Feb
06
“Landscape Architecture is not doing a great job…”
Quote from Alan Berger, professor at MIT and director of the laboratory for design research called P-REX,
The Project For Reclamation Excellence (www.theprex.net)
“The main issue for me is that landscape architecture is not doing a great job addressing the larger-scale environmental issues that are currently affecting urbanized regions in the world. Rather, landscape architecture tends to still be focused on discrete locations and places and unfortunately too often on superficial cosmetics. I am interested in how to creatively reclaim and reuse landscape waste, especially in urbanized areas where environmental systems have been permanently altered beyond recognition and function. Given the scales of my research and projects, I feel that the core interests of today’s landscape architecture profession are actually quite distant from my own. What has become painfully clear to me over the last few years is that, for multiple reasons, landscape architecture has not been able to keep ahead of the most pressing environmental issues of our time. ”
This article provides an excellent overview of Berger’s standpoint and work in the emergent field of landscape urbanism.
– via an interview on www.abitare.it