Landscape planning in theory and practice
The course uses landscape theory as a lens to critique and gain deeper understanding of planning, especially landscape planning. It discusses key concepts and methods in landscape planning, with examples of how it is practiced.
The course is based on literature seminars combined with lectures and workshops. It ends with writing a paper in which one of the theories or concepts discussed in the course is studied in more detail.
Course evaluation
The course evaluation is now closed
LK0345-20076 - Course evaluation report
Once the evaluation is closed, the course coordinator and student representative have 1 month to draft their comments. The comments will be published in the evaluation report.
Additional course evaluations for LK0345
Academic year 2024/2025
Landscape planning in theory and practice (LK0345-20098)
2024-11-01 - 2025-01-19
Academic year 2022/2023
Landscape planning in theory and practice (LK0345-20027)
2022-11-01 - 2023-01-15
Academic year 2021/2022
Landscape planning in theory and practice (LK0345-10117)
2021-08-30 - 2021-11-01
Academic year 2020/2021
Landscape planning in theory and practice (LK0345-10181)
2020-08-31 - 2020-11-01
Academic year 2019/2020
Landscape planning in theory and practice (LK0345-10035)
2019-09-02 - 2019-10-31
Syllabus and other information
Syllabus
LK0345 Landscape planning in theory and practice, 15.0 Credits
Landskapsplanering i teori och praktikSubjects
Landscape Architecture Landscape ArchitectureEducation cycle
Master’s levelModules
| Title | Credits | Code |
|---|---|---|
| Single module | 15.0 | 0101 |
Advanced study in the main field
Second cycle, has second-cycle course/s as entry requirementsMaster’s level (A1F)
Grading scale
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.
Language
EnglishPrior knowledge
Knowledge equivalent to 150 credits of which 90 credits in Landscape Architecture and/or Architecture and/or Physical or Urban Planning and/or Community Planning and/or Rural Development of which 15 credits on second cycle level, and knowledge equivalent to English 6, or admitted to the Landscape Architecture for Sustainable Urbanisation – Master´s programme.Objectives
The purpose of this advanced course is for the student to gain deeper understanding of landscape planning.
Knowledge and understanding
After completion of this course the student shall be able to:
define and describe different ideas on key concepts within landscape planning, such as landscape, nature, space, place, and how these differences affect planning practice.
communicate an understanding of the wide fields of landscape and planning theory.
explain the role of cartography for how landscape planning has been and is practiced today, and strategies for moving beyond or enriching this dominant perspective.
Competence and skills
After completion of this course the student shall be able to:
apply the conceptual framework offered in the course for a critical examination of a landscape planning project.
apply academic writing.
Judgement and approach
After completion of this course the student shall be able to:
reflect upon the rhetorical use of concepts and theories within the field of landscape planning, and its consequences for the practice.
reflect upon the needs for a sustainability shift within planning and what it requires in terms of new or revised theories within landscape planning.
Content
Even the most pragmatic landscape planner uses concepts and theories as a base for his/her practice – even though not necessarily in a conscious manner. This course argues that improved capacity to analyze and question ideas taken for granted on landscape and planning (be it one’s own or others theories) will improve how landscape planning is practiced.
The course uses landscape theory as a lens to critique and gain deeper understanding of planning, especially landscape planning. It discusses theories, key concepts and methods in landscape planning, with examples of how it is practiced. Contemporary practice as well as historical examples are used to reveal several possible ways of understanding key concepts within the field (such as landscape, nature, space and place), which in turn affects how landscape planning is understood and practiced. This course captures how theories on landscape can limit, or facilitate, certain planning solutions. The analysis of contemporary practice also opens up for a discussion on what landscape planning is and could be.
While the course focuses on landscape planning, its theoretical and methodological discussions have a wider reach. The course provides knowledge on how to critically examine theories, concepts and representations within landscape architecture and planning. Such examinations, we argue, is a base for an active and conscious planning.
The course is based on literature seminars combined with lectures and workshops. It ends with writing a paper in which one of the theories or concepts discussed in the course is studied in more detail. This paper offers a possibility to start to think and work on a theoretical frame for the following master thesis.
The course includes seminars on the ideas of landscape in landscape planning, the role of cartography and other visual representations in planning, the role of ideas of nature for how landscape planning has been practiced, landscape in relation to planning theory, and a seminar on an up-to date discourse within planning. Seminars, exercises, and activities connected to them are compulsory.
Grading form
The grade requirements within the course grading system are set out in specific criteria. These criteria must be available by the course start at the latest.Formats and requirements for examination
Passed participation in seminars, lectures and workshops. Passed individual presentations of a text at a seminar, passed written summary of the literature and the discussions for some of the seminars, and passed final paper as well as passed compulsory activities.
If a student has failed an examination, the examiner has the right to issue supplementary assignments. This applies if it is possible and there are grounds to do so.
