With an eye to the future, using nature-based solutions to meet the challenges of the present: thinking, working, living together.
In-between landscape
Vol. 3
LAND
December 2023
Publisher
Andreas Kipar
Concept
Andrea Küpfer
Editing
Andrea Küpfer
Henning Klüver
Design
Tim Santore
Art
Thomas Schönauer
Unless otherwise stated, all images copyrights are held by LAND
landsrl.com
It’s all about the inbetween. With the third edition of the LANDmagazine, we make space for a dialectic between an open future and the forwardlooking steps we‘ve taken towards a productive relationship with nature. We are driven by the momentum of what we’ve learned and our experience with Raggi Verdi, the 'Green Rays' we developed twenty years ago for Milan, which in the meantime have become an internationally successful model for connecting open spaces and natural areas. Learning steps, rays in a transformation process where undefined, fluid styles of urban and rural cultivation have increasingly passed muster as social and peopleoriented processes in everyday consulting and planning.
The first chapter, 'Thinking Together', addresses fundamental questions about the relationship between nature and people and methods for scientifically verifying interactions with landscape and making developments measurable. In the second chapter, 'Working Together', we pursue concrete projects in close dialogue with clients. And in the third chapter, 'Living Together', we address everyday and design issues, particularly in urban spaces.
It‘s all coming into focus: as we move into the future, we’re increasingly leaving clear boundaries behind. They’re becoming permeable, creating new spaces within our awareness. Aesthetic, ethicsbased thinking is driving us forward. It’s a sensibility that‘s also expressed in the artistic works of our companion and friend Thomas Schönauer. A selection of his CT (Computer Tomography) paintings introduce the individual chapters of this LANDmagazine, excerpts that reflect the fluidity and permeability of landscape, but also its permanence.
Working, living, and thinking together is what sets us apart. Established in Milan over thirty years ago, today we feel at home in many places: Düsseldorf, Lugano, and more recently also Vienna and Montreal, where our company is experiencing dynamic growth in response to the challenges of socioecological transformation. As we break up the old, we’re making new space for our targeted message: reconnecting people with nature!
Andreas KiparTHINKING TOGETHER
08
The tension between distance and identity
Volker Demuth
14
Milan as a laboratory City of knowledge, research, and culture
O
16
Tools and methods
Meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goals
Andrea Balestrini
WORKING TOGETHER
22
28
Between energy and future Edison
Ilaria Congia, Beatrice Magagnoli, Benedetta Falcone and Ilaria Giubellino
N
Passion for nature Vibram
Martina Erba and Matteo Pedaso
36
Everything is landscape
AgriPark Fellbach (IBA'27)
Kristina Knauf and Anna-Lena Bauer
T40
46
N55
50
The new centrality of landscape Directors of LAND
58
ERethink your landscape Next generation dreams Giuliana Bonifati
62
Green rays Wunderkammer
Raggi Verdi 20 years
Nature and landscape: a complex relationship. There is no landscape without humans, who shape the natural world but have long trampled it underfoot. Lucius Burckhardt, the Swiss founder of strollology, said that humans have two ways of approaching nature: "Through science or through poetry." Science develops methods for identifying natural processes and making future landscapes more resilient. Poetry develops approaches to provide landscapes with an aesthetic and social framework that makes people feel secure. Even though, according to Burckhardt, we're not going to be able to "replant the Garden of Eden."
Talk of climate change and its ecological and social consequences has now become a mantra. Yet we must tirelessly seek new ways to cultivate urban and rural areas. We need to change the way we think, and we've begun to take joint action despite all the doomsday talk. "Reconnecting people with nature" has become a clear battle cry for designing future landscapes. Because what's at stake is our relationship with nature and quality of life worldwide – including our own front yards. For us and for future generations.
Landscape's attraction and rebirth in our society, individual responsibility in the climate crisis, land consumption, the relationship between town and country, and the tasks of our civilization: explorations of the writer Volker Demuth, whose essay collection "Unruhige Landschaften"1 was recently published.
The author, born in 1961, studied philosophy, literature and history at the universities of Oxford and Tübingen. For several years he was a professor of media theory (giving up his chair in 2004), and he now lives as a freelance writer in Berlin and the Uckermark district. The text is a compilation of excerpts from a radio broadcast with Volker Demuth for Deutschlandfunk2
What's alluring about landscape?
What importance does landscape have today?
Unlike Nature, which was ideally thought of as an independent "thinginitself" (to Hegel it was "otherness" par excellence), landscape is an enormously multifaceted system of references, a bewildering sphere of relationships. The shift from a Naturelike "thinginitself" to landscape as a form of relationship presupposes a sensual, emotional, and cognitive encounter. We smell landscapes, listen for their sound, feel their temperature and the wind flowing through them, their moisture on our skin, we see the atmosphere of their light and the interplay of their shapes and forms. And we become aware of this concentrated, dense sensuality in a culturally formed, unmistakable way. Nature as a thinginitself, or the abstract notion of it, transforms into the experience of landscape only when there is an aesthetic encounter.
Far out and difficult to see through the relentless advance of urban agglomeration, landscape is surreptitiously moving to center stage. For the first time in history, all landscapes on Earth are exposed to human influence and civilization. We're no longer confronted by the alien, the natural, in landscapes; instead, we encounter ourselves, our own human imprint, our selfmade mess, our own advancing specters. Each of us is party to the landscape in which we live and through which we move, we're all complicit.
Where does this human imprint of ours lead?
Uninhabited or sparsely inhabited landscapes account for ninetyseven percent of the Earth's land surface, with half the world's population concentrated on just one percent of the land. Yet humans now cast a shadow over every landscape on the planet, even the most remote. This is increasingly evident as landscapes are visibly and ever more seriously impacted by fire, drought, and flooding. Indeed, the media now bombards us daily with images of devastating typhoons, clearcut rainforests, dwindling polar ice and melting glaciers, encroaching deserts, and vast inland lakes silting up.
1 Volker Demuth: Unruhige Landschaften. Ästhetik und Ökologie. Würzburg 2022
2 Unruhige Landschaften. Von der Neuerfindung von Kultur und Natur. A broadcast by the national German radio Deutschlandfunk (Cologne) August 22nd, 2021
And our reaction to it?
Signs of a coming disaster? Thinking together
But isn't that schizophrenic?
The economic systems of disaster have become a lucrative and global demonstration of our time. But media presentations mislead us when they suggest that we can expect the apocalypse at some more or less distant point in the future. The apocalypse isn't some sudden event, it's a period of time. It's not something that's going to happen, it's something that is.
Our lifestyles are characterized by a latemodern inconsistency. Even in our mobile environments with their urban nomadism, where every day we're out and about in the city, moving through countless metropolises year after year, we feel a growing desire to immerse ourselves in natural landscapes when we go on vacation, to gently sink back into something we deeply desire. When we can, we travel to idyllic Caribbean beaches, go hiking in the Andes, rafting on Nepalese rivers. At the same time, on our mobile screens, we're witnessing the Arctic cryosphere melting away as we await the impending, apocalyptic demise of huge swaths of the planet.
It seems that most of us have grown used to compartmentalizing landscape into two sections: one that offers an experience, a sort of wellness space, a green area where we can kick back, replenish our stressed out psyches, and experience Nature when we get sick of civilization; and the other a space that we use, that we exploit, to make as much money as possible. While one space – the romanticized idyll – is to be protected and preserved, the other is ruthlessly exploited, ravaged and plundered. The schizophrenia is obvious. It's comparable to the almost insatiable desire for powerful off road vehicles, now that transport infrastructure has finally removed all obstacles and paved every back road. The loss of wild landscape is obscured by this symbolic pretension and transformed into technical consumption, into simulation.
Is landscape consumption increasing in all directions?
Since industrialization first began in the 1700s, we have expanded arable land fivefold, and pastureland has increased from two percent to one quarter of the earth's surface today. Not to mention our increasingly congested urban areas and road systems. Furthermore, land consumption and soil sealing continue to attack landscapes, devouring a landscape area approximately the size of Frankfurt every year in Germany alone.
We now know that the cultivation of natural areas and the urbanization of cultural landscapes generally destroys ninety percent of the original organisms living there.
So
Since we can't just deny responsibility for the collapse of more and more landscape habitats, the unavoidable conclusion is that a universal landscape policy must be developed. Because the threats and increasing risks to landscapes are politicizing even lands that until recently were considered beyond politics: glacier lakes, grasslands, shifting sand dunes, frog ponds.
Climate change, environmental degradation, and continued world population growth have transformed the once promising future into a fearfilled vision. Melancholy, once an expression of sadness for past loss, has now shifted direction: we now mourn the future.
»WE MUST ABANDON THE NOTION THAT LANDSCAPES BEGIN AT THE EDGE OF CITIES. THEY BEGIN IN THE CITY, IN EVERY HOME.«
Volker Demuth, © Photo Thomas Warnack
First of all, it's clearly difficult to create an inner connection to landscapes that have been abused. Their deleterious structure refuses to become part of our identity. Consequently, communal and individual life disassociates from the landscape. For this reason as well, it's essential to build balanced landscapes that consider the interests of all living beings and topographic features. This requires a very delicate touch to preserve the fine spatial balances of nonhuman life, and a radical slowdown in landscape tempo, thus allowing biological balances to be reestablished and natural spaces to be maintained in a state of active tranquility, with changes occurring gradually over time to allow living organisms to make the necessary modifications and adaptations.
Moreover, we can no longer get around the need to bring the tense relationship between town and country into the landscape. This task includes using expanded urban areas and the frayed edges of cities to create new hybrid forms of urbanrural life that, aided by digital technologies, can lead to local solutions for organizing work and life, with a more placecentered lifestyle that can restore our firm sense of responsibility for where we live.
