About the Book

Landscape Approach promotes a holistic framework to ground individual places, communities, and habitats in a broad, territorial context. It aims to integrate human societies, their needs, and cultures into cohesive systems of water, soil, and non-human species. Through a diverse array of landscape-informed narratives, projects, identities, and geographies, different strategies are presented that ensure equitable and sustainable processes, and help envision and design innovative uses, technologies, and built forms. The book provides a unique international dialogue between authors, sites of investigation, topics covered, and scales traversed—ultimately calling for a multi-scalar, cross-boundary integration that spans from local communities to territorial systems. The book has been funded by generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts; the Annual Grant from the Landscape Architecture Canada Foundation (LACF); the SRC Publication Grant, Faculty of Community Services, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Landscape Approach has been published by Applied Research & Design, an imprint of ORO Editions.

The book is a collection of twenty-three essays from different geographic contexts across six continents. The foreword is written by Nina-Marie Lister, professor at the Toronto Metropolitan University, School of Urban & Regional Planning. The chapters are structured into five book sections:

1) Planning Metropolitan Landscape Systems presents five chapters describing landscape-informed projects at the scale of the urban region in Canada, France, Afghanistan, China, and the United States.

2) Building Ecological Infrastructures discusses cases of crafted landscape systems in Canada, Mexico, South Africa, Iran, and Peru which serve as infrastructure providing vital ecosystem services for local communities.

3) Reading Socio-Political Landscapes identifies different agents across contested territories in Canada, Singapore, Northern Sweden, and Finnmark / Northern Norway revealing inherent histories of socio-environmental co-production.

4) Planning for Territorial Systems present speculative visions for regional landscapes in Newfoundland, Inner Australia, Williams Treaties / Ontario, and the Inner Niger Delta / Mali to ground specific sites in their territorial context.

5) New Models of Practice presents five multidisciplinary collectives who have built different forms of collaborative practice in Canada, the United States, Chile, South Africa, and India, informed by a culture of landscape-thinking as it is promoted in the book.

While the chapters are geographically diverse, a reginal focus is laid on Northern and far-northern narratives, particularly in Canada, discussing prominent themes of rapid environmental transformations and shifting geopolitical interests. A second main theme is the integration of Indigenous knowledge, experience, and storytelling throughout the book. Three of the chapters are written by members of Indigenous communities, eight chapters are centered on Indigenous narratives which have been developed in close collaboration with members of those communities. Landscape Approach is the second book by the International Landscape Collaborative (ILC). It brings together a total of 52 authors from 14 nations. The book chapters are illustrated with over 150 figures, containing photographs, cartographic maps, and artistic drawings, including work by the renowned landscape photographers Yann Arthus-Bertrand and Edward Burtynsky.

Details

Book Title: Landscape Approach: From Local Communities to Territorial Systems
Editors: Hannes Zander, Shelagh McCartney, Samantha Solano, Sonja Vangjeli
Foreword: Nina-Marie Lister, Professor, School of Urban & Regional Planning, Toronto Metropolitan University, Canada; Director, Ecological Design Lab
Publisher: Applied Research & Design / ORO Editions
Book Design: Pablo Mandel / circularstudio.com
Date: October 2022
ISBN: 978-1-954081-23-9
Binding: Softbound with flaps
Pages: 304pp
Size: 7.1” x 9.5” Portrait

Collaborators

Yann Arthus-Bertrand (France)
Sujhatha Arulkumar (India)
Shannon Baker (Canada)
Balaji Balaganesan (India)
Antonia Besa (Chile)
Sourav Kumar Biswas (India)
Sheila Boudreau (Canada)
Keith Bowers (USA)
Matthew A.J. Brown (Canada)
Robert Burley (Canada)
Edward Burtynsky (Canada)
Malihah Chamani (Iran)
Hexing Chang (China)
Adriana Chávez Sánchez (Mexico)
Sandra A. Cooke (Canada)
Marine Cusa (France)
Alberto de Salvatierra (Canada)
Jennifer Dowdell (USA)
Tamsin Faragher (South Africa)
Berta Flaquer (Spain)
Dylan Gauthier (USA)
Jeffrey Herskovits (Canada)
Hans Hortig (Switzerland)
Lindsay Howe (South Africa)
Vid Ingelevics (Canada)
Manushi Ashok Jain (India)