Running out of land Designing strategies for Ammerland’s competing land use demands 6th EMiLA Summer School 28.08.-06.09.2014 EMiLA SUMMER SCHOOL 2014 Ammerlands historical park-like landscape with its meadows, groves, hedges and nurseries is increasingly challenged by competing land use demands, such as an expanding industrialised agriculture, ongoing construction activities, the expansion of nature reserves and peat extraction. All of these land uses aim to expand, but space is limited. Above all, these recent changes strongly influence the appearance of the historical park-like landscape which is a backbone for the local tourism. The EMiLA Summer School will work on regional landscape design with a particular focus on the involvement of local CONTACT stakeholders. Students will develop landscape concepts based on the cooperation with the real “landscape Leibniz Universität Hannover players”. During the workshop, the international teams will Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences negotiate the stakeholders interests by developing systems Institute of Open Space Planning and Design of cooperations and their future activities. The “landscape Verena Butt players” such as nursery owners, farmers, planners and EMiLA-Coordinator mayors will be actively involved by offering guided tours, Herrenhäuser Str. 2a lectures and joining into design studio discussions. Regional D – 30419 Hannover experts and laymen will be invited to discuss the design proposals during the final exhibition. Phone: ++49 – (0)511 – 762 3627 Secretary: ++49 – (0)511 – 762 5528 During ten days, students from nine countries and four eMail: [email protected] continents will work in international teams of five, tutored Website: www.landschaft.uni-hannover.de, www.emila.eu by two teachers. 3 EMiLA THE EMiLA IDEA EMilLA TOPICS With EMiLA, five of the leading landscape architecture uni- In Europe, there is a lack of landscape architects dealing versities/schools with a focus on design in Europe have with the understanding of our cultural landscape differ- been establishing the first “European Masters in Land- ences. In major international competitions too few Euro- scape Architecture”. This is an urgent issue in an era which pean candidates can address major territorial issues. There has created a European perspective on landscape with the are too many topics where there are no landscape archi- European Landscape Convention, brought forward by the tects at all working in multi-disciplinary teams on major Council of Europe in 2000. landscape transformations such as highway constructions through Europe, designing regional landscapes, anticipat- This is an important policy step for a European approach ing river flooding on major European transnational rivers or towards landscape. The EMiLA partners have identified this coastal continuity. Our European landscapes do not stop at need and are all motivated to make a radical step forward national borders even if the national and historical policies in their programmes with the new European Master’s pro- have been very important in each nation. gram. They have all had ERASMUS partnerships with each other for many years, but such partnerships address mainly In EMiLA, students are educated to work on large-scale individual students and exchanges with only one other European landscape questions. How should we build our university/school. European landscape energy system without erasing our EMiLA goes far beyond that by creating an network of stu- historical cultural landscapes? What type of agrarian land- dents and teachers. Students will start at one institution scape and suburban agrarian landscapes should we have and will go to two others during their 2nd and 3rd semes- surrounding our major European cities? How can we man- ters. They will have two specific EMiLA modules addressing age flood risk of European rivers through landscaping? What European themes. One is an eLearning-module adressing will our European landscapes be used for in the face of a European planning issues, the other one is the annual EM- shrinking and aging population? iLA-Summer School in one of the five countries. The global ecological, social and functional transformations of human settlements and landscapes call for enhanced integrative and trans-national approaches, as well as 4 5 interdisciplinary or transsectorial approaches, to innovate for sustainable solutions. The integrative nature of Land- scape Architecture places it at the forefront for holistically addressing major issues on the social and physical trans- EMiLA SUMMER SCHOOLS formation of land, space and the environment through the Design Process. Landscape Architecture education, research and policy has One component of the EMiLA-Curriculum is the annual reached a stage where further doctrinal development re- Summer School, with 25 students from five countries work- quires the injection of vision, resources and trans-national ing jointly on topics of European landscape architecture. In structural collaborations. In order to face this challenge, the addition, selected non-European universities are invited to educational system must adapt and supply an interdiscipli- take part in this 10-day workshop. nary and transnational approach. EMiLA will be a catalyst for students to benefit from a trans-sectorial education in The first Summer School of its kind was organised by the an international environment, and develop different De- Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences, Leibniz sign Processes and specific national knowledge. Universität Hannover, in “Altes Land” near Hamburg in 2009. This workshop was so successful that it gave rise to EMiLA was founded to: the idea of a joint curriculum. It is since then that the Sum- - Be a hub for students, academics, researchers, stakehold- mer School has been hosted by a different EMiLA partner ers, the EU and regional policy makers to develop new cur- institution each year. ricula; and to allow knowledge exchange on human set- tlements and contemporary landscapes through a Design Summer School themes are identified in close consulta- Process. tion with regions where pressing issues are pending to be - Identify and develop key EU landscape topics that are worked on. In the last years, students and lecturers from not currently clearly addressed in Higher Education, such all over the world had the opportunity to partake in EMiLA as the impact of the new EU Common Agricultural Policy Summer Schools held in the German “Altes Land” 2009, on on landscape, as well as across-the-board Landscape top- the British Orkney Islands 2010, in the Northeastern Neth- ics. There will also be comparative reflections on scale, time erlands 2011, on the Catalan coast in Spain 2012, and in the and knowledge in territorial transformations. French Haute Normandy 2013. - Have a learner-centred approach and a strong teacher- In 2014 it is up to the Faculty of Architecture and Landscape student relationship, as a students’ and academics’ Masters Sciences in Hannover to welcome students and teachers programme which promotes mobility. from all over the world. This year’s venue will take place in - Be sustainable and grow. Once consolidated, EMiLA will the region ”Middle Ammerland”. invite new schools to join the network. 6 7 2014: RUNNING OUT OF LAND TOPIC AND REGION find trainees and qualified employees. The Summer School The Ammerland region is faced with pressing tasks in land- will visit Europes biggest nursery, Bruns, who delivered the scape development: The park-like landscape with its mead- trees for the Square of the Revolution in Moskow, the Royal ows, groves, hedges and nurseries that characterise the Am- Bank of Scotland World HQ Gogarburn in Edinburgh or the merland region, is more and more replaced by competing Champ Élysées in Paris. Nurseries have great influence on land use demands. An increasingly industrialised agricul- the image of the landscape, the touristic development and ture needs large coherent areas; intense building activities the economy of the region, while at the same time being (Settlements, motorways, wind power plants, electric-line linked to a worldwide market. How can nurseries and Am- systems) entail ecological compensation measures which in merlands “Park-Landscape” evolve in the future? turn require space. Peat extraction occupies large areas. The consequences of these competing land use demands can Another urgent topic, which is also related to the nurser- lead to negative developments for the landscape qualities ies, is the peat extraction. Peat used to be a raw material (which are the backbone of the tourism), economic prob- e.g. for heating (it still is in parts of Europe), as potting lems for companies and farms who cannot expand as they soil in the horticulture and in tree nurseries. The climatic would like to, a disconnection of intensive landuses and impact of peat extraction is high, as the complex drainage the small scale landscape character, and problems to de- of wetlands and the subsequent process of biological deg- velop coherent natural areas. radation sets free enormous amounts of CO2. The negative consequences on the climate and the huge impact on the In landscape structure of the so called “Park-Landscape landscape-ecology raises discussions and protest against Ammerland”, tree nurseries are of particular importance. peat extraction. In some European countries peat extrac- The Ammerland region has the highest percentage of tree tion has been stopped recently. Now, peat is transported nursery areas