This lecture addresses the Delft approach to landscape and urban planning at the Faculty of Architecture and Built Environment, Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands). Here Landscape Architecture is positioned within the field of built environment studies and strongly interrelated with Architecture and Urbanism. The specific focus of Landscape Architecture is on understanding the formative elements behind the urban landscape, and on the development of design concepts, methods and strategies that can intervene in and direct its spatial development through the scales. Paramount is the role of landscape design as synthesising activity that explores the dynamic between structure and process in the built environment focusing on specific context-related design tasks, in which knowledge from different disciplines is integrated into coherent (multi-scale) proposals using the landscape as the basic condition. This lecture aims to elaborate on the foundations of the Delft approach to landscape architecture that understands the urban landscape as a scale continuum, employs design research and research by design as important teaching and research strategies, and regards mapping and drawing as important tools for thinking. The typical Dutch geographic context and spatial planning traditions are the foundation for this approach.

Dr. Steffen Nijhuis is Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Team Leader of the Landscape Architecture Research Program at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft University of Technology. He is an expert in landscape architecture research and design of urban green-blue systems, landscape-based regional design approaches to urban development, and GIS-applications in landscape planning and design. He is a project leader and heads up the Landscape Architecture Research Program, as well as being series editor of RiUS and advisor to (inter)national NGO’s, governmental and regional authorities. Furthermore he is coordinator of the international Landscape Architecture MSc-Graduation studio and (post-)graduate methodology courses. His recent publications include: GIS-based landscape design research (A+BE, 2015), Flowscapes: Designing infrastructure as landscape (TUD, 2015), Urbanized deltas in transition (Techne press, 2014) and Exploring the visual landscape (IOS press, 2011)

Photo credit: Hollandse Hoogte