LANDLABS - Landscape Laboratories: Design strategies for sustainable and beautiful urban landscapes in the Anthropocene

How can urban landscapes that were or are used as landfills, extraction sites or traffic infrastructures be transformed into sustainable and beautiful places? How can a diverse coexistence of people, animals, plants, water, soil and technical elements succeed there? The "LANDLABS" Doctoral Network, which was approved by the European Commission in April 2024 as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions, is dedicated to these questions. Aarhus School of Architecture, The Arctic University of Norway, University of Ljubljana, University of Porto, Vienna University of Technology and the consortium leader Leibniz University Hannover, together with six associated partners from municipal planning departments, will train six Doctoral Candidates to develop new modes of understanding urban landscapes in the Anthropocene and new methods to design them for higher sustainability and beauty.

LANDLABS operates in six landscape laboratories all over Europe, all of which are urban landscapes characterized by heavy industrial influence. It assumes that the conditions understood through the concept of the Anthropocene call for new ways of understanding and designing urban landscapes in order to increase their sustainability and beauty. LANDLABS explores new perspectives on the interconnectedness between humans, animals, plants, water, air, soil and technologies in these landscapes. The aim is the development of new modes of understanding urban landscapes in the Anthropocene and new methods to design them for higher sustainability and beauty. Through an innovative site-based, research-through-design approach, LANDLABS offers young researchers the possibility to contribute to the highly topical and urgent issue of the green transition of cities in accordance with the European Green Deal and United Nations Goals of Sustainability. The doctoral network will be funded with 1.6 million euros from September 2024 to August 2028, with Prof. Dr. Martin Prominski from the Institute of Open Space Planning and Design as project coordinator.