The May lecture from the Land/Scape series entitled DoHromady/Together featured New York landscape architect Michelle Delk from Snøhetta and Swiss landscape architect Thomas Kissling from VOGT Landscape Architects. The topics were inspirational places for contemporary life, the connections between people and their surroundings, and water in the landscape.
Michelle Delk introduces the theme of landscape and human interactions with it in her talk Beyond Borders. She discusses the diversity of the landscape, which includes wilderness and urban space, and the need to care for the environment. She shows how Snøhetta studio seeks new possibilities, beyond the usual creative boundaries, with an emphasis on the adaptive reuse of space with respect to social and cultural aspects. Drawing on a combination of classical architecture and landscape architecture, she shows us how the principle of adaptive reuse is rooted at the core of the projects.
The lecture No shape, no smell, no taste, no boundaries? - Water is an element without characteristic is divided into three parts. In the first part, Thomas Kissling focuses on the climate change and the future of the urban landscape. In the second part, he discusses invisible design and its impact on the environmental sustainability of landscape architecture, illustrating the principles with examples of projects such as the Park Hyatt in Zurich and the Laban Dance Center in London. In the last part, he addresses water as a public good and its importance for urban space, which includes the topic of access to drinking water as a cultural element of urban identity.
Michelle Delk is a landscape architect and partner at the renowned Norwegian studio Snøhetta, known for its combination of environmental and cultural sensitivity. Among their notable projects are the Bibliotheca Alexandria and the new Oslo Opera House. Based in New York, Michelle’s work is transdisciplinary. Through simple designs, she creates spaces that strengthen the relationships between people and their environment. She is an active member of the board of the Urban Design Forum in New York and the board of The Cultural Landscape Foundation. Michelle lectures at conferences and universities worldwide.
Thomas Kissling represents the Swiss studio Vogt Landscape Architects, founded by Günther Vogt in 2000, which has expanded over the last two decades to London, Berlin, and Paris. His projects in parks and other public spaces often stand out for their collaboration with artists.