Do town and country create unity through multiplicity?
Technical infrastructure such as power lines, photovoltaic plants, pipelines, water supply, communication networks and server parks form the technosphere of sprawling urbanism. But the basis for the diversity of life on the surface is what's underground. Every day, countless soil organisms are buried under asphalt, concrete and cobblestones in landscapes in order to meet the city's metabolic needs. We must abandon the notion that landscapes begin at the edge of cities. They begin in the city, in every home, every office. With the awareness that the production of food and other essential items must not be jeopardized, balanced and intact landscapes filled with diverse life are among the most basic of human needs, especially when we consider that all species, genes, and ecosystems are interconnected. Perhaps we've finally reached the point where people increasingly recognize this, where it becomes clear that as humans, we always have a relationship to landscape and certain places. Because landscapes create places for us, they become stages for actualizing space, or more precisely, for localizing our lives. A historical, political and mental topography is formed within them. In short, landscape is an experiential and narrative space where we encounter ourselves and others, in the tension between distance and identity.
What does this mean for our way of life?
But aren't we on the way to recognizing this in many places?
We need to introduce a more fundamental change and thus redefine the meaning of the word progress. Indeed, as balanced landscapes, broadly speaking, embody precious symbiotic relationships and commodities, they inevitably become the scene of a revolution that arises from within themselves – from soil, plants, animals, air, and water : a revolution in the human way of life.
Through the landscape, the civilization of arrogance and presumption looks itself in the face, injured, unreconciled. It may be that the civilizational sickness that confronts us in the landscape has become so obvious that it's sparked a growing demand for new cultural approaches to it. But what's certain is that in this planetary age, now more than ever landscapes are not just the private property of the few. Rather, as resources for the future, they will have to be protected as a public good much more extensively than before. Such a systemic change, however, also places responsibility on society as a whole, and thus on each individual. If nothing else, it brings other consumption patterns into the discussion, as well as an ambitious modesty in which "more and more" isn't good enough. And it means considering new forms of a landscapeusing economy, which could include legal provisions, incentives and institutional directives to guide reform, and social participation that could breathe new life into the model of the commons, of communal landscape ownership.
Landscape at the center of society...
So there are good reasons, which are in our own interest, to let the landscape renaissance become a velvet landscape revolution. Nothing is remote in the global world. The Arctic and the Amazon jungle aren't somewhere else, they're not far away. They're here, under our feet. Our present civilization can no longer postpone its duty to renaturalize denatured urban areas and regenerate degenerated landscapes.
Compilation and questions: Henning Klüver (Translated from the German original)
More than a financial metropolis: Milan is a constantly evolving city of knowledge, research, and culture. About 200,000 students attend the eight universities in this Lombard city. New campuses (MIND, Bovisa) are under construction. And the MUSA project is implementing a program for the city and the region's transition to environmental, economic, and social sustainability.
Planning for the future remains incomplete without knowledge and its implementation, without research and its networking. This is even more true for Milan, Italy's economic and cultural engine, where an urban transformation has been underway for several years. In 2016, one year after Expo 2015, which in many ways represented a sort of turning point for Milan, the philosopher Salvatore Veca (father of Expo's "Milan Charter") expressed a dream: "Milan as an international city of knowledge."
Milan has an extraordinary wealth of universities, research organizations, and cultural institutions, starting with its eight universities. At present, about 200,000 students attend the city's universities, almost as many as in Paris. A little less than one tenth of them comes from abroad, a figure which is nevertheless less than the European average. Course offerings continue to increase: at Milanese universities, one course in three is international, and education in English is double the national average (22%).
»A strong point of MUSA is the multiplicity of approaches, which helps provide a systemic response: from streng thening human capital to research conducted in synergy with industrial players, from actions aimed at economic growth in the local area to the active participation of communities.«
Giovanna Iannantuoni Rector – University of Milano-BicoccaUniversities are expanding, moving, transferring. At present there are two large campus projects. The new campus of the University of Milan, about 190,000 square meters in the MIND (Milan Innovation District) area, will accommodate more than 23,000 persons, including instructors, researchers, and students. And in the Bovisa district, where the Politecnico has already transferred several faculties, the North Campus is emerging on 32 hectares of land, based on a master plan from Studio RPBW (Renzo Piano), for which LAND handled the green portion.
»Development of technologies for economic and circular sustainability, and promotion of high tech entrepreneurship: these are the two main objectives of the Politecnico di Milano within the MUSA ecosystem.«Donatella Sciuto
Rector
– Politecnico di MilanoFinally, Salvatore Veca's dream of Milan as a "city of knowledge, research and culture" seems to be coming true in an innovative way. Universities, institutions, and the business world, all united in a partnership of scientific and industrial excellence, are transforming Milan's metropolitan area into a true ecosystem of innovation for urban regeneration. This, in a nutshell, is the MUSA (Multilayered Urban Sustainable Action) project, which was presented at the University of MilanoBicocca, one of the four universities in Milan (along with the Politecnico, Bocconi, and the state University of Milan), which is participating in this program for the city's transition to environmental, economic and social sustainability.
»MUSA is a challenge and invitation to innovation and collaboration, creating new scenarios destined to transform the very concept of the university and its relationships with local economic, political and social organizations.«
Elio Franzini
There are six spokes, or areas of MUSA intervention: urban regeneration; big and open data in the life sciences; deep tech – entrepreneurship and technology transfer; economic impact and sustainable finance; sustainable fashion, luxury and design; innovation for sustainable and inclusive societies. These six macroissues will be
the foundation for achieving concrete projects aimed at changing the face of the city : from waste management to green mobility, from creation of an incubation and acceleration center for startups to optimization of big data for the health and wellbeing of citizens. The true ambition, as repeated by the rector of Bicocca, Giovanna Iannantuoni, is to make the MUSA model "replicable at the national and European level."
»MUSA brings together universities, companies, and institutions so they can work at the local level to make Milan an increasingly sustainable and inclusive city, through the efforts of almost a thousand researchers.«
Francesco Billari, Rector – Bocconi University
Milan is a constantly evolving city of knowledge Bicocca area © Photo Giovanni NardiThinking together
Landscape design reflects the specific culture of a society and is steered by its relevance and benefits for the people who live the places we conceive. In this era of climate emergency, health concerns, and social segregation, landscape design must be even more ethically justified. From this standpoint, LAND is engaged in achieving technical solutions using tools, methods, and models conceived by its LAND Research Lab®, which ensure an ethical impact as well. These efforts are then brought into project and planning approaches, accompanied by consultation with designers and clients.
Among those challenges, the increasing pressure of climate change led LAND to seek a way to measure the extent to which its own projects meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the UN Agenda 2030. LAND's Sustainability Compass® shows how a landscape project approaches SDGs through its actions and in combination with New European Bauhaus’ principles (inclusivity, aesthetics, sustainability). The assessment pursued by the Compass estimates on a (so far) qualitative basis on the extent to which the SDGs' subgoals are met. This tool can be used to identify, further hone or validate project objectives according to their development phase.
The Compass becomes an even more complete tool if supported by LIM landscape information modelling®, a proprietary method that LAND created to quantify landscape ecosystem services.
0 low moderate high very high 100
Milan case study from UrbAlytics project: Microclimatic Performance Index (MPI) of urban vegetation calculated on 20 classes of Green Infrastructures taking into account land cover and tree canopy density.
LIM is a databased process that assesses positive environmental impacts produced by vegetation. Specific predictions can be provided for all tree species, for example in terms of carbon sequestration, reduction of ozone concentration, or oxygen production. LIM's innovativeness is based on its ability to envision future development scenarios for vegetation and communicate these data in graphic, comprehensible form. Nonetheless, ecosystem services can also be quantified on broader land surfaces, especially when vegetation data is not accurate or not available.
For this purpose, LAND added an additional measurement tool to the international standard of natural capital accounting (NCA). The EU defines natural capital accounting as "a tool to measure the changes in the stock and condition of natural capital (ecosystems) at a variety of scales and to integrate the flow and value of ecosystem services into accounting and reporting systems in a standard way." (See "Natural Capital Accounting" box). Through its own NCA assessment, LAND endorses the implementation of climate adaptation strategies and naturebased solutions to enhance livability conditions in cities (for example, by developing green/blue infrastructure for climate mitigation like the Green Rays in Milan). To this end, during the past year UrbAlytics was developed to detect urban heating impacts within the AI4Copernicus project, a research initiative funded by the European Commission.
UrbAlytics aims to combine artificial intelligence with satellite observation of Earth to produce information that can support urban planners and decisionmakers in terms of mitigation and adaptation to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Thanks to the joint expertise of partners Latitudo 40 (Naples) and LAND Research Lab®, the ecosystem services provided by blue and green infrastructure were assessed and a set of naturebased solutions for climate adaptation and mitigation of extreme heat was proposed.
LAND SUSTAINABILITY COMPASS ®
ASSESSMENT OF SUSTAINABILITY PERFORMANCE OF A LAND PROJECT (EXAMPLE)
Structure and methodology
Commitment to the goals of Agenda 2030
LANDSCAPE
SUSTAINABILITY SCORE
The score delivers the overall performance of the project assessed on the total amount of SDG targets that can potentially be addressed
During the project, pilot applications were tested in the cities of Naples and Milan. The result was a heat risk assessment map that considers the severity of events, exposure of vulnerable age groups, and vulnerability due to urban morphology and surface materials in the UHI. The municipality involved – the city governments of Milan and Naples – have already expressed interest in using the maps and data generated within UrbAlytics for their climate adaptation plans.
