26-28 February 2025, ETH Zürich Hönggerberg and Zentrum.
The colloquium will investigate the relationship between the design and maintenance of living systems, seeking to cultivate practices, terminology, and theoretical insights into approaches that attempt to maintain otherwise.
About
The current separation between landscape design and landscape maintenance is no longer tenable. Unpredictable weather patterns and dwindling water supplies intersect with cuts to municipal budgets and increasingly precarious conditions for landscape labourers. And yet entrenched project structures and practices limit opportunities for exchange and dialogue. Consequently, landscapes are simplified to facilitate repetitive, low-skilled maintenance, limiting their ecological complexity, resilience and aesthetic potential.
In light of this, the 2025 NSL Colloquium Beyond Maintenance investigates the relationship between design and maintenance of living systems, seeking to cultivate practices, terminology, and theoretical insights into ways of maintaining otherwise. On the one hand, innovative management techniques can introduce a much-needed sensitivity and open-endedness to design practice. On the other hand, iterative design thinking can enliven routine maintenance patterns to make the most of limited resources. This intersection is a space of opportunity, both to question disciplinary boundaries — including the uneven distribution of prestige, precarity, and compensation that underlie them — and to move from attempting to control more-than-human nature towards a performative call and response.
Guest Lectures and Locations
26 February, ETH Zürich, Hönggerberg, HIL E4
09:30-10:00 Registration
10:00-11:00 Introduction: Prof. Teresa Galí-Izard and the organising team
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-13:30 Panels: Jessica Caporusso (PhD candidate, York University, Canada), Emily Knox (Auburn University, Alabama), Khyati Saraf (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc, USA), Beatriz Saladich (architect and landscape architect, Barcelona)
13:30-15:00 Lunch (not provided)
15:00-17:00 Panels: Thomas Cabai (PhD Candidate, Politecnico Milano), Dr. Nicole Lalouviere (ETH Zürich), Dr. Karin Reisinger (Academy of Fine Arts Vienna), Dane Carlson (Principia College, Illinois)
17:00-17:30 Break
17:30-18:15 Keynote: Prof. Dr. Jamie Lorimer (University of Oxford)
18:30-20:00 Apéro
27 February, ETH Zürich, Centre, MM C78.1 and ML H44
09:30-10:00 Registration at room MM C78.1
10:00-11:00 Keynote: Prof. Dr. Andrew S. Mathews (University of California)
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-12:30 Keynote: Prof. Michelle Franco (Ohio State University)
12:30-13:30 Panels: Leah Kahler (McHarg Fellow at the Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania), Dr. Julian Raxworthy (University of Canberra, Australia)
13:30-15:00 Lunch (not provided)
15:00-17:00 Panels: Aron Chang (Water Leaders Institute / Civic Studio, New Orleans), Carolina Acevedo (PUyA: Paisaje, Urbanismo y Arquitectura), Malú Cayetano (Paisanaje, Spain), Dr. Sara Jacobs (University of British Columbia)
17:00-18:15 Break and location change
18:15-19:15 Keynote, room ML H44: Jenny Jones (Terremoto)
28 February, ETH Zürich, Centre, MM C78.1 and ML H44
09:30-10:00 Registration at room MM C78.1
10:00-11:00 Keynote: Véronique Faucheur and Marc Pouzul (atelier le balto)
11:00-11:30 Break
11:30-13:30 Panels: Dr. Zihao Zhang (City College of New York), Mark Krieger & Gabi Lerch (Ostschweizer Fachhochschule, Rapperswil), Dr. Christoph Kueffer (ETH Zürich), Michael Geffel (LND LAB), Ludivine Gragy (Studio Ludivine Gragy, Berlin)
13:30-15:00 Lunch (not provided)
15:00-17:00 Panels: Lara de Schutter & Seppe de Blust & Sotiria Kornaropoulo (51N4E), Aymeric Bey & Jeroen Deseyn & Nico Vandenplas (Plant en Houtgoed, Belgium), Sylvie Viollier (Paysage et Environnement, Geneva, Switzerland), Adrienne Heflich (Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates Inc, USA), Jonah Goldstein (Brooklyn Bridge Park)
17:00-18:15 Break and location change
18:15-19:15 Concluding Round Table: room ML H44.
Programme
Open Call
Beyond Maintenance invited proposals spanning research, practice, and pedagogy that contribute experimental methodologies, theories, and concrete cases that support tending landscapes in crisis. Aiming to open up a conversation across disciplines, we encouraged scholars and practitioners from landscape architecture, urban studies, horticulture, restoration ecology and related fields to submit to the open call.
Registration
Registration is open until 18 February 2025 via this link.
