LE:NOTRE Thematic Network in Landscape Architecture. Landscape Education - New Opportunities for Teaching and Research in Europe

<a href="main_public.php">www.le-notre.org - The LE:NOTRE Thematic Network in Landscape Architecture</a> <table width="735" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"> <tr> <td > <map name="MapMap"> <area shape="rect" coords="1,-5,622,36" href="content/about_le_notre.php" target="_self" alt="LE:NOTRE Thematic Network Project in Landscape Architecture - HOME"> <area shape="rect" coords="3,40,442,61" href="content/education_scholarship.php" target="_self" alt="Thematic Network in Landscape Architecture"> <area shape="rect" coords="683,2,722,36" href="content/monsieur_le_notre.php" target="_self" alt="Andre Le Notre"> <area shape="rect" coords="553,40,573,59" href="content/erasmus.php" target="_self" alt="European Union"> <area shape="rect" coords="624,41,722,59" href="content/eclas.php" target="_self" alt="www.eclas.org"> </map> <img src="common_images/navigation_public_new2.gif" alt="Navigation" width="735" height="61" border="0" usemap="#MapMap"></td> </tr> <tr> <td height="4px"></td> 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href="content/working_groups_public/history_conservation.php" target="_self" alt="History and Conservation"> <area shape="rect" coords="557,105,736,205" href="content/working_groups_public/landscape_planning.php" target="_self" alt="Landscape Planning"> <area shape="rect" coords="5,210,184,310" href="content/working_groups_public/infrastructure_projects.php" target="_self" alt="Infrastructure Projects"> <area shape="rect" coords="556,0,735,100" href="content/working_groups_public/urban_open_space.php" target="_self" alt="Urban Open Space"> <area shape="rect" coords="369,105,548,205" href="content/working_groups_public/materials_construction.php" target="_self" alt="Materials and Construction"> <area shape="rect" coords="370,210,549,310" href="content/working_groups_public/landscape_management.php" target="_self" alt="Landscape Management"> <area shape="rect" coords="1,105,180,205" href="content/working_groups_public/vegetation_plant_material.php" target="_self" alt="Vegetation and Plant Material"> <area shape="rect" coords="370,0,549,100" href="content/working_groups_public/professional_practice.php" target="_self" alt="Professional Practice"> <area shape="rect" coords="185,210,364,310" href="content/working_groups_public/information_technology.php" target="_self" alt="Information Technology"> <area shape="rect" coords="186,0,365,100" href="content/working_groups_public/cultural_landscape.php" target="_self" alt="Cultural Landscape"> <area shape="rect" coords="185,105,364,205" href="content/working_groups_public/theory_methodology.php" target="_self" alt="Theory and Methodology"> <area shape="rect" coords="2,0,181,100" href="content/working_groups_public/landscape_design.php" target="_self" alt="Landscape Design"> </map> </td> </tr> </table> <p><br> <span class="text-12-blocksatz"> Webmasters:<br> <br> Programming & Database:<br> <a href="http://www.norbertbrandstaetter.net" target="_blank" class="text-12-blau">Norbert Brandstätter</a> [<a href="mailto:lenotre@norbertbrandstaetter.net?cc=raab_stefan@hotmail.com">email</a>]</span><br> <span class="text-12-blocksatz">Design & Structure:<br> <a href="http://www.landscape.tuwien.ac.at/raab/" target="_blank" class="text-12-blau">Stefan Raab</a> [<a href="mailto:raab_stefan@hotmail.com?cc=lenotre@norbertbrandstaetter.net">email</a>]</span></p> <p><span class="text-12-normal"><br> The LE:NOTRE Thematic Network in Landscape Architecture is a three year European Union funded project aimed at strengthening co-operation between universities and higher education institutions involved in teaching and research in landscape architecture. Landscape architecture is the discipline concerned with the planning, design and management of the human environment.<br> The project will also draw on the experience and expertise of outside organisations involved with different aspects of landscape architecture practice at the European level as well as landscape architecture students and academics from neighbouring disciplines.<br> The general goal of the LE:NOTRE Thematic Network Project is to increase the quality of landscape architecture teaching and research undertaken by higher education institutions within Europe, taking the discipline to a new level of maturity, by building on and developing European best practice and identifying key needs and urgent areas for action in education and research within the discipline. </span></p> <p><span class="text-12-fett">To achieve this it will be necessary to fulfil the following objectives:</span><span class="text-12-normal"><br> <br> - strengthen the European landscape architecture academic community and to highlight the European dimensions and identity of the discipline in order to bring about improvements in all aspects of education and scholarship<br> <br> - move towards the convergence of undergraduate curricula throughout Europe by the identification of broadly agreed core elements, while seeking to develop specialisms at more advanced levels, which grow out of the existing variety of landscape issues and professional needs and the environmental conditions within the different countries of Europe<br> <br> - develop improved teaching methods and common teaching resources for landscape architecture education, building on best European practice and emerging new directions, methods and technologies<br> <br> - strengthen the potential for research in landscape architecture at the European level, as an important precondition for research-led teaching, by seeking to co-ordinate existing activities and define common and urgent