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Idea by

Emma Kaufmann LaDuc, Lauro Nächt, Aurora Zordan

http://urbanecologies.eu

Vienna, Austria
The concept on urban ecologies derives from a workshop on nature in the city during the AA Visiting School in Vienna. Walks held in the context of the Vienna Design Week combine practices of mapping and speculation to create site-specific narratives on spontaneous landscapes. In a talk at the University of Bozen, the idea of the narrative as relational expands towards a notion of care. Bringing together experts from across disciplines, the concept manifests its relevance for a planet in crisis.

Call for ideas 2021

Tolerant urban ecologies


Perspectives from beneath the pavement

Tolerant urban ecologies


Perspectives from beneath the pavement
Against the human-centered city, the tolerance of ecologies reveals spontaneous landscapes as sites of urban regeneration.
File under
Type of project
  • New alliances

Spontaneous landscapes become the site of an alternative urban practice. We seek to shift away from anthropocentric urbanism and towards a new architectural discourse, where these sites reveal the processes of urbanism and manifest in a tolerated co-production of space.

Nature, or a perversion of, is re-introduced to the city in the form of landscape design. The tree in urban planning is rendered as an element and object, their highly-regulated infrastructures delineating clearly the extent of its space. Within this intolerant model of bureaucratic design, nature in the residual form of spontaneous landscapes is neutralized.

As a last resistance against the smooth city, spontaneous landscapes of disturbance-adapted species expose a site of trauma. An alternative design of care begins from a place of tolerance, within the fabric of urban ecologies. Growth, in turn, reveals the earth as infrastructure – sous les pavés, la terre! – latent beneath the trauma of the city.

A family of ailanthus trees on a construction site show signs of emergent urban ecologies.

Existing typologies for urban landscapes reinforce a bureaucratic model of intolerance, while spontaneous growth manifests an alternative typology.

The Ailanthus altissima is a fast-growing species, pre-adapted to the environment of the city.

Walks held in the context of the Vienna Design Week 2020 brought together disciplines to talk about spontaneous growth.

A different perspective towards spontaneous growth reveals the earth as infrastructure.

Tolerant urban ecologies


Perspectives from beneath the pavement

Tolerant urban ecologies


Perspectives from beneath the pavement
Against the human-centered city, the tolerance of ecologies reveals spontaneous landscapes as sites of urban regeneration.
File under
Type of project
  • New alliances

Spontaneous landscapes become the site of an alternative urban practice. We seek to shift away from anthropocentric urbanism and towards a new architectural discourse, where these sites reveal the processes of urbanism and manifest in a tolerated co-production of space.

Nature, or a perversion of, is re-introduced to the city in the form of landscape design. The tree in urban planning is rendered as an element and object, their highly-regulated infrastructures delineating clearly the extent of its space. Within this intolerant model of bureaucratic design, nature in the residual form of spontaneous landscapes is neutralized.

As a last resistance against the smooth city, spontaneous landscapes of disturbance-adapted species expose a site of trauma. An alternative design of care begins from a place of tolerance, within the fabric of urban ecologies. Growth, in turn, reveals the earth as infrastructure – sous les pavés, la terre! – latent beneath the trauma of the city.

A family of ailanthus trees on a construction site show signs of emergent urban ecologies.

Existing typologies for urban landscapes reinforce a bureaucratic model of intolerance, while spontaneous growth manifests an alternative typology.

The Ailanthus altissima is a fast-growing species, pre-adapted to the environment of the city.

Walks held in the context of the Vienna Design Week 2020 brought together disciplines to talk about spontaneous growth.

A different perspective towards spontaneous growth reveals the earth as infrastructure.

Idea by

Emma Kaufmann LaDuc, Lauro Nächt, Aurora Zordan
Vienna
Austria
The concept on urban ecologies derives from a workshop on nature in the city during the AA Visiting School in Vienna. Walks held in the context of the Vienna Design Week combine practices of mapping and speculation to create site-specific narratives on spontaneous landscapes. In a talk at the University of Bozen, the idea of the narrative as relational expands towards a notion of care. Bringing together experts from across disciplines, the concept manifests its relevance for a planet in crisis.
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