Landscape architects without borders working group

 
photo 1.JPG
 
 
 

Mission

The LAWB group reclaims the role that landscape design, planning and management could play in the context of global challenges (displacement and migration, climate change and natural disasters, social justice and right to the landscape) by managing natural resources sustainably, and by contributing to local livelihoods through a thorough integration of ecological performance, design culture and social equity.

As a humanitarian group we are concerned with the need to enable equal access to landscape services whenever and wherever they are non-existent or scarce.  We are committed to work with vulnerable and disadvantaged communities, especially those affected by war, conflict and natural disaster, helping them to re-create safe, sustainable and dignified living conditions.

Objective

Landscape Architecture Without Borders aims to provide all humans with healthy and livable environment using integrated design processes that affects the landscape at different spatial and temporal scales. In face of the global crisis caused by mass displacement and urbanization, LAWB seeks to actively cooperate with national and international NGO’s, and local government. By making their skills available to interested parties, LAWB will identify and coordinate interventions needed to create safe living conditions for communities at risk. Through our interventions with emergency disaster relief situations we intend to address issues such as ecological disturbance, social instability, inclusiveness, resilience, self-organization, adaptation, and identity.


Activities

Our activities can include: helping re-plan and redesign areas that are recovering from natural disasters and political conflicts affecting not only cherished landscapes but human and non-human homes; giving guidance to governments on how to optimally protect landscapes so as to prevent natural disasters; providing academic expertise to university students and curriculums; running community based workshops and operative sessions; planning and designing projects such as refugee camps plan, landscape interventions in vulnerable and marginalized urban communities, and ecotourism planning and ecologies that help alleviate poverty; studies on the impacts of neo-liberalism on indigenous ecological identity.


Projects

IFLA Members have experience and have provided advice in preparing landscape plans, designs, and project implementation for:

  • Post natural-disaster recovery, particularly in marginalized communities

  • Community planning for climate change adaptation or risk reduction

  • Improving the quality of life in refugee camps and informal settlements for those displaced by violence, conflict, and persecution

  • Capacity building and participatory planning

  • Designing for social justice by working with marginalized communities (e.g. creating / improving neighborhood parks in rural villages)

  • Design for local economic sustainability (ecolodges, community agriculture)

  • Collaborative Research (Science, Social Science, and Applied Science)

  • University curriculum development


Action Plan

Objectives

a)    Demonstrate that the global crisis we are facing, caused by mass migration and urbanization, has a strong territorial/planning component that is often disregarded.

b)   Raise awareness of the relevant role that landscape planning and management play in the establishment of social cohesion between locals and new comers.

c)    Work in cooperation with other International (UNHCR, UNhabitat UNDP, …) and local organizations for the allocation of specific funds directed to the planning, remediation and management of new landscapes resulting from the continuous migration and displacement phenomena, natural disaster, and social inequity.

d)   Organize and divide tasks and responsibilities between the LAWB Chair and Regional Representatives

e)    Involve and work in close cooperation with country based IFLA associations

The action plan for LAWB is based on three important questions:

  • How to contribute, as LAWB, with applied design research, to the reorganization of the threatened areas, delineating new strategies capable of expressing landscape quality in continuously changing territories?

  • How to contribute to social cohesion by leading Landscape Architects towards an increased understanding of their critical role in the construction of the future of our territories, and their responsibility in response to the pressing issues the world is facing?

  • How to harmonize and coordinate the needs of the host and the mass displaced, and respect their mutual responsibilities towards spatial, cultural, economical, environmental, esthetical and social aspects?

Activities

The LAWB action plan is organized into short and long-term activities.

Short-term actions:

a)    Mapping and contacting NGO’s, regional and local authorities or other relevant stakeholders that are investigating the role of landscape planning and management in mitigating the impact of the displaced by disaster condition and migratory crisis;

b)   Work on creating a database to collect examples of realized planning interventions, related to the LAWB mission and objectives, in the different IFLA regions;

c)    Collect and compare the different rules and regulations addressing the mass displacement conditions.

d)   Define and establish a clear strategy for funds (donors, grants…) to undertake pro bono work.

Long-term actions:

a)    Be operative on the ground organizing punctual interventions in selected contexts.

b)   Finalize best-practice methodologies to be shared internally and with International Organizations.