research agendas, developing common research methods teaching as well as seeking new means to disseminate research findings<br> <br> - improve communication with professional bodies and public authorities, landscape students and related disciplines at the European level in order to ensure educational and research needs at all levels can be identified and addressed to the highest possible standards and new needs effectively predicted<br> <br> - establish a long-term framework through which this process of dialogue and co-operation can continue at the same level of quality and intensity beyond the time scale of the Thematic Network Project, and to initiate measures necessary to facilitate the improved future mobility of staff and students</span></p> <p class="text-12-normal"><span class="text-12-fett"><br> The project is divided into three interdependent s</span><span class="text-12-fett">tages:</span><br> <br> 1) Year one focuses on building up a detailed and well-documented picture of the ‘state of the art’ of landscape architecture education in Europe as a firm empirical foundation for the project<br> <br> 2) Year two involves a rigorous analysis of the survey results from the first year, by means of both critical reflection from landscape architecture academics representing the relevant subject areas, as well inputs from the external project partners<br> <br> 3) Year three will build on the conclusions of the year two assessments to propose a series of new collaborative initiatives for European landscape architecture education and scholarship<br> <br> In its first year the Network will involve 73 landscape schools from 26 countries (with a further 9 schools from countries not currently eligible to receive ERASMUS programme funding) each contributing information, experience and ideas using a project web site as the main communication medium.<br> </p> <p class="text-12-normal">Main focus for the operation of the Network will be a series of subject area working groups reflecting the main sub-disciplines of landscape architecture. Each participating school will nominate a direct representative to sit on one of the working groups. In addition, all staff members of network member schools will be encouraged to contribute ideas and exchange experience, via the internet, with as many working groups as they wish. Working groups will meet at an annual spring workshop to clarify, review and assess the information communicated electronically, and to prepare each year’s project outputs.<br> First year outputs will include a project internet site; a detailed survey of European landscape architecture schools and courses; a review of taught research components of landscape architecture programmes, and a European glossary of landscape architecture terms and concepts. In year two, the results of the surveys will be critically reviewed both internally as well as by a wide range of representatives from European landscape practice and by student’s representatives. Inputs will also be invited from representatives of neighbouring academic disciplines regarding areas of potential common interest. These deliberations will result in both internal analysis and external reports on the substance of teaching within each of the sub-disciplines, as well as the identification of European dimensions of the landscape architecture curriculum, both existing and potential. In the final year, building on this critical review of best practice, proposals will be made for the development of joint teaching resources, outline course accreditation standards, common research methods teaching and continuing education programmes.<br> An international steering committee will coordinate the activities of the individual working groups and to take responsibility of the overall management of the project. A scientific advisory board of eminent European landscape architecture academics will act both as advisors to the project and provide external quality control.</p> <p class="text-12-normal"><span class="text-12-normal"> <a href="docs/le_notre_folder_180203.pdf" target="_blank"></a></span></p> <p class="text-10-normal">This Project is being carried out with the support of the European Community in the framework of the Socrates programme.<br> <br> The Content of this project does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Community, nor does it involve any responsibility on the part of the European Community.</p> <p><span class="text-12-normal">Landscape architecture is the discipline concerned with mankind's conscious shaping of his external environment. It involves planning, design and management of the landscape to create, maintain, protect and enhance places so as to be both functional, beautiful and sustainable (in every sense of the word), and appropriate to diverse human and ecological needs. <br> The modern history of the subject has a particular European dimension. This can be traced from mediaeval beginnings in monastery cloisters and secular pleasure gardens - with their roots in Roman, Byzantine and Moorish traditions - through the humanist gardens of the Italian Renaissance, the magnificent French Baroque gardens of André Le Nôtre, to the English landscape tradition of the eighteenth century. During the 20th century ideas from Germany, the Netherlands and Spain played an important role in shaping contemporary European landscape architecture. Over recent decades the discipline has expanded to encompass wider environmental concerns, by combining approaches from the natural sciences and the planning disciplines, developing strategies, methods and techniques for the assessment and amelioration of environmental impacts and also for the treatment of issues associated with sustainability and the conservation