Lei Gao2025 WG3 + NELA Workshop ECLAS Conference Nitra: Learning from the past for sustainable cultural landscapes: Using archives in landscape architecture education
Following up on yearly workshops by the Network of Landscape Architecture Archives (NELA) at conferences of the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS), ConnectLAA and NELA joined forces for the ECLAS conference 2025 in Nitra, Slovakia.
Designing sustainable cultural landscapes for the future requires an understanding of not only present challenges but also the historical evolution of these landscapes. To link their past, present, and future, it is crucial to study historical design approaches, planning decisions, and their underlying ideas. Archives provide valuable resources for understanding past landscape transformations, yet their potential in landscape architecture education remains underexplored.
The workshop aimed to explore how archival material can inform sustainable landscape design. By collaboratively designing a teaching unit for a design studio that incorporates archival material, participants shared their teaching methods and experiences for integrating archival research into design and planning education.