Beyond analyzing data and exploring the new opportunities of artificial intelligence, landscape architects are called to examine perceptions, desires and barriers regarding public spaces and their social use. This mission resulted in the development of Anatomy of Public Space, a self financed research project promoted by an interdisciplinary collaboration between LAND Research Lab®, Park Plus, and Fondazione Transform Transport ETS.
The project aims to study public space from the different perspectives of the working group’s three components (architecture, landscape, mobility) in order to present a multidimensional narrative of the role of public space in contemporary cities. The connection between the different components of public space and the human body is meant to define new perspectives from which to view public space through a multisectoral lens. The project was presented at several public festivals and was directly discussed with citizens at open workshops.
In the ecological transition, landscape architects play a crucial role in translating people's expectations, environmental requirements, and public interests into a novel design approach that is more just and naturepositive. Digital tools and methods support the process with data and interoperable resources; nevertheless, they must be integrated with the relationships and needs of people and ecosystems, which ultimately shape our landscapes.
Naples case study from UrbAlytics project: Heatwave Potential Risk index at urban scale
Naples case study from UrbAlytics project: Microclimatic Performance Index of urban vegetation
Text: Andrea Balestrini, LANDBased on the UN’s SEEA Ecosystem Accounting framework, LAND’s approach to natural capital accounting (NCA) is aimed at analyzing specific areas, using different scales and both public and private property, to quantify natural capital in terms of extension, state of health, and benefits provided by ecosystems. In particular, ecosystem services are services that natural systems generate for the environment and thus for human beings.
Assessing natural capital from an ecosystemic perspective makes it possible to analyze landscapes and organize data on habitats within a particular spatial area by tracking changes in resources and connecting environmental information to human activity.
This important process becomes quite significant in meeting one of the challenges that LAND faces every day : making sustainability and the impacts of its landscape projects visible and measurable. LAND’s NCA makes it possible to quantify the project’s performance based on environmental parameters related to greenery management, water management, climate change mitigation, and air quality, which are provided by the LIM database. In so doing, evaluations based on different timeframes, both present and forecasted, support the decisionmaking process and link planning decisions to the medium and longterm goals set out in the UN Agenda 2030, European Green Deal, and other policies such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the recently approved Nature Restoration Law.
In promoting the management and improvement of natural capital, LAND’s NCA supports clients in achieving their ESGbased goals, accessing to funding opportunities (e.g. the PNRR, Italy’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan), and meeting compliance with environmental sustainability certifications.
Text: Matteo Pedaso, LAND
The word of the future is "gifts." What gifts do we bring as people, as companies or institutions, as landscape, as space? The concept of productive landscape conceives space as a network of relationships and new productivity. Because the landscape is a diplomat that structures public space, creates a stronger bond between people and nature, and enables a healthier life.
From the productive landscape perspective, landscape is no longer considered something passive that we either exploit or protect. Instead, it's something active that puts innovation in the service of sustainability. Naturebased planning and working together is an opportunity for epochal transformation that we must not squander, precisely because we are responsible for the future. It's not "back to nature," but "forward to nature," where humans and creation are inseparably linked.
Vibram, a corporate leader in high performance rubber soles, wants to transform its Albizzate headquarters into a productive landscape.
The story begins with Vitale Bramani (19001970), a mountaineer and alpine guide from Milan who left his mark not only on Italian mountaineering, but also on international entrepreneurship. In 1935, during an ascent to Punta Rasica in Val Bregaglia (Sondrio), he lost six companions when a sudden change in weather and inadequate equipment made it impossible for them to get back to the shelter, resulting in their death from frostbite and exposure. Following this tragic event, Vitale Bramani sought solutions to increase safety in the mountains: his ingenious idea was to replace heavy iron studs in boots with robust rubber lugs. Thus the first Carrarmato sole was created in 1937.
In 1947, the first production plant was opened in Gallarate, followed by the one in Albizzate (province of Varese) ten years later, which is still today company headquarters. For over 80 years, the yellow octagon that identifies Vibram all over the world has been synonymous with quality, performance, safety, and innovation in the footwear industry. Vibram produces over 40 million soles a year for outdoor activities, recreation, work, fashion, orthopedics and repairs. It dedicates more than a million kilometers to testing, is present in 120 countries, and has production and research sites and offices in the USA, China, Japan, Brazil, and Italy.
Now the Albizzate headquarters will be expanded with new buildings. LAND was hired to prepare a master plan to integrate production and administration buildings into the natural environment. With an eye to sustainable development, the landscape will become the star of the entire structure, benefiting employees and the people who live in the surrounding area.
The landscape project aims to become a key element of the new industrial complex – Vibram production plants (Albizzate)A conversation with Paolo Manuzzi, Global General Manager of Vibram, on the role of nature.
The subject of productive landscapes, unifying the nature aspect with the productive aspect, is a major gamble for Italy and Europe. Vibram is a brand with local roots but great visibility and international breadth, and thus is the perfect entity to talk about its relationship with nature.
Paolo Manuzzi (PM): "Vibram was established as a result of strong ties to nature; the founder, Vitale Bramani, loved the mountains and was an avid climber during the 1930s. A mountaineer without today's technical instruments, because his materials and equipment were certainly not cutting edge. A search for the best performing, safest equipment for moving around in nature resulted in the idea of a new type of rubber sole, which made history in mountain shoes."
What's your commitment to sustainability today?
PM: "For us, nature has been part of our DNA all the way back to our founder. If there were no meadows and mountains, Vibram would have no reason to exist. We're very attentive to the environment, which we consider to be a key factor. Even the decision to locate north of Milan was no coincidence: it was near the Alps, we could work near our beloved mountains.
We're trying to pass on this passion for nature. As far back as the 1990s, we decided to produce compounds that could reduce waste or be reused, to diminish the environmental impact of production. Over the years, thanks to our research and development department, we've created another innovative petrolfree solution made of over 90% natural ingredients, where the unique and original colors of this compound are 100% derived from natural pigments, from plants and organic agricultural byproducts.
The entire process was achieved without the use of solvents or chemical products, a factor that underscores Vibram's constant commitment to responsible and more sustainable high performing products.
"Reconnecting people with nature" is our mission. The exact same thing is part of your DNA, your thoughts, your actions, and this reinforces the idea of this union. So what drove you to call us? Why a landscape designer?
PM: "One of our goals is harmony and integration with the landscape, not to create ecomonsters. And secondly because we want a green landscape, not normal architecture that proposes an aesthetically beautiful building. We'd like something that could also serve the community, employees. Emersion in nature, in beauty, is important to improve the environment and stimulate all of us, and our collaborators."
Is this something you're doing for yourselves, or is it also for the local community?
PM: "For ourselves, to expand, but certainly also for the community. The project idea is to have a public area that the community can use: an environment that can connect people, can make them feel good; this helps promote the brand and develop the company."
The experience you're creating, to further integrate the plant with nature and with its landscape, is it something you want to export to other plants in the world? Or maybe this has already happened to some extent?
PM: "It's already happened to some extent. It's a philosophy, like the commitment to make a good shoe sole. Nature is that tree, it has to stay where it is, we need to have green, we need a place where people can enjoy the surroundings, the landscape. The approach has been identical in our plants from China to America."
Are you able to get your neighbors involved, other companies, to popularize this approach?
PM: "We're trying with other companies too, but it's hard. Right now we're in discussions with a neighboring company to create a pathway in the surrounding woods. The pathway would impact a Vibram area at the back, an area of theirs, and would run through several communities with the goal of improving, enhancing and preserving these areas. We're having a hard time because this involves institutions as well, with whom we have to have conversations. But the idea is to offer a path in the woods for our employees and for the entire community."
Questions by Martina Erba and Matteo Pedaso, LAND. The conversation took place in May 2023 at Vibram's head office in Albizzate.
Soles for the right step: Paolo Manuzzi (left), Martina Erba and Matteo Pedaso in dialogue Greenery signs in the manufacturing areaplant
dei Laghi highway
Strategic: Green infrastructure in the LAND masterplan
Vibram headquarters in Albizzate: a new component of the productive landscape.
The project for Vibram's headquarters in Albizzate emerged from a desire to make sustainability visible and measurable through an approach that considers the landscape a driver of development consonant with European New Bauhaus principles and the objectives of the United Nations' 2030 Agenda. At the same time, the project is intended to create a showcase that clearly expresses Vibram's personality, using a company image consonant with its mountaineering and outdoor spirit.
Thus, the goal of the project is to open up the area, to create a showcase that's accessible to visitors and the community, consonant with company principles. For this reason, the landscape project aims to become a key element of the new industrial complex that can harmonize and unify infrastructural, cultural, functional, and natural aspects.
The proposed master plan includes green infrastructure strategies that can connect the system of open spaces to the new industrial structure, thus creating an integrated architecture and landscape design. Nature becomes an element that can define and characterize the various areas, creating on one hand a recognizable green master key that can determine access points and screen production areas, and on the other introducing natural elements and biodiversity to the center of the Park with a synergistic relationship to the existing waterway, in order to create a true greenblue infrastructure. The addition of a Vibram experiential pathway, winding through the Park along different levels, is intended to help visitors discover the company units that enliven these open spaces and to itself become a landmark and iconic element of the Albizzate headquarters.
Thus, Vibram's head office becomes a new component of the productive landscape: a polarity that can work with and for the local community while creating new ways for public and private areas to interact with each other, encouraging social cohesion between the company and the local community.
Text: Martina Erba, LAND
In order to make the effectiveness of a landscape design concrete and verifiable, it is increasingly necessary to measure its performance in terms of both quality (improved livability and usability of spaces, accessibility, type of use, etc.) and above all quantity, by measuring the performance of natural capital in terms of the supply of ecosystem services. That is, how much the green systems included in the design (trees, shrubs, fields, wetlands, etc.) improve the preconstruction situation from the environmental standpoint.