of the cultural landscape heritage. <br> The exceptionally wide-ranging nature of the landscape means that the subject area is one of unusual breadth, drawing on and integrating not just material from the two sides of the traditional divide between the creative arts and the natural sciences, but incorporating many aspects of the humanities and technology as well. This complexity is closely reflected by the diversity of approaches to the discipline which can be found throughout Europe, a diversity which is clearly illustrated by the range of different types of higher education institutions across Europe in which landscape architecture teaching has been established. These range from universities specialising in the fine arts to those dedicated to agriculture and forestry, and encompass technical universities as well as the more broadly-based 'general' universities.<br> <br> </span><span class="text-12-fett"> Development of the discipline</span><span class="text-12-normal"><br> In addition to this inherent complexity of content, the historic roots of the subject include a wide spectrum within Europe. In some countries, for example, the discipline can trace its development from horticulture, in others it has grown out of architecture, planning or environmental science, elsewhere out of agriculture, or ecology and nature conservation. There is also considerable variation in the state of development, i.e. the 'maturity' of the discipline from country to country, although in comparison with the majority of traditional subject areas in higher education, landscape architecture must be generally classed as a 'young' discipline. Indeed landscape architecture is perhaps one of the few academic disciplines which was established in the New World (Harvard 1900) before it became the subject of university education in Europe (Oslo 1919, followed by Berlin 1929). While there are now landscape courses in most European countries, in several landscape architecture education is relatively new, having only been established over the last decade. This applies not just to many of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe but also to a number of countries in western Europe. <br> This brief overview shows that, while there is much to be done to move towards the convergence that is one of the central goals of the Bologna Process, there is also much richness and variety within European landscape architecture education. Such a richness, which reflects both the diversity of the landscape itself and European cultural approaches to it, should not lightly be discarded in order to achieve conformity for its own sake, but rather be seen as an important potential for the co-ordinated development of new specialisations. Convergence towards a common paradigm and the resulting agreement on common research and development goals is, however, a natural development process in all disciplines, and it can be argued that landscape architecture in Europe has reached a stage where it is ready to take an important step in the direction of such common principles.<br> </span><span class="text-12-normal">Landscape architecture education and scholarship seek to equip students to play a creative and informed role in conserving the existing and shaping the future landscape, and to enhance society's appreciation for and understanding of landscape resources and values as an important living facet of Europe’s cultural and natural heritage.<br> The fact that, despite its long history, the discipline of landscape architecture is a relatively recent addition to the list of subject areas studied at Europe’s universities, has a number of important implications for European co-operation. Clearly there is a need to provide advice and support to the emerging courses, but the importance of collaboration is arguably just as great for the established courses. As a result of the relative newness of the discipline, landscape architecture courses tend to be relatively poorly resourced in comparison with other, more traditional, disciplines. One consequence of this are the relatively modest staffing levels, both in absolute terms and as measured against the unusually wide-ranging nature of the subject area. This in turn has had an impact on the research potential of the discipline: the necessary 'critical mass' for the development of functioning academic communities within the various sub-disciplines of landscape architecture simply does not exist in the majority of European countries. <br> It is against this background, that the Council of Europe’s recently adopted ‘European Landscape Convention’ has drawn attention to the central importance of landscape as a key issue of European concern. The Convention recognises that: „the landscape contributes to the formation of local cultures and that it is a basic component of the European natural and cultural heritage, contributing to human well-being and consolidation of the European identity”, and that it „...is an important part of the quality of life for people everywhere: in urban areas and in the countryside, in degraded areas as well as in areas of high quality, in areas recognised as being of outstanding beauty as well as every day areas“; Only through closer co-operation between universities at the European level can the identified resource deficiencies be compensated for, and the challenges posed by the European Landscape Convention effectively be met. Such co-operation can also help significantly to create the necessary preconditions to allow European higher education institutions to compete strongly in the growing world-wide marketplace for both graduate and postgraduate teaching and research in landscape architecture as called for in the Bologna Declaration.</span> </p>