The “African Landscape Architectures: Alternative Futures for the Field” conference, held on March 6 and 7, 2025, at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design (GSD), brought together a diverse group of practitioners and scholars to explore the transformative potential of decolonising design in addressing social injustices and preparing African cities for the impacts of climate change. Gareth Doherty organised the conference, which the GSD and the Department of African and African American Studies hosted. International Federation of Landscape Architects (IFLA) was one of the event’s sponsors.

Event curator, Gareth Doherty, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture and Affiliate of the Department of African and African American Studies

The following reflections come from IFLA Africa colleagues: Dr. Finzi Saidi, President of ILASA, South Africa; Carey Duncan, AAPME Morocco, and Past President of IFLA Africa; Arthur Adeya, LAAK, Kenya; and Graham A. Young, Institute of Landscape Architects of South Africa (ILASA), South Africa, and President of IFLA Africa, all of whom participated in the event.

Doherty organised the conference around five lenses: Currencies, Materialities, Adaptabilities, Pedagogies, and Futurities. Over two days, participants examined various strategies and frameworks that support different futures for African landscape architecture. The key themes emerging from the discussions were:

Plurality in Practice: Emphasising the importance of recognising diverse forms of landscape architecture across Africa, participants highlighted the need for practices that are inclusive of the continent's varied cultures, ecologies, and traditions.

Community-Engaged Design: Presentations showcased projects like those by the Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI) in Nairobi’s Kibera neighbourhood, demonstrating how landscape architecture can integrate community needs and provide spaces that serve social, economic, and environmental functions in slum environments.

Decolonizing Education: Discussions underscored the need to develop curricula that reflect African contexts and histories, moving away from Western models to equip future practitioners better to address local challenges.

Spiritual Connections to Land: The role of spirituality in landscape architecture was explored, with insights from leaders like Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi of the Osun Sacred Grove, emphasising the interconnectedness of nature and spirituality in African traditions.

Sustainable Futures: Case studies, such as the Ellen DeGeneres Campus of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund in Rwanda, illustrated innovative approaches to landscape design that prioritise ecological restoration and sustainability, and which became the setting of active research for reforestation techniques in Rwanda.

The conference “marked a critical point for landscape architecture as a discipline, culture, practice, and education in Africa,” said Saidi, reflecting on what resonated with him. He emphasised five points that emerged from the discussions.

“Firstly, it was clear from practitioners’; presentations over the last fifty years that landscape architects have played a significant and influential role in provision of public space infrastructure in African cities, with varying degrees of success, as many grappled with complexities of interpreting ‘borrowed’ or ‘imported’ landscape design principles onto sites within the African cities. Projects presented by landscape architects indicated the struggles of landscape architects not only in the interpretation of designs in various cultural and climatic conditions but also in developing design processes that would render the designs relevant for local communities.

Secondly, it is also informative to note that there were important contemporary landscape projects that were produced not by landscape architects but by environmental designers, architects, and local communities with the aid of volunteer institutions, which demonstrated that landscape architecture is a multi/ transdisciplinary endeavor on the African continent. These projects were characterized by deeper engagement between local communities and experts, resulting in the co-production of landscape that suggests that the community of landscape architecture field in Africa is broader than the narrow traditional definitions of landscape architecture as a profession. This manner of production of the crucial landscape works/projects that practitioners do with qualifications other than landscape architecture make imperative the redefinition of the landscape architecture profession in Africa.

Keynote speaker Johan van Papendorp (MLA Harvard ’75), ILASA, South Africa

From left to right, Key note moderator, Zoe Marks, Tarna Klizner, ILASA, South Africa, and Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi.

Thirdly, there is a need to conduct relevant research rooted in understanding the historical African landscape be it cultural, rural or modernist in expression, in order to discover and invent new landscape architecture approaches that will be relevant to contemporary and future cities and settlements in Africa.

Fourthly, African landscape architecture is underpinned by deep spiritual, ancestral, and cosmic values that have not been part of the traditional discipline of landscape architecture. This landscape includes Indigenous landscape practices and production as exemplified by the presentation by Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi, High Priestess of the Osun Sacred Grove, in Osogbo, Nigeria, that shows centuries-old cultural practices that produce sustainable customary landscapes, suggest new approaches and roles that landscape architects will have to learn from in order to reproduce culturally relevant landscape architecture.