The principal indicators that could be measured in the project for the New Vibram Headquarters through natural capital accounting primarily regard three factors, which are increasingly important to guarantee the safety and livability of open spaces:
Water Management: soil permeability indices, surface runoff avoided (m³/year);
Climate change mitigation: sequestration and storage of CO2 (kg/year), tree coverage (m²);
Air quality: removal of SO2 (g/year); removal of O3 (g/year); removal of NO2 (g/year); removal of PM 2.5 (g/year); production of oxygen (kg/year).
Application of natural capital accounting by LAND permits an assessment of the ecosystem benefits resulting from the project scenario, with a "before/after" comparison and dynamic measurement at 0.5 years, 15 years, and 30 years.
Text: Matteo Pedaso, LAND Between traffic artery, hilly terrain, and residential area – Vibram headquarters
Edison and the transformation processes in close contact with energy and nature.
Edison is an Italian corporate leader in the energy market, with activities that include the supply, production, and sale of electrical energy, natural gas, and energy services. The company was formally established in Milan in January 1884. The partnership between Edison and LAND began in 2020 with one objective: to identify innovative and replicable models of new productive landscapes, capable of activating management processes and raising awareness in the regions where Edison has energy facilities or is planning to build new ones. Attention to the landscape, in terms of its natural, energy, population, and cultural components, offers a concrete opportunity to create a corporate development strategy that shifts the logic of land transformation to sustainable models, focusing on the intelligent use of environmental resources in synergy with energy production systems.
»We support programs designed to create social value in local areas in order to contribute to improving quality of life.«
Nicola Monti, CEO EdisonView of the Edison wind farm at Volturino (FG), Italy
Excerpts of a conversation between Barbara Terenghi (Executive Vice President of Sustainability and CEO's Office Director of Edison) and Andreas Kipar. Moderated by Ilaria Congia.
Edison is the oldest energy company in Europe. In the 140 years of Edison's history, what has changed about your way of doing energy and your approach to the landscape and region where you have a presence?
Barbara Terenghi (BT): "The energy world has changed a lot: over recent decades it's had to face challenges related to various issues, especially in the modern world we're part of and the developed countries we live in. Decarbonization is a very challenging issue, as is digitalizing the energy world. And last but not least is the aspect of energy deployment, the forms of production and consumption that emerge, evolve, and become more widespread. For this reason, over the last seven or eight years, Edison has decided to leave the hydrocarbon production and exploration sector; we're no longer an oil and gas company, we've moved toward energy transition, including renewable energy, where we've decided to allocate increasing investments, creating solutions that are of greater value to customers from the standpoint of decarbonization as well as energy efficiency."
Keeping in mind this evolving dimension of the energy world, we know that we're now going through quite a difficult economic, ecological and climate situation where it's increasingly urgent for us to rediscover the primordial relationship between humans, nature and energy. And we know that we can initiate this process of redi
scovery primarily by developing new productive landscapes. When can a landscape be considered productive?
Andreas Kipar (AK): "Let me follow up on what Barbara Terenghi just said: tradition and transformation over time. Productivity is now returning to center stage as the landscape itself is able to 'provide stimulation.' We all come from a time when more than anything else, landscape was a beautiful aspect of the past that was supposed to be preserved. To change this approach, three extraordinary events had to happen: first the pandemic, then the war and the consequent energy crisis, and then the climate issue, which was already there but is now evolving and becoming more urgent every summer.
Today we find ourselves in a dimension where landscape is back in the picture, often taking the form of an energy landscape. I see a lot of parallels with attitudes from the time when Edison was founded: electric power plants were something to be proud of, they were the future, like trains were in the field of mobility. More recently, there was sometimes a desire to reject, to almost hide power plants. Today energy has become something to be proud of again. The ethical dimension of renewables must necessarily also produce new aesthetic forms. When a landscape stimulates the desire to explore, then it's already productive."
What steps is Edison taking to contribute to both Italian and European decarbonization goals?
BT: "Edison is strongly committed to and involved in decarbonization, which also encompasses energy security and the economic sustainability of energy spending. These are the three legs of a hypothetical triangle that needs to be balanced. In particular, in 2021 we made a public commitment to multiyear sustainability goals to 2030, and we also want to contribute to reducing emissions for our customers. We really wanted to take advantage of one of our companies, Edison Next, which is focusing on these issues, with selfgeneration of renewable energy and assistance to industrial customers and public administrations in moving toward decarbonization and innovative energy models.
We're very aware of this issue, and we're also part of a global group that's making these carbon neutral targets a fundamental commitment, with the goal of reaching carbon neutrality in 2050. So we've got the best road map for our energy mix and that of the country."
What strategic role could natural capital play, not only in your mission and in managing your processes, but in your future investment plans as well?
BT: "First of all, we see that natural capital is becoming more and more crucial in the developments that energyclimate plans contemplate, including at the country level. There's more attention to the country's environmental and energy policies broadly speaking, so the issue of natural capital, expectations related to the
landscape on one hand and nature on the other, are also increasingly relevant. Restore Nature, a European Union law, will certainly be implemented in Italy as well. Obviously, it won't prevent development of new renewable energy, however companies will have to comply with it and make it the basis for advanced development. Natural capital has become part of the industrial development equation, and now it's not just something nice to have, but is one of the rules of the game."
From the perspective of landscape and landscape architecture, what opportunities can we seize as we quantify natural capital, that is make it concrete, make it tangible, make it measurable?
AK: "Energy, which championed industrial development, is now championing the transition to a new era. In terms of natural capital, landscape is once again the moderator, because in the end, all our actions become visible. Landscape as human being. Closeness to communities isn't achieved through the territory but through landscapes. Identity lies there.
When we talk about energy landscapes, we mean quantitative energy landscapes; we've seen and we're well aware of the extent of your facilities; this is the starting point for exploring new territories, for understanding how to act with energy that's become a driver again, this time in terms of sustainability. The landscape becomes productive again, and at the same time, society itself assumes a productive dimension around energy landscapes, this is the most important aspect."
Edison and LAND have been solid partners for a few years now. What new perspectives has LAND brought to your company and your processes?
BT: "Having a partner with international experience has been crucial for us, because they can be brought into projects that we consider strategic, and above all enable their realization. This leads to the dimension of implementation, where things happen, and helps advance a message in regional and local contexts in order to raise awareness of why the energy work we want to achieve improves that territory, and allows us to highlight our mission.
The other element I find in LAND is the dimension of vision, a new vision of natural capital, which then enters the dimension of productive landscape to which the energy theme is attached."
To conclude: Andreas Kipar, what is LAND learning from a player like Edison?
AK: "Collaboration arises from trust and necessity. When we join forces, the credibility you've gained in the region over 140 years also increases the credibility of landscape culture, something we could not accomplish alone. Let's always
remember that fundamentally, we are the landscape, because even when a landscape is formed by private parties, it always becomes public again. This is a process that we're now cultivating together, and it leads us to many environments, settings, regions.
Let's not forget that together we're also creating new forms of work for the next generation, jobs that are no longer the classic socially useful ones, but those that promote and assist in the restoration of nature. The sum of all this means energy. Today we're learning together how to follow a path, and tomorrow we can also learn together how to create a partnership model that ennobles those who follow it."
BT: "You think you're following us, while at the same time we think we're following you. Each of us has faith in the path that the other is forging. That's how it works, and I think that's how it's supposed to work."
AK: "We take turns. This is a good conclusion, a symbol of reciprocity."
The conversation took place in July 2023 at Edison’s head office in Milan.
The first power plants in Italy in the late 1800s, built along the river Adda, ushered in Italy's process of electrification, guaranteeing economic development and the growth of the entire nation. Now we stand at a complex moment in history, marked by a sharp transition, as we lay the foundations for a new paradigm to undergird a society that will be very different, including in terms of energy.
Today, hydroelectric is the primary programmable renewable energy source, capable of guaranteeing a balance between supply and demand by stabilizing the national electric grid and preventing potential breakdowns. In addition, it plays an important role in regulating water, which has become an increasingly pressing issue over recent years as extreme weather conditions become more common, from periods of drought to very heavy rainfall over just a few hours. These issues have made this area particularly strategic.
The relationship between wind farms, the land, and their maintenance is one of the thorniest issues we have faced over recent years as an energy operator.
Due to the very nature of wind energy, wind farms are primarily concentrated in southern Italy. For years, working closely and synergistically with local institutions and communities, we have been committed to identifying plant management models that make them compatible with the local landscape and can guarantee the rise of a local economic sector specialized in their maintenance. Thus, wind energy as not just a renewable energy infrastructure, but as a true driver of economic, social, and cultural development for local areas.
Today, agrivoltaic represents an opportunity. Like every renewable energy plant, it needs to be appropriately integrated into the local area so that it can become an occasion for sustainable economic and environmental development. In particular, the advantages of groundmounted photovoltaic systems include the ability to repurpose uncultivated or even abandoned agricultural land. The possibility of integrating the production of electrical energy through photovoltaic systems along with agricultural or livestock use makes the land more profitable. The energy and ecological transition is based on numerous technologies, some more traditional, some more innovative. Agrivoltaic is certainly one of the latter, and is as necessary as the former in order to achieve the goals we've set ourselves for the near future.
Text: Marco Stangalino, Director of the Power Asset Division of Edison Hydroelectric, Wind, and Agrivoltaic This is how it all began: historic waterworks on the Adda River. Photo © EdisonTo experience and explore new energy landscapes means making them an integral part of the experience of using a region. Thus, the "Energy Pathways" format becomes a concrete tool for linking natural and cultural assets with existing and planned hydroelectric, wind, and photovoltaic facilities in Italy.
