Speakers
Müge Akkar Ercan
Middle East Technical University, Department of City and Regional Planning, Ankara, Turkey, akkar@metu.edu.tr
Dr. Müge Akkar Ercan is a professor currently teaching urban design and urban regeneration and acting as a team member of urban design master studios at Middle East Technical University. She worked as a visiting scholar in different universities in the UK and China; she was involved as a teaching staff and/or a coordinator in internationally organized planning and design studio courses and she acted as a coordinator and researcher of several international and national research projects. She has published articles, book chapters and papers on the planning and design practices in the UK, Turkey, China and Singapore. Her research interests are in urban design, urban regeneration and conservation, public space, place identity, sustainable development and sustainable community development.
Gunilla Bandolin
Stockholm, Sweden, gunilla.bandolin@gmail.com
Gunilla Bandolin is an artist and professor. She has worked with public art and landscape installations since the 1980s. Bandolin received her MFA in Sculpture from Konstfack, the Swedish College of Arts, Crafts and Design in 1983 and has since then worked in Sweden, the EU, India and the US, also holding several professorships; at SLU, The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (1994-2000); at KTH, The Royal Institute of Technology (2000-2006); and at Konstfack (2006-2016). She has executed several research oriented landscape art projects, including the development of “social sculptures” or constructions involving people, both culturally and physically. Her work in the public realm has been awarded several prizes, i.e. The Siena Prize for landscape architecture (2004). She has collaborated with Monika Gora since 1994.
Georg Bautz
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vienna, Austria, georg.bautz@boku.ac.at
Georg Bautz is a landscape architect, lecturer and scientific assistant at the Institute of Landscape Architecture, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. Coming from the field of graphic design as a former art director, he worked for Austrian and German landscape architecture offices, before starting his scientific career at the Institute of Landscape Architecture, where he is now focused on urban public space, the visual (re)presentation of complex urban systems and geographic information systems. He is a member of the Austrian Association of Landscape Planning and Landscape Architecture (OEGLA).
Beau Beza
Deakin University, School of Architecture and Built Environment, Geelong Waterfront Campus, Australia, beau.beza@deakin.edu.au
Dr. Beza is Associate Head of School, Teaching and Learning in the School of Architecture and Built Environment at Deakin University. He has 26 years of professional and academic experience working on a variety of projects in Australia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, The United States, Norway, Mexico, Colombia, Nepal and Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. He has published research on women and their role in peace building in conflict vulnerable areas of Mindanao, Philippines in the book Community Engagement in Post-Disaster Recovery (Routledge). He has also co-edited and contributed to four chapters in the 2016 Routledge book, Sustainability Citizenship in Cities: Theory and Practice. This book explains how sustainability citizenship can manifest in urban built environments as both responsibilities and rights.
Irene Bittner
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute for Landscape Planning, Vienna, Austria, irene.bittner@boku.ac.at
As a researcher and a lecturer at the Institute for Landscape Planning, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, she focuses on socio-spatial and health issues of open space planning e.g. by investigating opportunities of smartphone apps to map and support active mobility in the study ‘ActivE Youth’ or ‘Gender-Sensitive Open Space Planning for Physical Activities of Adolescents in Vienna’ as her doctoral thesis. She is an editor of ‘zoll+ Austrian Journal of Landscape and Open Space’ and a member of ‘kampolerta – collective for landscape architecture, urbanism and art’. In 2018, she teaches the course ‘Grrrls in the Hood – female* space appropriation and dialogical research’ as a part of gender/queer studies at the Institute for Education in the Art, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, together with sociologist Julia Edthofer.
