Researching the development of using composition as a framework in architectural practice by means of the development of Brownfield parks. That is what René van der Velde, fellow urban forestry at TU Delft, has devoted his Phd to and will talk about during his 1·Lectures on 28 March 2019.

Composition in landscape design
Composition is a central notion in architectural praxis but has had a relatively negative press in design circles in recent times. In his doctoral research Van der Velde re-examines composition theory such as that developed at the TU Delft in the 1990s, which elaborates composition as a methodological framework for landscape design. He takes a critical stance in respect to this method in response to emerging discourses on site-specificity and process in landscape praxis, but elaborates these in relation to formal-aesthetic foundations, instead of as alternatives.

Brownfield park
The lens for the research is the brownfield park project in the period 1975-2015. These schemes emerge as an important catalysts for developments in landscape architecture, whereby contextual, process, and formal-aesthetic aspects form central and inter-related themes. The thesis of this research is that a major theoretical and methodological expansion of the notion of composition can be drawn from the brownfield park project, in which seemingly irreconcilable paradigms such as site, process and form are incorporated.

De-industrialization
In the slipstream of these findings, his research sheds new light on the shifts in the form and content of the city itself in this period, and the agency of the urban park in the problematique of urban territories. In his examination of the impact of de-industrialization on the contemporary urban realm, Van der Velde proposes a radical revision of notions such as ‘city’ and ‘nature’, along with other paradigms of modernity that backdrop them.

Date: Thursday 28 March 2019
Time: 8 PM / Doors open 7.30 PM
Location: Academy of Architecture Amsterdam, Waterlooplein 213
Tickets: Students of the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture have free access on presentation of their student card. They do not have to reserve the tickets in advance. Not a student, but interested? Single tickets (€ 7,50 each) are available in the webshop of the Amsterdam Architecture Centre.
Language: English

About the 1·Lectures
Since 2014, the Academy of Architecture has been organising the 1·Lectures in collaboration with the Amsterdam Architecture Centre. This series of architectural lectures provides a platform for speakers from home and abroad to talk about a variety of topics from the international world of architecture, urban planning and landscape architecture.