, University of Washington, and Sydney University Australia in 2010. She is member of central and local governmental and professional organizations, including Environmental Impact Assessment Committee, National Park, Regional Planning, Taipei City Planning, Taipei Cultural Affairs, Taiwan Tourism Bureaus, Forestry and Nature Conservation Agency and Ocean Affairs Council, etc. She has been teaching in various areas, including tourism geography, urban design and urban renew, environment planning, national park and world heritage, space and social issue, cultural landscape, outdoor recreation management, and environment-behavior studies.