Agenda

 MArch /MSc LANDSCAPE URBANISM 2022-2023

DESIGN AND THE GREEN NEW DEAL (GND)

AALU will continue exploring the role designs can play as part of a potential implementation of a Global Green New Deal (GND) to tackle the ecological emergency that the world is currently facing.  For LU, it is of paramount importance that architects, landscape architects and designers support a socially just re-structuring of the world we inhabit via the investigation of developing projects and existing GND proposals in close relation with progressive economic think tanks such as Common Wealth, Centre for Local Economies (CLES) and the support of experts from various fields: Political Economy, Agriculture, Ecology, Geomorphology, etc.  

Section proposing a community built forest model in Treherbert,Wales by Rafael Martinez Caldera, Elena Suastegui, Yasmina Yehia, 2018–19

The design expertise of Landscape Urbanism in the visualisation, mapping and spatial understanding of socio-ecological systems is crucial to this project and the particular challenges that it will face. The programme will therefore develop proposals for a  Global GND  through the exploration of different policies, such as: 

 

  • Deconstruction and Retrofitting of existing buildings, especially housing across cities and towns to reduce energy and material consumption to promote the repair and reuse of materials, structures and infrastructures within the building industry. 
  • The exploration of urban life away from private cars and the subsequent research of mobility alternatives based on people, mass public transport and healthy and just environments for citizens.  
  • The transformation of urbanisation process via the reduction of the working week to 4 days and the implications and impacts a 3-day weekend will bring to the landscape of cities. 
  • The rewilding of vast areas in UK and Europe and the benefits that this could have for the well-being of humans and non-humans in both, urban and rural environments. 
  • Alternative models of land and asset ownership such as Public Common Partnerships (PCP) to offer radical alternatives to mainstream private developments. 

One way to achieve this is by supporting a Green New Deal (GND) – a viable initiative with the capacity to unite all of the best intentions, preoccupations and proposals of the design community at large. Landscape Urbanism will get behind this project and contributing to shaping its influence in the UK. We believe that expertise in visualisation, mapping and the spatial understanding of socioecological systems is crucial to such a project and the challenges it presents. Together, Landscape Urbanism will develop proposals for a GND in collaboration with the New Economics Foundation, through the exploration of different policies such as:

· The transformation of a Common Agricultural Policy in a post-Brexit scenario and the impact it could have in local communities.

• The rewilding of urban areas and the benefits this can have for the wellbeing of citizens in both urban and rural environments.

• A Just Transition towards a post-fossil fuel economy, the proposition of alternative economic models and the spatial impacts these will have for the design of urbanisation processes.

• The exploration of different land ownership schemes, beyond the existing privatised and individual models, to radically transform the UK landscape.

Landscape Urbanism will develop these policies from the perspective of the designer, using concepts, practices and principles such as:

· Exploring cartographic practices with the capacity to influence the public sphere and decision-making processes, such as interactive and participatory maps, built by local people with data gathered on site.

• Revisiting concepts such as the commons, public participation and platform cooperativism through the lens of design, analysing their implications for the construction of collective design frameworks and the management of shared resources that are neither public nor private.

• Implementing the latest technologies to simulate the behaviour of cities, landscapes and territories using software and scripts to foresee possible future scenarios with the help of partnered scientists and researchers.

• Understanding the use of public space in the UK and elsewhere, through diagramming and proposing new spatial configurations in direct response to 21st-century challenges.