Finally, my fifth takeaway from this conference is how to transform the education of landscape architects so that they are prepared for the challenges of the future. The positive reception to the case studies presented of experimental landscape teaching approaches of 15X at the Graduate School of Architecture at UJ and WITS suggests an urgent need to re-examine curriculum content and modes of delivery of landscape architecture programs at all schools in Africa. These teaching experiments propose that landscape architecture programmes should critically engage with the contemporary challenges of cities and methods of producing landscape professionals who will be in tune with the communities they will be working for production of new landscape architecture.’’

“It was a stimulating event, and I was struck at just how IFLA had, through its members, a wealth of information, resources and the power of critical thinking,” Duncan reflected.

“I was marked by Prof. Tunji Adejumo’s (Past president, IFLA Africa) value-based approach to the landscape, comparing and contrasting Spiritscape and its biocentric philosophy, with Resourcescape and its anthropocentric philosophy, the former giving rise to high biodiversity ecosystem landscape and the latter to a landscape of hunger through overuse of resources. Princess Adedoyin Talabi Faniyi provided a perfect vision of how Spiritscape can produce successful public open space because of the profound respect for the earth. This led me to question what a landscape architect really is and confirmed my conviction that there are several pathways to attaining that title.

All the presentations were of a very high quality but two stand out for me in particular: hearing about the unique and African centred studios and teaching methods that Dr Finzi Saidi and Dr Sechaba Maape use at the University of Johannesburg and Wits respectively was inspiring. However, I couldn’t help regretting that they are teaching what they do to Architects and not to Landscape Architects!

The other point for meditation that made me sit up and think, was the importance of language in the way we describe things, and the idea that perhaps we should be talking about “land architecture” and not limiting ourselves to “landscape architecture” implying that it’s architecture of what we see. Up until now, this discussion has, in my experience, been limited to the problem of translating the name of our profession into Arabic. Thanks to Jala Makhzoumi (for her eloquent expansion of this idea in the concluding session.

My only regret was that the event had to take place in North America when the subject was about our own continent. However, I chose to savour instead the opportunity to see the Tanner Fountain (acting President, IFLA Middle East), which looks so much smaller in real life) and to enjoy a chilly walk around the Mount Auburn Cemetery, the first garden cemetery in the US.”

“I sketch to see.” Said Adeya,

“What is landscape? And upon reflection, when confronted with African Landscape(s) Architectures, the question becomes even more profound. The most diverse of continents, the most diverse of peoples, engaging with one of the most diverse professions—this is the suitable forum to explore the limits of landscape architecture. The clarity for me is this: we must be authentic. Authentic in studying our currencies (read: present, read: present continuous, read: our present continuum). Authentic in studying our past. Authentic in defining our histories. Only then can we be truly authentic in shaping our futures—the futures of African Landscape Architectures, and indeed, the global future of the profession,” added Adeya.

In the concluding session, which featured a panel discussion on Futurities, Young suggested that,

“The dynamic tension between the poetic and the practical will define the evolution of African landscapes.” In terms of the future, he argued that “the landscape architecture in Africa is potentially promising. The convergence of urban expansion, climate adaptation needs, and Indigenous practices creates fertile ground for the profession's growth. However, this potential will only be realised with efforts to address financial, policy, and capacity-related challenges.

The most compelling African landscape architecture will balance these two forces – the sublime and the pragmatic. As the field grows, the future will belong to designers who can merge poetic landscapes with solutions that tackle Africa’s urgent environmental and social challenges. The sublime will inspire, while the pragmatic will sustain.”

For further reading of the conference, here is a link: https://www.gsd.harvard.edu/2025/04/the-plural-forms-of-african-landscape- architecture/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The African Landscape Architecture: An Alternative Futures for the Field - Conference Reflections

What IS Landscape Architecture
IFLA DEFINITIONS
KNOWLEDGE HUB

ExCO
MEMBER Associations
INdividual Members
Corporate Members
IFLA REGIONS
IFLA COMMITTEES
WORLD COUNCIL
SPECIAL ENVOYS

AWARDS
COMPETITIONS
DECLARATIONS
IFLA WORKING GROUPS
Our partners