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Hanna Erixon Aalto, "Projecting Urban Natures". (Higher Seminar, Dec 16)

Opponent: Nina-Marie Lister, Associate Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University, Toronto

Tid: Ti 2015-12-15 kl 13.00 - 15.00

Plats: Level 6 Meeting Room KTH Architecture

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ABSTRACT: 

Projecting Urban Natures: Investigating integrative approaches toward urban development and nature conservation

The point of departure for the thesis project is a critique towards the current polarized relationship between urban development and nature conservation/green structure planning in the Stockholm region. Traditionally, ecological issues within planning have been lacking strategic and innovative dimensions and instead there has been an emphasis toward prescriptive and preventive aspects (Corner, 1997; Asplund, 2005, Dovlén and Skantze, 2005). In this context green areas are often treated in a dichotomized matter; either “spared” or “sacrificed” instead of being integrated (conceptually, physically, economically and ecologically) in the urban structure. This dissertation aims at challenging this praxis through exploring more integrative and operative approaches. As a departing point, the thesis argues that environmental and ecological aspects are not the type of issues that can simply be added to the existing tradition of urban planning and design practice, but that an integration of ecological aspects demands a renewal and reinvention of these practices and a renegotiation of their structural conditions. The thesis project explores such dimensions through 1) alternative conceptual frameworks (paper I) through 2) integrative methods within planning and urban design (paper II) and 3) through critical reflections of the future role and agency of urban oriented design professions (paper III). The research project out-lines and investigates these aspects through both practice based research methods such as interdisciplinary collaborations and participation in hands-on design-and planning projects and through in-depth interviews with key actors.

        Projects performed within the thesis include the following projects: a collaboration with the team of NOD, Wingårdhs and MUST with the proposal URBANATUR for the Kymlinge area in Stockholm in 2005; a collaborative research project commission by the Office of Regional Planning and Urban Transportation in Stockholm resulting in the report “Regional Density and Green Structure Potential, (Erixon and Ståhle et al.) in 2008; an interdisciplinary collaboration with the department of system ecology at Stockholm University and Stockholm Resilience Centre through the project “Design experiments - investigating integrated approaches of urban development and green structure planning (initiated in 2007), and through the research project and design proposal for Albano in Stockholm; “PATCH WORK”(2009) and in 2008 through participation in the proposal ÅRSTA URBAN NATURES  with James Corner, Field Operations.

Opponent: Nina-Marie Lister, Associate Professor at the School of Urban and Regional Planning, Ryerson University, Toronto 

Nina-Marie Lister is Graduate Programme Director and Associate Professor in the School of Urban and Regional Planning. From 2009-2014, she was Visiting Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning at Harvard University, Graduate School of Design. A Registered Professional Planner with a background in landscape ecology and urban planning, she is the founding principal of PLANDFORM a creative studio practice exploring the relationship between landscape, ecology, and urbanism. Prof. Lister’s research, teaching and practice focus on the confluence of landscape infrastructure and ecological processes within contemporary metropolitan regions, with a particular focus on design for resilience and complex, adaptive systems approaches. At Ryerson University, Lister founded and directs the Ecological Design Lab, a collaborative incubator for ecological design research and practice, and an experimental generator in rapid prototyping for resilience. She is co-editor of Projective Ecologies (with Chris Reed, Harvard GSD and ACTAR Press, 2014) and The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (with David Waltner-Toews and the late James Kay, Columbia University Press, 2008)

The material for the seminar can be obtained through: hannaerixon@gmail.com