Research › KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT – Howest)

KASK & Conservatorium (HOGENT – Howest)

Futures through Design

Most of the research projects at KASK & Conservatorium in the field of Landscape and Garden Architecture fall within the Futures through Design research cluster. This research centre, a collaboration between HOGENT and Howest, is organised according to the principles of HOGENT’s 12 interdisciplinary research centres, each with its own mission and vision, separate from that of research in the arts. Futures through Design is embedded in the programmes offered by KASK & Conservatorium. The research is funded by PWO resources, as well as Flemish and European subsidies (including the Flemish Land Agency, the Institute for Agricultural and Fisheries Research, Interreg Europe, and Erasmus+).

Futures through Design researches and designs inspiring visions and scenarios for the future in order to initiate and reinforce social and ecological transitions, through an open and creative research process focusing on landscapes, cities, interiors and objects. In this way, we create tangible answers to real challenges and use imagination to bring about a sustainable change in mentality with regard to people, plants, animals and the environment. We do this for and together with citizens, governments, organisations and students. Two of the centre’s four lines of research are based on landscape and garden architecture:

Regenerative Landscapes

In our Regenerative Landscapes research line, we strive to actively restore and enrich ecosystems in a broad sense, in order to strengthen their resilience and services, as well as their intrinsic value. We do this through design in landscape coherence, with biodiversity promotion, closed cycles, soil restoration and sustainable water management, both on a landscape scale and on a smaller scale. We prioritise the connecting role of the designer and always work from a total system perspective. The restoration of the underlying ecosystem acts as a lever for multiple value creation: we always seek to bridge the gap between ecosystem restoration and specific social issues. Examples of our projects include research into biodiverse environments that contribute to mental and physical well-being, as well as sustainable designs and models for agriculture, estates and circular landscapes. In our research, we interweave people and the environment in various landscapes, such as estates, (care) gardens, public green spaces, agroforestry, food forests, agroecology, and agricultural plots, farms, and areas.

Life-Centred Design

In the projects of the Life-Centered Design research line, we question classic anthropocentric paradigms in spatial design and develop alternatives that focus on all forms of life. In this way, we bring about equitable spatial transitions. We take into account issues of equity between different groups of people, but also between humans and the broader more-than-human community. We understand landscape as a fundamentally shared concept, which we as individuals shape together with all other life forms and are shaped by in turn. Landscape is a socio-ecological community, and in this research line we approach design as a tool for working towards justice within this community. In previous and ongoing projects within these lines of research, we brought the issue of justice to the attention of landscape and landscape architects, showed the city as a shared space for humans and animals, developed a design approach that prioritises the socio-ecological community of a place, and advised design and art practices on how to approach these issues of justice.