The examiner can provide an adapted assessment to students entitled to study support for students with disabilities following a decision by the university. Examiners may also issue an adapted examination or provide an alternative way for the students to take the exam.
If this syllabus is withdrawn, SLU may introduce transitional provisions for examining students admitted based on this syllabus and who have not yet passed the course.
For the assessment of an independent project (degree project), the examiner may also allow a student to add supplemental information after the deadline for submission. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Other information
The right to participate in teaching and/or supervision only applies for the course instance the student was admitted to and registered on.
If there are special reasons, students are entitled to participate in components with compulsory attendance when the course is given again. Read more in the Education Planning and Administration Handbook.
Responsible department
Department of Urban and Rural Development
Litterature list
Compulsory reading list
This is the compulsory reading list for the seminars. In addition a recommended readings list will be posted on the course Canvas page on the course start day.
Seminar 1: Thinking through maps
This seminar explores cartographic thinking, or how the modern cartography (in tandem with modern science) has affected the way we think and do space, for instance by treating it as an abstract matrix filled with discrete objects. We will discuss what characterises modern cartography, and how it frames the way landscape architects think and act.
Cosgrove. D. (1985). “Prospect, perspective and the evolution of the landscape idea”. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 10(1), pp. 45-62. https://www.jstor.org/stable/622249
Harley, J. B. (1988). “Maps, knowledge, and power”. In: S. Daniels & D. Cosgrove (Eds.): The iconography of landscape (pp. 277–312). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lundberg, A. K., Richardson, T. 2021. “Balancing nature conservation and windpower development: the contested work that maps do in protecting Europe’s last wild reindeer”, Landscape Research, 46:2, 182-196
Dodds, R. & Joppe, M. (2001). “Promoting urban green tourism: The development of the other map of Toronto”, Journal of Vacation Marketing, 7(3), 261–267.
Seminar 2: Ways of seeing, ways of doing: why does the definition of landscape matter?
In this seminar, we will examine how different discourses on landscape influence how we frame our environment. We will consider how different conceptualisations of landscape are brought in to played when we read and communicate landscape and how these readings ultimately informs planning and understand conflict in the landscape.
Joks, S., Østmo, L. & Law, J. 2020. “Verbing meahcci: Living Sámi lands”, The Sociological Review, 68, 305-321.
Olwig, K. R. (2005). “The Landscape of ‘Customary’ Law versus that of ‘Natural’ Law”, Landscape Research, 30(3): 299–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/01426390500165385
Atha, M., Howard, P., Thompson, I. & Waterton, E. (2019). “Introduction. Ways of knowing and being with landscape: a beginning”. In: P. Howard, I. Thompson, E. Waterton, & M. Atha (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Landscape Studies (pp. xix-xxviii). Abingdon, Oxon – New York: Routledge.
Seminar 3: Materialised discourses
This seminar explores landscape understood as a materialised discourse, and the difficulties in moving beyond such a “naturalised” discourse, e.g. when aiming for a more sustainable or multifunctional land-use. Unless we take the materialised dis- courses seriously, such land-use transitions might fail. The seminar will discuss the importance of materialised landscapes – but also what kind of landscapes planning tend to materialise.
Egoz, S., Bowring, J. & Perkins, H. C. (2001). “Tastes in tension: form, function, and meaning in New Zealand’s farmed landscapes”. Landscape and Urban Planning, 57(3), 177–196. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-2046(01)00203-1
Qviström, M. (2008). “Landscapes out of order: studying the inner urban fringe beyond the rural – urban divide”. Geografiska Annaler Series B, 89(3), 269-282.
Schein, R. (1997). “The place of landscape: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting an American Scene”. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 87(4), 660 – 680
Seminar 4: Nature, culture, wilderness
Nature is a powerful concept. Claims to what is “natural” have varied over the centuries, and have had a fundamental impact on the practice of landscape planners and architects. This seminar explores the concepts of nature, culture and wilderness to gain a better understanding of the complexity of the concepts, their importance and role, especially within modernity.
Cronon, W. (1996). “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature”. In W. Cronon (Ed.), Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (pp. 69–90). New York: W.W. Norton & Company
Kaika, M. (2005). City of flows: modernity, nature and the city (pp. 11–26). New York. Routledge.
Workshop: The nature of landscape planning. McHarg’s overlay approach
This workshop aims to acknowledge and scrutinize one of the most influential publication within landscape planning: Ian McHarg’s “Design with nature”. This book affects the everyday practice of landscape and environmental planners – whether they have heard of it or not. Therefore, there is a need to scrutinize the ideas of nature, and of mapping and planning, that inform the book. The workshop will do this in a more playful way than the academic seminars.
McHarg, I. (1969/1992). Design with nature. New York: J. Wiley. Selected chapters: “A step forward”, pp. 31–41, and “Processes as values”, pp. 103–115.