This format is characterized by a series of interventions aimed at the enhancement, redevelopment, and improvement of existing slow mobility routes, generating a multiplecircuit model that can provide access to the landmarks of the cities concerned, drawing in local governments, citizens, and stakeholders. In addition, the identified pathways include scattered rest areas, new plantings, and a system of signs and coordinated communication that makes these interventions clearly recognizable.
Masterplan for Pescopagano pumpedstorage hydro power plant conceiving landscape as an active value that has the potential to become a prime place for innovation
The project in Pescopagano (PZ) is a pioneer of similar projects that Edison is advancing in southern Italy. It provides for the creation of a new downstream reservoir connected to the existing Lake Saetta via underground waterways. The landscaping plan conceives the landscape as an active value that has the potential to become a prime place for innovation.
Following an examination of the region's propensities and particular features, the facility's aboveground works are minimized through the use of local colors and natural materials, forms that follow the shape of the land, renaturalization of degraded areas, and the use of local vegetation, integrating the project into its sensitive surroundings. The "Energy Pathways" format, applied as a way to offset impact, makes the plant an activator of new local synergies, rekindling the energy of the region.
Text: Benedetta Falcone, Ilaria Giubellino, Beatrice Magagnoli, LAND
What learnings and challenges are involved as you seek to measure natural capital and develop innovative and replicable models of approach in your company processes?
"The methodological and legal framework for natural capital is complex and detailed. The mitigation hierarchy includes a series of steps: anticipate, avoid, minimize, and in case of residual impact, balance the risks and impact to nature. The applicable international frameworks and EU laws being adopted focus on the goals of No Net Loss or Net Gain of biodiversity.
Companies must reckon with increased environmental sensitivity and a broader vision of sustainability, yet must also employ an approach for their business activities and processes that achieves clear governance of the issue.
In this regard, measuring the effects of your actions, using best practices, identifying models that are innovative yet replicable (like new productive landscapes where energy plays an increasingly important role), and creating synergy with stakeholders in your places of operation, become indispensable tools to effectively and positively contribute to natural capital."
Edison's presence in Italy, in terms of electrical generation facilities, primarily involves domestic areas, affecting a significant part of the country. What actions is Edison taking to improve the local environment?
"Strengthened by its strong and in some cases historic presence in Italy, and firmly embedded in the local socioeconomic fabric, Edison is committed to maintaining and continuously reinforcing solid relationships with local stakeholders. With an eye to creating shared value, the company approach to relationships with the local region and its communities is based on: listening to needs and expectations, developing shared solutions and enabling local development, supporting various types of local initiatives, promoting an energy culture for communities, bringing in local suppliers, and protecting and safeguarding the local region.
In 2022, 60% of the communities in which Edison operates through electricitygenerating sites were involved in local projects through sociocultural, educational, environmental, and athletic initiatives in about 2/3 of the Regions. Along with that, solidarity energy sustainability initiatives were launched in collaboration with third sector organizations for Solidarity Energy Communities, through the Banco dell’Energia Foundation Philanthropic Entity and Edison EOS Foundation."
Landscape as an asset for the next generation: LANDTeam at work Ilaria Congia with Elena Guarnone, Head of Sustainability at Edison on the rightLiving together
The future of building and living together is traditionally the focus of an International Building Exhibition (IBA). This is also so for the Stuttgart 2027 urban region, which was set up by the governing bodies of the city and region of Stuttgart jointly with the University of Stuttgart and the BadenWürttemberg Chamber of Architects, to be implemented by a team led by Andreas Hofer (ETH Zurich). But profound shifts in society and the economy due to the climate crisis demand a change in the way we deal with natural resources; this will have drastic consequences for the future of building and living together and will demand a new way of thinking.
IBA'27 confronts this process of change jointly with project sponsors by introducing a twofold paradigm shift. Firstly, the development of cities and regions is no longer the task of architects and urbanists alone, but a process guided by society; and secondly, the cultural separation that used to divide urban space and
landscape is disappearing. Everything is landscape: the productive landscape is what shapes our coexistence. As a consequence, the IBA reveals new perspectives on how to handle outdoor and peripheral areas, to replace the outdated image of a functionally separated city with a hybrid city of built, open, and natural spaces. This includes a series of projects related to the "productive city," such as the "Agriculture meets Manufacturing" project developed by LAND as part of the Fellbach AgriPark, which focuses on urban agriculture.
IBA'27: Fellbach AgriPark connects the city and the countrysideLiving together
»Here in Stuttgart in particular, the boundaries between city and country are complex and often blurred; it's an agglomeration. In the metropolitan area, which has both very rural and very urban corners, we may be able to create something like an identity for the region.«Andreas Hofer, Director IBA'27
IBA'27 in the Stuttgart metro area addresses futureoriented approaches to building and living together, especially in terms of the climate crisis. Its focus is on resilient solutions for buildings, landscapes, and planning processes, with the importance of landscape and ecosystem services taking center stage. LAND's research study "Productive Urban Landscapes – Learning to Live with Nature Again" explores the potential of landscape in the Stuttgart metro area. It identifies areas of transformation, potential ecosystem services, and players who can empower sustainable change in managing agricultural land and urban areas through new forms of collaboration. Based on this analysis, LAND has developed a toolbox of measures to promote a symbiotic coexistence of nature and people in urban fringes and to support new collaboration models for farmers and citymakers.
These measures were further elaborated using the city of Fellbach as a case study. LAND developed the Agripark concept here, building on the findings of the IBA research study and an intensive participation process with farmers, as well as experts from the research, business, planning, financial, legal and administrative world. The Fellbach Agripark unifies previously separate agricultural, industrial, and commercial areas into a cohesive experimental field approximately 280 hectares in size. Innovative solutions for the productive urban landscape will be developed jointly with the IBA "Agriculture meets Manufac
Text: Kristina Knauf, LANDturing" project of about 110 hectares of land in the heart of the Agripark. The focus is on three field laboratory situations: the Agrimarket, the Agrilab, and the AgriReserve, where different players develop integrated transformation concepts for soils and buildings in order to increase resilience and the production of ecosystem services on site. Dialoguing with farmers plays a central role here, examining the production potential of soils in terms of climate resilience and nature regeneration, as well as the resulting new agricultural business models. The Fellbach Agripark aims to integrate (eco)productive, nature based solutions in both urban areas and on agricultural land, and to demonstrate sustainable transformation models. At the same time, open and recreational spaces are planned for residents and visitors.
Similar field labs at universities, such as Center Smart Industrial Agriculture at RWTHAachen, develop methods to promote resourceregenerating cultivation. As part of IBA'27, the Agripark complements these approaches and, through the special spatial development frameworks the IBAstatus offers, demonstrates sustainable thinking, planning, and business models in the context of an existing city. The Agripark could thus serve as a cuttingedge example to inspire other regions and cities to create a future of (renewed) productiveness and climate resilience, living in harmony with the landscape.
Communication to resolve conflicts of interest.
The Fellbach project for a productive urban landscape uses a holistic approach that impacts various areas. For this purpose, administrative, research, business, and planning representatives were interviewed, with their responses to objections from agriculture. Here are some of their opinions, propositions, and arguments.
Agriculture's tasks are no longer merely economic (food production), but in urban areas are instead much more infrastructural. Agricultural parks may be able to perform agriculture's infrastructural tasks as well as a cultural one.
Planner
We urgently need to think about technical feasibility. One major problem is technical regulations, which are not interconnected. We also need to think about the technical interconnection of cities to surrounding areas.
Economy
We need to find ways to unify energy supply, landscape protection, and soil conservation. That peripheral area between urban and rural spaces will play an important role here.
Administration
Solutions should be considered locally and developed using local expertise and resources. It's essential to get key players involved (from agriculture and industry).
Economy
Ownership structures are often a major hurdle – solutions must be found that are agreeable to the owners.
Research
We have no planning security –land development in particular is a major problem.
Agriculture
Regional planning must make a shift from restrictive to reactive regional planning. For example, a sort of reward system for municipalities could be introduced, in which municipalities that cooperate receive more funding.
Administration
Quantitative comparisons of areas aren't an indication of quality, but quality is still essential to convey the concept. In many areas, we lack parameters for making qualitative comparisons. So far, there have been no concrete implementations of actual productive urban agriculture. Innovative approaches can be set up through showrooms, test rooms, or field tests, which can demonstrate the feasibility of these concepts and make them tangible.
Research
All interviewees agree that creating a productive urban landscape will depend on whether the project can be successfully communicated to the many different stakeholders. Ultimately, individuals now need the courage to implement such concepts and thereby set a positive example.
Compared to industry, we always come out on the short end.
Agriculture
Conflicts over land are exacerbated by complicated ownership issues.
Economy
Area participants
Research: Christiane Gebhardt, Steffen Braun
Planning: Rolf Messerschmidt, Joachim Eble
Economy : Holger Haas, Alexander Schmidt
Administration: Phillip Schwarz, Detlef Kurth
Text and compilation of quotations by Anna-Lena Bauer, LAND
The IBSA pharmaceutical group and its new CorPharma industrial district as an example of sustainable urban hub regeneration for Pian Scairolo (Lugano).
IBSA, Institut Biochimique SA, is a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company that was founded in Lugano in 1945. Forty years later, in 1985, it was acquired by the Italian businessman Arturo Licenziati, whose efforts and dedication transformed a small Swiss laboratory into the pharmaceutical group it is today: a multinational active in ten therapeutic areas, operating in more than ninety countries on five continents, with eighteen subsidiaries in Europe, China, and the United States. Technology and Innovation, Culture and Education, Communication and Sustainability are milestones along IBSA's path as it undertakes to restore value to the regions and communities in which it operates, in a responsible, ethical, and sustainable manner.
