IFLA Europe launched its 2022 Students and Young Professionals’ Competition ‘Boldness & Beauty’!
Landscape Architects are currently offered a significant leading role in the development of the landscape. Landscape architecture is an area that concretises how we view our environment and that makes our society’s relationship with nature visible.
The aim of design has always been to increase well-being. The 19th century was marked by technological advances and engineers played a leading role in developing the industrializing world. In the 20th century, alongside technology and ecology, humanistic values rose in discourse; aesthetics and social dimensions. Architects took a central role and set out to solve the challenges of the post-war world.
Now in the 21st century it is Landscape Architects’ turn. The element of nature and the post-humanist perspective add to the goals of design, and traditional design processes go hand in hand with a with a greater understanding of the interaction of technology, man, and nature, and their mutual relationships. As the operating environment and the issues to be solved in it become more and more complex, Landscape Architects have the necessary know-how to coordinate different requirements. The focus of design is increasingly shifting from shaping the end result to controlling the entire process, and the Landscape Architect profession provides the necessary skills for this.
Boldness
By raising the profile of the debate, we see that taking on a socially significant expert role requires courage and responsibility. Until now, the formation of our profession has required taking bold action, and now there is a greater need for action than ever before. It is time for Landscape Architects to take on a leading role in the development of the landscape. We ask, under what conditions can we, as Landscape Architects, act more boldly at this moment, and by what means will we redeem this mandate? How can each of us act boldly in our own work and how do we see our own responsibility in our actions?
Beauty
Aesthetics is one of the cornerstones of landscape architecture. There are now numerous new themes on the design table to solve and coordinate. For this reason, it is timely to ask what is the role of beauty and aesthetics in landscape architecture. The skill of our profession to create beauty undoubtedly adds value to projects, but how can we make better use of this expertise? What is the value of beauty in a world of change and crisis?
Boldness and Beauty
By bringing these two themes together, we want to launch an internal identity debate within the profession. Can these boldness and beauty together form the guiding themes for the design of the urban landscape of the 21st century? Through what examples, design projects, and actions can these themes be defined in landscape architecture? Will one come before the other, or are boldness and beauty prerequisites for each other?
By bringing these two themes together, we want to launch an internal identity debate within the profession. Can these boldness and beauty together form the guiding themes for the design of the urban landscape of the 21st century? Through what examples, design projects, and actions can these themes be defined in landscape architecture? Will one come before the other, or are boldness and beauty prerequisites for each other?
To find out more, please visit IFLA Europe Youth competition website 2022 IFLA Europe Student and Young Professionals’ Competition