Verena Butt
Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany, landschaft@verenabutt.de
Verena Butt studied Landscape architecture at the Universität Hannover and the Landbouwuniversiteit Wageningen. After graduating, she worked in Swiss Landscape Architecture offices. From 2009 to 2015 she was lecturer and research fellow at Leibniz Universität Hannover for the Designing Urban Landscapes chair, where she was project manager for EMiLA, European Master in Landscape Architecture, and nominated for the “Award for excellent teaching”. Since 2016 she has been working in the project “Städte wagen Wildnis” (Cities dare Wilderness) at the State Capital Hannover. She is visiting lecturer (AIB Bonn for the Texas A&M and Penn State universities’ semester abroad programs and Ostwestfalen-Lippe University of Applied Sciences). Her on-going PhD focuses on landscape design for post-military landscapes in the field of landscape aesthetics, novel ecological concepts and managing conflicting heritage.
Nicola Dempsey
University of Sheffield, Department of Landscape, Sheffield, UK, n.dempsey@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr. Nicola Dempsey is senior lecturer in the Department of Landscape. Her research interests relate to understanding the complex relationship between landscape and humans. They focus on sustainable landscape planning and management, in particular how urban and rural landscape planning and management affect everyday life, quality of life and wellbeing. She is interested in different research theories and methods employed to understand the landscape and the associated perceptions held by residents and users in different contexts.
Lisa Diedrich
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Alnarp, Sweden, lisa.diedrich@slu.se
Dr. Lisa Diedrich studied architecture and urbanism in Paris, Marseille and Stuttgart, and landscape architecture at the University of Copenhagen, where she received her doctoral degree. She currently works as a professor of landscape architecture at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) in Alnarp/Malmö and runs the research platform SLU Urban Futures. From her Berlin based office she also works as a critic and consultant for international clients in practice and academia, inter alia as the editor-in-chief of the book series Landscape Architecture Europe and as co-editor-in-chief of ’scape the international magazine for landscape architecture and urbanism.
Julian Dobson
University of Sheffield, Department of Landscape, Sheffield, UK, j.r.dobson@sheffield.ac.uk
Dr. Julian Dobson is a researcher with the Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature project in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield. His role is to work with civil society and non-academic partners to build bridges between research, policy and practice. His research interests span the sociology and politics of place, and processes of institutional change. He has a background in writing and journalism and has edited national publications on housing and urban regeneration in the UK.
Gareth Doherty
Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Department of Landscape Architecture, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, gdoherty@gsd.harvard.edu
Dr. Gareth Doherty is Director of the Master in Landscape Architecture program, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture, and Senior Research Associate at Harvard University Graduate School of Design. At the core of his research and teaching is an interest in the relationship between people and the landscapes they inhabit, with the central inquiry of how ethnographic fieldwork methods can inspire and inform design and planning innovations. Doherty’s publications include, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State; Roberto Burle Marx Lectures: Landscape as Art and Urbanism; Is Landscape…? Essays on the Identity of Landscape, edited with Charles Waldheim; and Ecological Urbanism, edited with Mohsen Mostafavi.
Jürgen Furchtlehner
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vienna, Austria, juergen.furchtlehner@boku.ac.at
Jürgen Furchtlehner is a landscape architect, lecturer and research assistant at the Institute of Landscape Architecture, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria. Master Diploma in Landscape Planning and Landscape Architecture (2012); Studied at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna and at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. At the Institute of Landscape Architecture, he is working on design principles and usability issues of urban open spaces, concentrating on streetspaces in various research projects. He is a member of the Austrian Association of Landscape Planning and Landscape Architecture (OEGLA).
Shirily Gilad-Ilsar
Technion Israeli Institute of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Haifa, Israel, shirilygilad@gmail.com
Dr. Shirily Gilad Ilsar holds a PhD and MSc in Urban and Regional Planning from the Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology where currently she works as a research fellow. Before working in the academia she worked both with environmental NGO'S and governmental agencies. Her research is interdisciplinary and combines between history of planning and landscape architecture, environmental ethics and theories of landscape.
