Main research interests
Travelling Transect: working with fragilities
Transareal research through and on designerly fieldwork methodologies
This strand of research, conducted with Gini Lee, University of Melbourne, adopts the contemporary reinterpretation of Alexander von Humboldt’s transareal and mobile empirical science into the field of landscape architectural design research: it aims at developing a method for capturing fragile site qualities through deep fieldwork-based empirical enquiry, in-studio interpretation, and communication to off-site audiences. Both a design research method and a knowledge transfer tool, it lays the groundwork for conceptualising fieldwork findings and initiating co-design processes towards site-responsive design for threatened landscapes understood as everyday life-worlds for more-than-human actors in the Anthropocene.
Radicant Design: adaptive design for landscapes in the Anthropocene
Case-study based research through and on design postures and practices
This strand of research investigates landscape architectural design approaches for overlooked landscapes of everyday life, whether next to established areas of living and working, situated in the interstices of active urban or rural fragments, far away from the hotspots of planetary urbanisation, or also along the many routes that connect them. The focus of this research lies on contemporary design practice that rejects modernist tabula rasa approaches and instead works with what exists on site. It aims to reconceptualise design, along the idea of radicantity, as an open-ended process of transformation that values – and does not waste – site-specific material and immaterial resources and and promotes ‘journey-forms’ rather than static form as a design response to the uncertainties of the Anthropocene.
Critical Urbanities: fragmented cities and water landscapes in the Pluriverse
Transareal case study research involving a landscape perspective
This strand of research promotes a collaborative approach between researchers from Europe, Latin America, and Northern Africa. Initiated in 2023 at the Walter-Gropius Chair (DAAD) in Buenos Aires under the title ‘ACROSS – Pluriversal Urban Futures’, the objective of this research is to develop a body of case studies and identify methodologies for fostering the resilience of urbanising water landscapes exposed to the effects of climate change (changing water regimes) and globalisation (changing socio-economic and cultural conditions).
Transdisciplinarity: Designerly thinking as a basis for knowledge generation
Epistemological research for the physical design disciplines
This strand of research presents a designerly approach to transdisciplinary knowledge generation, based on pragmatist theories, mode 2 and mode 3 (transformative) science, and critical thinking as a means of reflecting on and intervening in the dynamic interplay of natural and societal forces, professional activities, education, and research. The aim is to revise epistemological norms and inherited academic and professional practices, to update them for the challenges of the Anthropocene.