Learning to Design with Stakeholders: Participatory, Collaborative, and Transdisciplinary Design in Postgraduate Landscape Architecture Education in Europe

Annet Kempenaar

doi:10.3390/land10030243

Abstract

Over the last few decades, interaction and collaboration with stakeholders and communities in the design and development of our environment have become integral parts of landscape architecture practice. This article explores the position of this kind of designing in postgraduate landscape architecture education in Europe. An analysis of the international master’s curricula in landscape architecture of 29 universities across Europe shows there is some attention paid to participatory, collaborative, and transdisciplinary design in several, but not all programs. However, participatory, collaborative, and transdisciplinary design is an important topic in the current discourse amongst landscape architecture scholars. This may indicate an increase in attention to the topic in European landscape architecture education curricula in the (near) future.

Highlights

Interaction with communities, stakeholders, and other parties during the design process has become an integral part of landscape architecture practice over the last few decades
In the context of this study, the search concentrated on notions that indicated explicit attention to the process of active interaction with stakeholders during the design process, including taking their information, knowledge, interests and other inputs into account in the design
The contributions to the 2019 European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS) conference and the two books on teaching landscape illustrate that engaging with stakeholders in the design process is an integral part of the current discourse amongst European landscape architecture scholars

Summary

Introduction

Interaction with communities, stakeholders, and other parties during the design process has become an integral part of landscape architecture practice over the last few decades. This is reflected in, for example, the tasks of landscape architects described by Oldham [1] in his recent report for the Council of Europe on the “Professional Recognition of Landscape Architects”. In Europe, the introduction of the European Landscape Convention (ELC) in 2000 and its adoption and ratification by 40 (out of 47) member states of the Council of Europe since [5] has fueled the active participation of communities and stakeholders in landscape planning and design.

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