Metropolitan Landscapes is a collaborative online programme offered by the AA and Tec de Monterrey. Through a series of 12 weekend seminars, the programme is open to students and professionals based in Latin America.
Ongoing and overlapping socio-environmental crises are exposing the limitations of our current socio-ecological metabolisms and systems. Traditional – and often artificially constructed – urban-rural epistemologies and core-periphery dependency models need to be interrogated and rearticulated urgently. How are these conditions reflected in current architectural, urban and landscape debates? And what role can landscape-oriented design play in both imagining and transitioning towards environmental justice?
Imagining alternative post-capitalist futures requires us to think about alternative progressive policies and community led models, regenerating ecosystems and social relations. How can architectural tools unveil the connections between dense urban agglomerations and the landscapes that fuel them – with energy, food, materials, data and waste? The prevailing 'Urban Age' narrative often celebrates cities as a model for insular urbanisation, yet their survival depends on vast, often invisible networks: the agrarian, logistical and extractive landscapes that supply them with resources. This dependency comes at a great cost, enabled by the exploitation of commodified, distant landscapes and people. Our world is defined by these hidden relationships and enabled by unequal policies. For example, what is the linkage between Europe's green transition and the toxic, polluted landscapes of copper mining in Peru? Based on these critical design frameworks, what are the alternative non-exploitative democratic models and policies?
The Metropolitan Landscapes programme is a response to the revealing and rethinking of these urgent conditions. It calls for a metropolitan discipline conscious of its colonial origins and our ongoing dependency on extractive practices in remote territories and puts forward the reimagining of democratic urban and landscape alternatives within design practices.
Our mission is to expand the design profession by engaging with wider disciplinary conversations. We empower participants to transform the governance of metropolitan regions into a more creative, accountable and visionary practice – ultimately delivering sustainable and resilient models of urbanisation through community-led design.
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AA Spring Semester: Exchange Programme