Aesthetic preferences in a time of climate crisis – Can we afford them?
20 November 2024
16.00–18.00, coffee from 15.30
Location: Färgfabriken, top floor
Language: English
Included in Färgfabriken’s regular admisssion fee, exhibitions included
Seats can be pre-booked here
Drop in subject to availabilty
Join us for a conversation on the evolving relationship between humans, cities, and the environment. As we face unprecedented environmental challenges, these keynote lectures will delve into the critical role of landscape architecture and urban design in shaping a more sustainable future.
To cope with the climate crisis, urban and rural spaces need to adapt and develop their resilience. Sustainable technical, systemic and nature-based solutions are part of this spectrum.
Today’s event focuses on daring to re-program or radically reassess our habitual aesthetic preferences with regard to the design of urban spaces. What kind of urban spaces will we have if we are required to recycle building material to prevent the climate crisis? Will our habitual aesthetic preferences give way when society needs to phase out new construction projects? Could the new requirements even engender a new aesthetic, and thus, a new form of beauty?
Who is it for:
Anyone interested in how we could rethink the way we plan, design, build, perceive and care for our built environment in light of climate change and extreme weather events.
Program
15.30: Coffee
16.00: Welcome and introduction. Daniel Urey, Färgfabriken and Luigia Brandimarte, KTH.
16.05: Keynote talks by Annalisa Metta and Sara Borgström
17.10: Panel discussion moderated by Luigia Brandimarte (KTH), with Annalisa Metta (University Roma Tre), Sara Borgström (KTH), Magnus Rothman (the city of Stockholm) and Alexandra Cruz (Oslo Architecture Triennale).
18.00: Färgfabriken welcomes you to Architecture talks – a dialogue between architect duo Einar Rodhe and Daniel Norell moderated by Karolina Keyzer (in Swedish), in connetion to the exhibition Architectures – Eight contemporary studies in the main exhibition hall. In the exhibition, these architects have worked in different ways with collection, reuse and “pre-use”.
The exhibition Architectures – Eight Contemporary Studies and KTH master student’s Open Studio will be open 11.00-19.30.
Keynote talks
Beyond nature. Landscape architecture as co-agency and co-design
Annalisa Metta, University Roma Tre.
Environmental catastrophes mark an epochal planetary transformation that seems to be unfolding beyond any human capacity to interrupt, direct, or repair. Still convinced that we humans are the measure, reason, and destiny of all things, we cannot accept our lack of control and chase after solutions, seeking more “nature” in our cities for ecological benefit. Then we consider nature as a servant and not as a partner to live with, as the same expression “ecological service” clarifies. Although this idea nourishes today’s design, which is often satisfied only with numbers that can quantify the results we can achieve, we can think about design in terms of collaboration and negotiation with other living forms, countering the idea of control with the idea of co-agency in a human-non-human continuum. Considering non-human and even non-organic beings as our co-inhabitants and co-creators is the way landscape architecture should aim to work.
Strengthening the potential of nature to support sustainable urban development and resilience
Sara Borgström, KTH.
Crisis driven times urge society to find solutions that works. At the same time as urbanization to various degree means that houses and infrastructures replace nature, we are turning to its ecological structures and processes to solve the mounting urban sustainability challenges. We place our hopes to both the remaining, but decreasing, green spaces, as well as to newly established greenery in the most densely urbanized areas. Two challenges then emerge; the increasing, probably unrealistic, wish list of what we hope urban green spaces will generate in terms of multi-functionality, and the lack of recognition of long term ecological and social dynamic when implementing greenery in dense urban areas.
About the participants
Annalisa Metta is Full Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Roma Tre. She holds a Ph.D. in Architecture of Parks, Gardens and Spatial Planning and was awarded the Italian Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome in 2016-2017. Her research focuses on contemporary landscape architecture, through theoretical-critical insights and applied research. In 2007 she was one of the founding partners of Osa, with whom she curated and designed Bosco Italia, the Italian pavilion at the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2023 she was curator of the section Nature at home, as part of the exhibition Home Sweet Home, at the Milan Triennale. Co-curator of the books Alberi! 30 frammenti di storia d’Italia (2022), Coltiviamo il nostro giardino (2019), Wild & The City. Landscape Architecture for Lush Urbanism (2020), in 2022 she published Il paesaggio è un mostro. Città selvatiche e nature ibride.
Sara Borgström is Associate Professor in sustainable urban development at the Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm, Sweden. Her research originates from a long-term interest in human-nature relationships as being a core interaction essential to any sustainable development challenge, and with a specific focus on urban nature. Investigating urban landscape governance from a social-ecological perspective her research includes investigations of governance of multi-functional green infrastructure, urban green commons in densifying cities, collaborative models for handling wicked urban sustainability challenges as well as the merits and challenges of knowledge co-creation processes.
Magnus Rothman works at Miljöförvaltningen, City of Stockholm as a strategic project manager to identify and highlight synergy effects between climate adaptation, public spaces, ecosystem services and the health impact of greenery. The focus is to support community planning and the real estate sector with investigations, training, documentation and arguments for including attractive nature-based solutions in community construction.
Alexandra Cruz is head of programme and international relations at Oslo Architecture Triennale, where she is responsible for the international collaborations and programme coordination with local and international partners. She has headed a variety of projects in the intersections between architecture, design and arts. She has worked at the Arts Institute from the Ministry of Culture of Portugal, with Portuguese representations in biennales of Venice in 2004 and São Paulo in 2005. Alexandra is educated in Architecture from Lisbon School of Architecture and in Scenography from Central Saint Martins, College of Arts and Design, London.
Luigia Brandimarte is Associate Professor and Docent in Hydraulic Engineering at the Sustainable Development, Environmental Sciences and Engineering department (SEED) at KTH. Her research focuses on understanding the mutual interaction between fluvial processes and human activities, in particular dynamics of water and society and flood risk management.
Daniel Urey is process leader at Färgfabriken.
This public program is a collaboration within the Architecture Triennale, a new platform for exploration and long-term collaboration between architects, artists and social actors. The triennial is initiated by Färgfabriken as a recurring forum for architecture and urban development, a meeting point for everyone regarding questions about the built environment and the future.
Contact
In collaboration with
