Deadline for Application: May 15, 2021

Worldwide, urbanised regions are looking for strategies to plant more trees and forests in order to enlarge the urban forest cover. In the light of climate change and the transition to resilient territories, there is a growing understanding of the importance of trees and forests for society.

Flanders (the northern part of Belgium) is one of the least forested areas in Europe and does not succeed in increasing the forest cover. It seems as if there is no space for more trees and forests in this urbanized region, characterized by an extensive urban sprawl and heterogeneous landscape where nearly every square metre of land is intensively occupied. Yet there is quite a lot of space where trees and forests can grow. However, this space often remains ‘invisible‘ because it is related to other types of land use or is ‘untouchable’ because of sectoral claims. There is, with other words, a need to find new spatial systems to intertwine more trees and forests within the built-up fabric.

The aim of the summer school is to explore possibilities and test concepts for tree and forest configurations in an urbanized territory. The focus will be on the interfaces between trees/forest and other types of land use. This means the interfaces where for example housing/working/food production/ mobility meet up and interact with trees and forest, where synergies can arise but ‘frictions‘ as well. Guiding principles are the spatial characteristics of trees and forests, process characteristics and the multitude of contributions that trees and forests provide to people (also refered to as ‘ecosystem services’). The focus will be on landscape-architectural and social-ecological aspects.

During the course of this summer school, a range of lectures of both international and local experts will ‘feed’ the design process. A reader, together with a Treescape Atlas of the study area and a Treescape Catalogue will be provided to the participants before the start of the summer school.

The summer school is linked to the ongoing Treescape research project, focusing on the exploration of new strategies and concepts to intertwine trees and forests in urbanized territories.

Photo by kazuend on Unsplash

Organization

Drs. Bjoke Carron, Prof. Hans Leinfelder, Prof. Jos Van Orshoven (KU Leuven)

With contributions and supervision of Martine De Maeseneer (KU Leuven/ MDMA), Prof. Marta Labastida (University of Minho). Other supervisors and lectures of (international) experts are to be confirmed.

When?

Arrival: before August 19th 2021 Summer school: August 19th-27th 2021

Departure: after August 27th 2021

Application and deadline

Eligible for participation are all (international) master students, recent graduates and young researchers in the fields of Landscape Architecture, Architecture, Urban Design or Urban Planning and Forestry.

Deadline for application: May 15th 2021

Confirmation of acceptance: May 31st 2021

Interested candidates should send their CV, a motivation letter (maximum 300 words in English), including maximum 3 images (150 dpi), to bjoke. carron@kuleuven.be.

Fee

Students enrolled in programmes at participating universities: no registration fee. The participation fee is 200 euros for students who are not connected to the KUL or the University of Minho, but that this amount could be (partly) dropped if the Summer School were to be (partly) online.

Given the current condition of the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide, all summer schools are currently organized with prejudice.

For more information, contact: bjoke.carron@kuleuven.be.

Check out the project’s Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Treescape-research-project-104302114589769