Seminar 5: Landscape Planning and Social Injustice at the intersections of Green Gentrification, Climate Change, Segregation and Place Politics
Anguelovski, Isabelle, James J. T. Connolly, Helen Cole, Melissa Garcia-Lamarca, Margarita Triguero-Mas, Francesc Baró, Nicholas Martin, et al. “Green Gentrification in European and North American Cities.” Nature Communications 13, no. 1 (July 2, 2022): 3816. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-31572-1.
Bradley,K. , Gunnarsson-Östling, U. , I. Isaksson (2008) Exploring Environmental Justice in Sweden - How to improve planning for environmental sustainability and social equity in an ‘eco-friendly’ context. Projections - MIT Journal of Planning, 8 (2008), pp. 68-81
Holgersen, Ståle, and Andreas Malm. “‘Green Fix’ as Crisis Management. or, in Which World Is Malmö the World’s Greenest City?” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 97, no. 4 (December 1, 2015): 275–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/geob.12081.
Seamster, L., & Purifoy, D. (2020). What is environmental racism for? Place-based harm and relational development. Environmental Sociology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790331
Yigit-Turan, B. and Ågren, M. (2022), Segregation and Landscape Injustice in the Shadows of White Planning and Green Exceptionalism in Sweden, Urban Matters Journal, Issue: Dislocating Urban Studies https://urbanmattersjournal.com/segregation-and-landscape-injustice-in-the-shadows-of-white-planning-and-green-exceptionalism-in-sweden/
Seminar 6: Green Reconstruction
Anguelovski, I., & Gottlieb, R. (2014). Neighborhood As Refuge: Community Reconstruction, Place Remaking, and Environmental Justice in the City. MIT Press. (chapter 6) http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/slub-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3339756
Fleming, Billy. “Frames and Fictions: Designing a Green New Deal Studio Sequence.” Journal of Architectural Education 75, no. 2 (July 3, 2021): 192–201. https://doi.org/10.1080/10464883.2021.1947673.
Reinhold, M (2022) Green Reconstruction: A Curricular Toolkit for the Built Environment. University of Columbia Press. https://buellcenter.columbia.edu/conferences/green-reconstruction-curricular-toolkit-built-environment
Seminar 7: Pluriversal Approaches to Planning Research and Practice: Counter mapping, storytelling
Halder, S. Michel, B. (2018) This is not an atlas: A global collection of counter-cartographies (First edition). (2018). [Map]. Transcript Verlag. Introduction pp. 12-37 https://www.transcript-verlag.de/shopMedia/openaccess/pdf/oa9783839445198.pdf
Sandercock, Leonie. “Out of the Closet: The Importance of Stories and Storytelling in Planning Practice.” Planning Theory & Practice 4, no. 1 (January 2003): 11–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935032000057209.
Sletto, B., Barrera de la Torre, G., Lamina Luguana, A. M., & Pereira Júnior, D. (2021). Walking, knowing, and the limits of the map: Performing participatory cartographies in indigenous landscapes. Cultural Geographies, 14744740211034480. https://doi.org/10.1177/14744740211034479
Vasudevan, Raksha, and Magdalena Novoa E. “Pluriversal Planning Scholarship: Embracing Multiplicity and Situated Knowledges in Community-Based Approaches.” Planning Theory 21, no. 1 (February 1, 2022): 77–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/14730952211000384.
Seminar 8: Anti-Subordination, Anti-Racist, Feminist Planning
Agyeman, Julian. “Beyond Equity: What Does an Anti-Racist Urban Ecology Look Like?” The Nature of Cities (blog), June 7, 2021. https://www.thenatureofcities.com/2021/06/07/beyond-equity-what-does-an-anti-racist-urban-ecology-look-like/.
Hendler, Sue. “Towards a Feminist Code of Planning Ethics.” Planning Theory & Practice 6, no. 1 (March 1, 2005): 53–69. https://doi.org/10.1080/1464935042000334967.
Knapp, Courtney E. “Integrating Critical Autobiography to Foster Anti-Racism Learning in the Urban Studies Classroom: Interpreting the ‘Race and Place’ Stories of Undergraduate Students.” Journal of Planning Education and Research 42, no. 3 (September 1, 2022): 268–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X18817822.
Steil, Justin. “Antisubordination Planning.” Journal of Planning Education and Research, December 7, 2018, 0739456X18815739. https://doi.org/10.1177/0739456X18815739.
Reading for the Zine Making and Story Mapping Workshop
Ashtari, Atyeh, Efadul Huq, and Faranak Miraftab. “The Joy of Many Stories: Zine-Making and Story-Mapping in Planning Pedagogy.” Planning Practice & Research 0, no. 0 (April 11, 2022): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/02697459.2022.2061106.