Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

This work lies at the interface between landscape architecture and agriculture. The aim has been to develop a competition entry with a design that shows how agricultural land can be made accessible for urban residents while being preserved. We think landscape architects need to examine how agricultural land can be used for recreation and how to highlight its experiential values.
The competition Imagine Open Skåne 2030 is a joint strategy which sets out the ambition of the region. Through Imagine Open Skåne 2030 the ambition of Region Skåne has been to collect ideas and thought provoking suggestions on how to develop a strong and attractive region. The task of the competition was to identify a social challenge and describe how it affects Skåne as a region and to develop and present a design addressing the same challenge. To succeed in this our work has been based on different kinds of research; literary studies, studies of reference projects, and by design through sketching and brainstorming. The design work is the biggest part of the thesis. In the literature study we focused on the problems of urban expansion in areas with valuable farmland, Swedish agrarian history, the importance of agriculture for man, and residential nature. The purpose of the three reference projects has been to provide a deeper understanding of contemporary social challenges, but also to show us how landscape architects have responded to these challenges. In our work process we have produced several sketches and ideas that respond to different challenges. Multiple brainstorming workshops were held to help us in our creative process and to find a challenge and an idea suitable for the competition.
The studies of reference projects along with sketching and the analysis of the research led to the proposal Jordbruksteatern or ”The Agricultural Theatre”. In this proposal we start with a scenario where cities in Skåne are growing rapidly, which means great challenges in terms of housing and recreation. A zero vision for exploitation of agricultural land gives cities few other options than to expand within the city limits. Densification means less green space per inhabitant. Green spaces are the backbone of the recreational environment in the city and have a positive effect on people’s health and well-being, but many people today have no contact with the landscape.
The idea behind ”The Agricultural Theatre” is to make farmland accessible for city dwellers, who gets a new type of recreational land to move through. The design makes it possible for people to move above, through and under agricultural land. While maintaining the qualities of the farmland the new design generates new values and at the same time city and countryside are bound together in a totally new way. Visitors can experience the landscape without affecting productivity substantially. By participating in the competition our proposal reached out to a bigger audience, which was the main reason why we wanted to make a competition entry.