Practicing design for particular places

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/spool.2016.2.1541

Abstract

Since its first issue, SPOOL has used the term ‘landscape metropolis’ to address urban formations beyond the traditional city that – despite their increasing ubiquity - still lack in-depth attention from the perspective of aesthetic appreciation, designerly concepts of development, guidelines for planning and governance, and design theoretical apprehension. The prefix ‘landscape’ is used to describe attention to these topics through the lens of landscape architecture, and offers, we feel, some novel potentials: in considering the metropolis as a cultural phenomenon that is constructed mentally as well as physically and socially; which relies on human as well as on natural driving forces; and which contains, somewhere in the cracks of the mosaic, in the ‘in-between’, places with distinguishable qualities – particular places.

How to Cite

de Wit, S., & Diedrich, L. (2016). Practicing design for particular places. SPOOL, 3(2), 3–4. https://doi.org/10.7480/spool.2016.2.1541

Published

2016-12-31

Issue

Vol. 3 No. 2: Landscape Metropolis #3

Section

Editorial

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Copyright (c) 2016 Saskia de Wit, Lisa Diedrich

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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Author Biographies

Saskia de Wit, Delft University of Technology

Saskia de Wit studied landscape architecture at Wageningen University (1987-1993) and Architecture and Urbanism at the Faculty of Architecture at Delft University of Technology (1990-1992). She worked as a designer at Jacobsen Landscape Architects (Cheltenham UK, 1992-1993) and the Department of Town Planning and Housing in Rotterdam (2004-2005). In 1998 she founded Saskia de Wit Landscape Architecture.

Since 1993 she has been connected to the Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture in Delft, where she is involved as a assistant professor in research, education and organization. She has also taught at other educational institutions, such as the Academies of Architecture in Amsterdam and Groningen and the Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In 2014 she graduated with a thesis entitled 'Hidden Landscapes; The Metropolitan Garden and the Genius Loci.'

She also is actively committed to developing and disseminating knowledge. She is affiliated with the Dutch Association of Garden and Landscape Architecture (NVTL) and the Garden Historical Society Cascade. From 2006 to 2009 she participated in the steering committee for the establishment of the DSL (Dutch School of Landscape Architecture), a collaboration between Wageningen University, Delft University of Technology, the Academy of Architecture, Van Hall-Larenstein Velp, HAS College Den Bosch and NVTL. She has organised several seminars, workshops and exhibitions, has participated in juries, and has been a guest editor for the journal Tuin & Landschap.

Expertise

Landscape architectural design and research on all scales. The starting point is the same on all scales: how are the patterns, the images, the spatial relationships, or in other words the characteristics of the existing landscape, translated into an architectural design for the landscape, an urban fragment, or a building? In research and practice her expertise is in Public Space Design, Garden Design, Dutch Polderscapes, the History of Landscape and Landscape Architecture, and Planting, with a strong emphasis on the relationship between Analysis and Design.

Lisa Diedrich, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Lisa Diedrich studied architecture and urbanism in Paris, Marseille and Stuttgart, science journalism in Berlin, and landscape architecture at the University of Copenhagen, where she received her doctoral degree. Since 1993, she has been running her own office as a critic and consultant in urban design and landscape architecture and is based in Berlin.  From 1993 to 2000 she was an editor of Topos European Landscape Magazine, from 2000 to 2006 she worked as a personal consultant of Munich’s chief architect at the city’s public construction department. Since 2006 she has served as the editor-in-chief of the book series Landscape Architecture Europe (#1 Fieldwork/ #2 On Site/ #3 In Touch/ #4 On The Move/ #5 Care Create Act) and of ’scape the international magazine for landscape architecture and urbanism. In 2007 she moved to academia, teaching and researching in the field of contemporary landscape architecture and urban design for universities in Europe and worldwide. Since 2012 she has been a professor of landscape architecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp/ Malmö where she currently directs the research platform SLU Urban Futures. Her research and teaching focuses on critical practices in today’s urbanisation induced landscapes, on transdisciplinary strategies for urban transformation in climate-change affected water landscapes, and on methods for capturing and communicating site qualities.