This is particularly evident in IBSA's headquarters in Pian Scairolo, between the municipalities of Lugano and Collina d'Oro, where LAND is involved in designing a district plan related to the development of IBSA's new CorPharma industrial district, starting with the cosmos production facility.
IBSA is an innovative multinational pharmaceutical company attentive to sustainability and environmental impact. Its head office is in the Swiss canton of Ticino, in Pian Scairolo south of Lugano, where IBSA's new headquarters will be built. LAND is part of a team of experts that's creating a "PQ4 District Plan" to develop and improve the area.
The masterplan becomes an opportunity to reorganize and develop the valley's landscape as a pilot project within the strategic plan for revitalizing Pian Scairolo. The site will become part of the landscape fabric and environmental system, strengthening and improving the existing network of open spaces, environmental connections, and slow mobility in an area that for decades has been impacted by unplanned development. This is an opportunity to implement a series of naturebased solutions applied to construction (green walls and roofs) and the wider surroundings, such as renaturalizing the Roggia Scairolo stream and developing quality open spaces, using a climate adaptation approach.
A public path links headquarters buildings to the green areas west of Roggia Scairolo, where various functional areas open to the public are proposed: an exhibition greenhouse with a landscape of medicinal herbs, an educational laboratory with its open areas; a series of meeting places that not only cross existing wetlands, but also connect visitors to the area's natural features and highlight its ties to water.
The primary goals is to restore the area's natural identity, balancing it with the practical necessities of a production site in an area that's already quite densified. Pian Scairolo, once a source of inspiration for the novels and paintings of Herman Hesse, must also rediscover its natural calling through private development, in the form of qualitative elements connected to the environment and the surrounding landscape.
Text: Davide Caspani, LAND The master plan as an opportunity to connect spatial planning and industrial development. Sketch by Pier Paolo Hurle, LANDExcerpts from a conversation with Christophe Direito, Sr ESG & Real Estate Manager for the IBSA group, on IBSA's transformation in the context of redeveloping Lugano's Pian Scairolo district.
Pian Scairolo is a corridor, a very narrow valley, with a variety of shared uses. The masterplan for the new IBSA headquarters aims to reconcile the company's production needs by finding a balance between built areas and outdoor spaces, in line with the region's identity and regional planning dynamics.
Christophe Direito (CD): "Pian Scairolo is now included in the design of greater Lugano, a vision that contemplates the innovative principle of nine constellations. This is a process that comes from afar : over the years, we made the necessary adjustments and gradually perfected it, balancing the rules, planning, and our vision. Ticino has become increasingly disorganized over time, and today there are efforts to restore order. IBSA's message is that it can be done."
In your "pillars," you talk about a "new humanism of healthcare" and in general the importance of "taking care" of people. How is this reflected in planning a new campus? What are the drivers that pushed you to invest in sustainability?
CD: "Certainly the far sightedness of an entrepreneur whose work began in Ticino and was successful there. Even though we've also expanded abroad, the intention was to remain in this region, as a way to give back. The first pillar of sustainability is care for the person. We're a pharmaceutical company, so our mission is to provide effective products to care for patients. The rest follows: if I provide care for people, I necessarily provide care for nature, the landscape."
It's a dual theme: firstly the regeneration of a region, the connection with a region; and secondly the quality of spaces for workers in the new IBSA division. Someone who works at IBSA can use a green area and quality spaces you won't find anywhere else in Pian Scairolo. What does it mean to IBSA to be part of this place and the dynamics set out in the intermunicipal Pian Scairolo Planning?
CD: "Considering how district plans are developed, the private sector needs to act as a driver. Our President and CEO Arturo Licenziati intuited that investments were necessary to make this vision a reality. So we worked at dialoguing on multiple fronts: with Collina d'Oro (where we're going forward with the green park), with Lugano, with CIPPS (the Intermunicipal Pian Scairolo Planning Commission), and with cantonal authorities. IBSA's strong point has always been dialogue, which has produced synergy and in the end has led to a cultural change. For an entrepreneur of Mr. Licenziati's generation, imagining a public use green area on private land wasn't a given. But the intention of an enlightened client can activate the necessary processes and drive their realization."
This experience of the CorPharma project, the sustainable district serving the community, which in the Pian Scairolo urban hub also envisages an educational and instructional landscape, could it become an exportable product for IBSA? Can it be replicated in other facilities, in Italy and the world?
CD: "Absolutely. When I came to IBSA, I tried to understand the distinctive elements of the group. Through the impetus of Arturo Licenziati, we brought healthcare and beauty everywhere. If you go to the head office, or to our Italian subsidiary in Lodi or the French one in Atibes, or the IBSA facilities in China, you'll find all the fine details of the IBSA personality, which integrates with local territorial identity."
There's a growing trend to design industrial areas with a focus on the quality of private spaces and strong ties to the local region. What are your suggestions for other companies?
CD: "Planning is a process, a path. I think that the key point is to understand the reality of the local area. And to engage in dialogue. Because if I don't understand what the planner wants, what the municipality, the community want, what the dynamics are, if I don't consider all the pros and cons, everything gets more complicated. And then identity: involvement at the local level. And, as Arturo Licenziati says, we do things well and beautifully; that's how they become something of value. Because someone who walks in, who passes through or looks around, understands that we're doing something we believe in, they notice the care for the surroundings, for nature and the landscape. First you need to pay attention, and then you need to make it tangible."
Questions by Federico Scopinich and Davide Caspani, LAND. The conversation took place in July 2023 at IBSA headquarters in Lugano.
»We are also transforming the company and making major investments to improve our manufacturing capabilities while reducing our environmental footprint: we are working to implement a sciencebased decarbonization process in line with the pharmaceutical industry. The recent opening of our new manufacturing facility in Lugano, cosmos, is an example of our efforts to return value to the communities and environment in which we live and operate.«
Arturo Licenziati, President and CEO of IBSASource: IBSA Sustainability Report
Federico Scopinich, Christophe Direito and Davide Caspani (from left to right)
Relations with the Lugano Maglia Verde of the Pian Scairolo Masterplan and the PQ4 IBSA District Plan – LAND
For a long time, our prime focus was on cities, which pushed urban boundaries and interlocked with other cities in metropolitan areas. Now the reverse is occurring: it‘s the landscape that’s conquering urban space in a congenial mix with nature like yeast in bread dough. Now, when we rebuild a city, what we envisage is no longer the old city’s purely functional image, but a hybrid of built, open, and natural space.
These new urban landscapes are geared to the future. We can produce better within them, they‘re more flexible, they’re resilient, they’re climateadaptive. They make room for wilderness in the city and continued creative use –and room for empathy, social identity, and community. Because the new urban landscapes are based on people and their needs. To improve quality of life under the constraints of climate change, we need nature with its vegetative power, we need healthy air, healthy water, healthy soil. Old structures must be broken up like sealed and overbuilt ground.
Climate adaptation requires a cultural change that goes beyond purely technical solutions. This does not mean going backwards, but rather rethinking the Western approach and relearning sustainable practices. Modern technologies, digital tools, and local traditions can drive the development of flexible and effective strategies for adapting to climate change. Projects like Sea2City Vancouver and the IBA'27 study make the value of nature increasingly clear in dealing with mounting climate stress and natural disasters in urban areas. Instead of seeing greenery as simply decorative, people are becoming
more aware that it acts as a catalyst for sustainable transitions, including social change. A new "wildness" in our cities gradually changes our image of beauty in urban spaces. This cultural change requires communication and acceptance, and also creates new opportunities to collectively make our environment more diverse, resilient, and inclusive. To create the necessary synergies between stakeholders and systems, new integrated governance, financing, planning, and cooperation models are urgently needed. Moreover, resilience planning should not be seen as a series of isolated projects, but rather
»A new "wildness" in our cities gradually changes the image of beauty in urban spaces. This cultural change requires communication and acceptance, and also creates new opportunities.«
Kristina Knauf, LAND
a continuous, integrated process in which the effectiveness of measures is constantly monitored, evaluated, and optimized even after implementation. This requires planners and designers to change their roles and forms of expertise. At LAND, we develop the necessary digital tools and knowhow to do this.
Resilience planning drives gradual changes in our environment and society by using very broad planning horizons. Therefore, it is essential to develop strong visions for the future with all stakeholders. I'm happy to share my experience in this with the LAND team. Our Düsseldorf team's many years of experience in concept design and execution planning also enable us to translate clear visions for climate resilient cities into
concrete measures, creating role models for other cities and stakeholders. Working together with our public clients, we develop innovative frameworks in participatory processes that make integrated climate adaptation measures possible. With our private clients, we can use their specific projects to accurately measure the value of naturebased solutions in terms of their contribution to restoring ecosystems for entire lifecycles. Our collaboration with the LAND Research Lab® enables us to integrate technically grounded and innovative solutions into our projects. I believe this combination has enormous potential to accelerate the transformation to resilient cities, one by one.
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It strikes me that landscape architecture, like architecture, is experiencing a rapid transition. Designers and planners urgently need to rethink their ideas on sustainable material use (emissions, resources, waste), selection of plants (climate change adaptation), and water management. Technical solutions are giving way to naturebased solutions. Landscape architecture thus plays a key role in planning livable and resilient cities. In order to fulfill this role in a forwardlooking way,
landscape architects need a new selfawareness and a critical, holistic, and visionary way of thinking. I would like to further develop this with the team in Düsseldorf in order to implement our vision of "reconnecting people with nature" in an even more radical way – from concept studies to executed projects – and thereby accelerate the process of making communities more resilient.
Text: Kristina Knauf , LAND
»The 15minute city is not a dogma, it is not done through mere copypaste. It's a plan, a compass, a trajectory based on methodological guidelines to implement different services in varied topologies, based on a concept of polycentric places.«
»The 15minute city is a new way to make better use of time, discover places nearby, transform public spaces, strengthen climate resilience, reduce traffic, reduce CO2 emissions, relocate jobs, and strengthen the circular economy.«
»The city of the future is already being built today. What it needs is to be livable from an ecological point of view, viable from an economic point of view, and equitable from a social point of view.«
»As public spaces are transformed into greener spaces and vegetation is replanted in parks and streets, on walls and rooftops, the air is naturally filtered and more carbon dioxide is absorbed. Cities become pleasanter places to live, with fresher air and a calmer and healthier environment for residents.«
Quotes by Carlos Moreno, Sorbonne University professor, from a conversation with the editors of LANDmagazine in late May 2023 on occation of his vist to the Milan project LOC-Loreto Open Community (Nhood). Carlos Moreno, ColombianFrench urbanist and advisor to the mayor of Paris. Photo © Gianluca Di IoiaA conversation with Uwe Schneidewind, economist and mayor of Wuppertal
The scientific community uses the term "the great transformation" to describe the epochal changes of the 21st century in the light of sustainable development. By 2050, about eighty percent of people will live in cities. Urban turnaround thus becomes a node within the larger framework of a successful future policy. This is also the subject of the book Die Große Transformation Eine Einführung in die Kunst gesellschaftlichen Wandels (The Great Transformation. An Introduction to the Art of Social Change) 1 by the economist Uwe Schneidewind, which arose from his work as President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy until 2020. The author, who was born in 1966, is, among other things, a member of the Club of Rome and for many years was also an influential voice on the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). He was elected mayor of Wuppertal in 2020 as a political newcomer (Alliance 90/the Greens, known in Germany as "Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen"). Based on a WBGU report on "The Transformative Power of Cities"2, our conversation with economist and politician Uwe Schneidewind addresses important urban development issues, particularly in Europe.
The transformative power of cities: what role can Nature play there?
Schneidewind: "An increasingly important role. Park design has always been a major impetus for urban development. In Wuppertal, for example, we have the Bürgerparks (literally "people's parks"), which were created at the beginning of the 19th century. This made it clear that actual recreational space is an important factor in quality of life, but also a factor in wellness, in regeneration. Thus, city green space has always played an important role in urban development. Climate change makes it clear that the design of the
natural environment in cities makes a crucial contribution to urban quality of life. When it comes to issues like attractive surroundings, the look and feel of cities, we're seeing a shift in values, and of course that gives natural design in cities a whole new role."
What steps are needed to properly play this role? Technological? Cultural?
Schneidewind: "Culturally, the topic has caught on, this awareness that we need more green, and to some extent more blue, more water in the city. The challenges are now more economic
1 Uwe Schneidewind: Die Große Transformation. Eine Einführung in die Kunst gesellschaftlichen Wandels. With the collaboration of Manfred Fischedick, Stefan Lechtenböhmer, Christa Liedtke, Stefan Thomas, Henning Wilts, Carolin Baedeker, Christiane Beuermann, Ralf Schüle, Peter Viebahn. Frankfurt/Main 2018
2 WBGU (Germany Advisory Council on Global Change): Der Umzug der Menschheit: Die transformative Kraft der Städte (The Relocation of Humanity: The Transformative Power of Cities). Berlin 2016
»THERE’S A LOT OF DYNAMISM IN HORTICULTURE AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE THAT CAN OPEN UP NEW OPTIONS.«
Uwe Schneidewind © Photo Medienzentrum, Stadt Wuppertal
in nature. Where do you create these open spaces, where do you find the land? How do you balance this with a general trend toward higher density in cities? We need more living space, not more urban sprawl. So in many areas modern urban development plans are focusing on more density, and this also conflicts with making space for urban greenery. That's where new technological options come into play. Vertical greening issues, how to bring greenery onto and inside buildings. There's a lot of dynamism in horticulture and landscape architecture that can open up new options. This also applies to the movement toward water. For a long time, water was considered a supply and disposal channel, and now it's becoming an attractive urban space. These processes of opening up to water, redesignating former port and storage facilities, industrial sites, can be seen in many cities. So there are a lot of economic challenges, because invariably there are conflicting uses. And to some extent there are also conflicting uses in terms of institutional policies, planning regulations, that are important to resolve in a positive way, so that processes of opening up then also become possible."
So creating, generating more open space is a challenge even for a mayor?
Schneidewind: "It sure is. Especially for a mayor of a municipality with a lot of debt like Wuppertal. Of course, public space competes with private use, especially in attractive locations and areas. Of course, it's easier if you can also publicly secure those areas and develop them accordingly. We're trying this with the Bundesgartenschau 2031 (the German national garden show) using hybrid formats. That means that we develop areas jointly with private investors, so that one area can then be used privately for residential development, for example, but the other area remains public, so investment possibilities can actually be expanded quite a bit."
Major initiatives are often rejected in referendums. How did you manage to win over the citizens of Wuppertal for the Bundesgartenschau?
Schneidewind: "It was close. We won it by just under 52 percent. It's still extraordinary, because these major projects usually result in a groundswell of rejection and negative energy. Because
often the rejection isn't just projectspecific, but is rather an expression of mistrust and frustration with the government. These kinds of referendums rally all the forces of naysayers in a city. And then active supporters really have to mobilize.
We have to distinguish very different forms of participation. One is simply asking for opinions. And opinions today are highly tinged with emotions. People with absolutely no involvement in urban communities then express their individual dissatisfaction through such votes. Much more important for participation, and for urban design, are all the people who very actively participate through codesign and joint production of the city. This sort of participation is what moves cities forward. And there's more and more of it. The people we call urban gardeners, people who get involved in their own neighborhoods, in urban gardening, in watering the trees outside their homes, who show very concrete and even social commitment to their neighborhoods, that's actually the primary form of participation, which then develops power in the cities."
Cities develop into regions. What does this process mean, what does it entail?
Schneidewind: "It actually creates great opportunities. When you think regionally, you can bring together the various functions of living, working, relaxing, and smart mobility planning in a completely different way. At the same time, we see how the logic of municipal finances is structured, and how difficult it is to engage in truly strategic regional cooperation across municipal borders. It's a dilemma. Right now, municipalities often still pursue the same investors so that as much business tax as possible can be generated in their urban area. There's competition for certain infrastructure in their own cities, whether it's hospitals or theaters. Thinking in terms of a large urban area would create more potential opportunities. At the same time, in our experience the sense of identity is still often tied to an individual city and only peripherally to the region as a whole. We're working on this, but it's a much slower process than we'd like."
Thinking in terms of large urban areas – doesn't that conflict with the idea of the 15-minute city?
Schneidewind: "I think the 15minute idea is more of a guidepost for a much more integrative way of considering urban development. Using Wuppertal as an example, in 15 minutes you can get to surrounding green areas by e bike from almost any part of Wuppertal. So in my view, both are possible, especially in very dense, networked urban areas. Depending on where you actually are in this space, very unique and individual 15minute architectures emerge. For people who'd rather live in the country, but want to combine that smartly with work and healthcare. People who want to live in the heart of the city but still need open spaces. Someone whose needs won't be fully met within a small radius of two by two square kilometers. But the basic idea of the 15minute city carries over very well to these kinds of networked, densely urban spaces. I'm very optimistic about this, especially here in the Rhine Ruhr region. By train from Wuppertal Vohwinkel, in 15 minutes you can practically get to Düsseldorf."
So mobility plays an important role in large urban areas that also have rural sections. How can sustainability develop here?
Schneidewind: "Mobility is increasingly measured in terms of accessibility. The question of how we create accessibility will probably shift bit by bit from individually owned automobiles to other mobility links, especially in large urban areas. In other words, where rural areas are interspersed, cars will have a role to play. But not in the sense that you drive from point A to point B, if B is somewhere in the center of a large city. Instead, there will be links to the next parkandride, where people will use other mobility options. This will be within a much more networked structure. It won't start in rural areas, but will develop outward from urban centers. In large cities and the centers of large cities, automobiles will play an increasingly minor role, because other qualities of city living will be important there. This has been implemented for some time in a number of cities in Scandinavia and the Netherlands – in Amsterdam, for example, where you can't drive into the city center anymore. The more consistently this is implemented, the more the idea of parking in front of a store, a department store, and then simply loading up goods will disappear. Even if
you come by car, you get to experience the qualities of the big city by parking the car outside, either directly on the outskirts of the city or at the parkandride 5 km away. Then you take the train into the city center. This change in direct urban mobility will create a big shift in mobility patterns in rural areas too."
Looking at the future, does private ownership of land conflict with the sustainable development of urban areas?
Schneidewind: "We've noticed that when cities ensure longterm public ownership of a large part of their land and buildings, like in Vienna, they gain an advantage over cities whose overall housing policy has resulted in more massive privatization, including in terms of mobility policy and sustainable urban design. You can reinforce public welfare features through public ownership of land and buildings. It's a lot harder to deal with private ownership when access is no longer possible. Hybrid solutions could play a significant role here. These solutions could be based on public ownership, but include leasehold rights for private investors so they can use their capital to design things jointly with the public sector and thus bring public and private interests together in a positive way. The starting point, of course, is that the public sector has to have at least some kind of leverage. Cities that were smart enough to keep a significant amount of land in their own hands during the era of massive privatization are truly blessed."
If it's in the common interest, should there be an enforceable expropriation policy?
Schneidewind: "Certain instruments, like the right of first refusal, are already available to municipalities today. Now windows of opportunity have also appeared with newly reconfigured downtowns. Changes in shopping behavior have caused the value of Kaufhof chain stores and many other properties to drop drastically, and they're being vacated because large retail subcontractors are leaving the city centers. This creates windows of opportunity for public acquisition of these buildings, making it possible to implement a completely different approach to inner city design."
Shouldn't we also consider some fundamental corrections to our economic system?
Schneidewind: "Going one step further to put certain forms of private property in the city into public hands, in other words to effectively nationalize them, will be a subject of hot debate for years to come. We had this in Berlin with the referendum on expropriating large real estate companies. At the very least, we saw an increased acceptance of the fundamental legitimacy of considering something like this and bringing it into the political discussion. There's a sense that we actually need this discussion. Yet it will be incredibly difficult to gain majority acceptance for this. If even the approach to tax breaks for the wealthy is sacrosanct, I wouldn't want to imagine the debate if politicians were to demand widespread nationalization of our urban areas in order to make cities more sustainable for the common good. There's no grassroots support for that. What I would like to see is a much more open discussion in the scientific community. Mainstream economic sciences actually engage in no critical discussion of many of these side effects. As a result, the intellectual sphere that would be required to create political programs and demands doesn't exist. We still have a long way to go."
Does the economist in you sometimes argue with the politician in you?
Schneidewind: "They actually get along pretty well. They're also both frustrated by how little can be negotiated in emotional worlds charged with populism. Even regarding things that can actually be discussed in a reasonable manner. The politician in me wishes that what I the economist and many others have thought about in terms of perspectives and analyses could enter the political discourse in some way. Often it doesn't, because we're well aware that as soon as certain types of arguments are brought into the political arena, populism immediately blows them away. It can be sobering. I suspect this is an expression of the tendency, even in modern enlightened democracies, for politics to become more and more intellectually diminished."
What are your experiences after almost three years as mayor in Wuppertal, especially in connection with the concept of future art that you
developed, i.e. creative commerce interacting with economic, technological, institutional and cultural dynamics?
Schneidewind: "We might take the work of an artist like Tony Cragg as a starting point, whose installation of three stone columns entitled "Points of View" is also depicted on the cover of the book Die Große Transformation. What it comes down to is coaxing lightness out of a stubborn material, using the idea of what's within the material of a block of stone and then the energy and perseverance needed to bring it out. An extremely motivating experience is that an urban area like Wuppertal is full of coartists, people sustained by the possibilities of making things more futureoriented, where they can join energies. And this is often what's needed, because the political and administrative material is strong and it takes a lot of energy to make room for the delicate forms of the future. There are some wonderful successes, but also a lot of setbacks. Ideas get stuck in granite cores that are far too hard, and even when you keep chiseling away, you can't get them to emerge cleanly. This tension is the key to shaping good urban policy."
Henning Klüver conducted this interview with Uwe Schneidewind in May 2023.
(Translated from the German original)
Topics, theories, individual predispositions - a current self-survey by LAND's directors in spring 2023 moderated by Prof. Alexander Gutzmer, author and architectural publicist. Discussions regarding the urban challenges and rural developments of today – thoughts for tomorrow.
Milan has become a kind of laboratory for urban development, a heterogeneous European metropolis. The city is working with its rich heritage of historical and spatial layers.
"After Expo 2015, a new awareness of constructive urban change materialized."(Matteo Pedaso) Public space is now a collective project for urban regeneration and cultural cohesion.
Many perceive Milan only as the stylish capital of fashion. In the 1990s, Andreas Kipar saw something different: "For me, Milan always was similar to the Ruhr area in Germany. Both are places of rapid economic transformation." Pirelli, Maserati, Fiat: these firms changed drastically, and the city changed with them. It's a process that needs moderation, and landscape architecture can be the moderator.
LANDconnects 2023: For a green transitionLiving together
LOC in Piazzale Loreto is a prime example of this process, a place where many levels of urban transformation come together. "We broke ground to create new connections within the city. LOC will be a starting point, like a grounded sustainable energy source, that will extend into the surrounding capillary city network." (Jens Hoffmann)
"The site is an iconic place for the people of Milan and Italians in general, given the events that happened here at the end of Italy's fascist regime. Beyond the collective memory of this community, the site is also very present in the citizens’ imagery as a transportation and traffic hotspot, adorned with flashy billboards on the buildings that mark its presence as one of Milan's main commercial axis. These historical references and cultural perceptions should be taken into account in any contemporary design." (Andrea Balestrini)
At the same time, the project can also sharpen the perspective on urban development in privatepublic partnerships. The new central subway entrance offers a whole new urban functionality and generates a unique, valuable public space. This extends the scope of what developers can achieve – public value and ESG criteria, not just maximization of profit.
What about the interaction between architecture and landscape architecture? Who's in the lead? There will always be tension between those disciplines, but the dialogue has intensified. And as architecture practices and city governments gain more understanding of the value of landscape architecture, there is a new synergy between the different players.
"Everyone today knows that we need to create a complex, functional system of more green in the city. However, we must allow this to yield a new image of urban culture. We need to work towards a new consciousness of what urban beauty is." (Kristina
Knauf)Landscape architecture must also dare to make existing conflicts explicit – between different urban functions or between different historical levels of a city. Change always means that an existing structure is undermined. "Sometimes, we need to break up the city." (Andreas Kipar)
Valeria Pagliaro, joining the meeting from Montreal, where she lives and handles LAND's Canadian projects, adds, "A park is not 'just' a park. People expect more from green spaces and urban planning today. They understand that city space is complex and must account for social participation, equity, health, as much as for nature restoration."
How can we deal with complexity? One fundamental approach is the constructive use of data, making sense of the myriad layers of information available today. A combination of a datadriven and humancentered approach to landscape design helps to permanently track the impact of our actions. That's what LIM is for, a tool to design and then measure the results of the ecosystem services of our landscapes.
Data offer new ways for citizens to participate. On one hand this means creating more inclusive and innovative knowledge formats, on the other intensifying exchange and collaboration with research institutions. "We must improve how we communicate scientific knowledge to people, using a new type of storytelling created together with academic researchers." (Andrea Balestrini)
Still, the traditional approach to urban research remains fundamental in a digital world: walking and talking, looking around, and listening to people and their needs. Understanding the city will always have an element of journalism to it, just as Robert Park brought journalistic methods into research on the urban reality. It's about reconnecting people to nature in cityscapes envisioned as multistakeholder structures.
Landscape architects need to understand their new centrality in developing the urban realm, maintaining a sense of optimism. How can they help develop a positive attitude towards the future of the city?
"We have fantastic supporters in our mission: the honesty of the plants; they don't lie, and they suffer visibly from climate change, making the crisis visible to everybody." (Julian Altmann)
In this sense, our profession has powerful ways to share the message of making our cities and villages attractive and resilient, now and for the future.
»Milan continues to represent a kind of laboratory for urban regeneration, and over the last 30 and more years, we had the opportunity to be part of that.«
Luisa Bellini, LAND
Living together
Landscape has always been a backdrop to every human activity, and in this respect it helps create not only the identity of places, but also everyone's individual identity, becoming part of each person's memory and the vision of a possible future.
In an activity for the Rethink Public Space course at the Politecnico di Milano taught by Andreas Kipar, students were asked to present themselves and their history through images that represented their family landscape, everyday landscape, and their vision of a future landscape. The works of ASWIN JOSHY and DILIP PAREEK of India and ANA CECILIA TROBBIANI of Argentina were selected for presentation here.
To imagine a future landscape, we must remember our own origins, cultural identity, and everyday experiences. Dreams and desires come together through the challenges we face.
Initiative by Giuliana Bonifati, Architect, PhD, LAND
»For us designers, exploring the relation ship between humans and nature through the eyes of new generations becomes a fundamental tool for imagining, building, and cultivating the landscapes of the future.«
Giuliana Bonifati, LAND
Born and raised in Kerala, India, a land of green harmony. Mountains, valleys, backwaters, and beaches fill the beautiful landscape of Kerala, truly making it "God's own country." The landscape I grew up in always provided a true and elegant example of how nature itself can be so varied and bring harmony to a space, something any landscape should do.
A landscape that reveals how green needs to take control within a built environment. Attempts to maintain a harmony that's absent, great efforts to sustain a character that's absent. Green has become just an element of beauty, while sustainability requirements make concrete buildings a top priority.
A landscape becomes ideal when nature fully takes over. A landscape should never be how people want it to be – instead, buildings should have to fit into the current landscape.
Living together
Argentina is known as a country with highly diverse landscapes. Tourists from all over the world come to see the wonders that nature can offer. Still, my favorite familiar place is the spot under the ceibo tree (Argentina's national tree) in my grandparents' garden.
In Italy I found water to be a key natural element. A lot of cities have a river as the main attraction, and people develop a sense of belonging to it. In addition to that, a waterway may run along various productive landscapes typical of the area, such as vineyards.
The future landscape is uncertain and will depend on the decisions we make now. Overall, my wish is to find a balance in nature and find interdisciplinary solutions in order to provide quality spaces for both humans and animals.
Jaipur, India's "Pink City," is a mesmerizing place with its desert charm, regal palaces, and forts, telling stories of a bygone era. It captivates through vibrant traditions, enchanting rituals, melodies, and a kaleidoscope of resplendent hues in traditional garments.
I created Milan, capturing its ethereal essence with culture, architecture, and balcony gardens. Amidst visual marvels, I painted harmonious melodies embracing the city's musical soul. A celestial tableau emerged, where Alps meet the heavens, iconic landmarks seen through Monte Stella's embrace.
Rapid urbanization and infrastructure growth threaten natural landscapes globally. To mitigate this loss, elevated landscape parks may be necessary. Envisioning a war-free future, one can imagine a world where airplanes scatter flowers instead of bombs.
»Green rays break up the old city and connect small, often forgotten fragments of nature with postindustrial abandoned open spaces. They create a framework of green / blue infrastructure that can light up the city.« – Andreas Kipar