Monika Gora
Gora Art and Landscape, Malmö, Sweden, monika@gora.se
Monika Gora has been working as a landscape architect and artist with her own office, GORA art&landscape, since 1989. She holds a master’s degree in landscaping from the Swedish University of Agriculture. She was a member of the Swedish National Council for Architecture, Form and Design 2004-2009. In her practice she has systematically chosen her own paths – experimenting and challenging – combined with an ability to find practicable solutions. Gora works with seamless combinations of landscape architecture, public art and building. In addition to permanent works, temporary contributions to existing environments occupy a central position in Monika Gora’s oeuvre. Some of her pieces have contained provocative elements but they always contribute to the production of new meanings, spaces and memories.
Melda Hassamancıoğlu
Gaziosmanpaşa University, Department of Interior Architecture and Environmental Design, Tokat, Turkey, meldahassamanci@gmail.com
Venhar Melda Hassamancıoğlu graduated from Istanbul University Landscape Architecture Department in 2010. Thereafter, she took an MA degree from University of London/Goldsmiths College Design and Environment MA Program in 2013. Since 2014, Hassamancıoğlu has been working as a research assistant in Gaziosmanpaşa University and studying as a Ph.D. student at Landscape Architecture Department at Ankara University at the same time.
Ranja Hautamäki
Aalto University, Department of Architecture, Helsinki, Finland, ranja.hautamaki@aalto.fi
Dr. Ranja Hautamäki works as Associate Professor in landscape architecture, at the department of architecture, Aalto University, Finland. Her field is landscape planning and society, including urban green and open space planning and historical landscapes. She has a 13-year professional background as the head of the green planning unit at the City of Tampere, Finland. Her research has focused on green structure and historical landscapes in urban planning context. Her dissertation addressed historical manor landscapes in the urbanization of Helsinki (2016).
Maria Hellström Reimer
Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö, Sweden, Maria.hellstrom.reimer@mah.se
Dr. Maria Hellström Reimer, professor in design theory at Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication. Trained as an artist and with a PhD and Readership in landscape architecture, her research is interdisciplinary concerning the aesthetics and politics of art and design broadly speaking, including questions of criticality, methodological experimentation and social mobilization. Recent writings include articles such as “Cut, Make and Trim: Fast Fashion Urbanism in the Residues of Rana Plaza” (in Frichot, Gabrielsson, Metzger, eds., Deleuze and the City. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016); and “Playing the Green Card: The Commodifying Fiction of a Derivative Jardin-Forêt” (in Architecture and Culture, Vol. 5 2017, special issue “Solids and Flows: Architecture and Capitalism”).
John Henneberry
University of Sheffield, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Sheffield, UK, j.henneberry@sheffield.ac.uk
Professor John Henneberry is professor of property development studies in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at the University of Sheffield. He is joint (founding) Editor of the RICS / Wiley-Blackwell book series 'Issues in Real Estate'. He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Property Research, the Journal of European Real Estate Research and Town Planning Review. He was elected a Member of the Academy of Social Sciences in 2010 in recognition of his contribution to the field of planning and development.
Jaime Hernández-Garcia
Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, School of Architecture and Design, Bogotá, Colombia, hernandez.j@javeriana.edu.co
Dr. Jaime Hernández-Garcia is Professor of the School of Architecture and Design at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia; where he currently serves as Director of the Aesthetics Department. His research interests include informal settlements/housing, open/public space, social/everyday aesthetics & community participation. He is the author of ´Public Space in Informal Settlements, the Barrios of Bogotá´ (2013) and ´Arquitectura, Participación y Hábitat Popular´ (2008). He is co-authoring at the moment: ´Urban agriculture in informal settlements: Towards Productive Urban Landscapes´, ´Bottom-up public space design and social cohesion: The case of a self-developed park in an informal settlement of Bogotá´, and ´From Placemaking to Sustainability Citizenship: An evolution in the understanding of community realised public spaces in Bogotá’s informal settlements´.
Wolfram Hoefer
Rutgers University, Department of Landscape Architecture, New Jersey, USA, whoefer@sebs.rutgers.edu
Dr. Wolfram Hoefer is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University. His research and teaching focus is the cultural interpretation of brownfields as potential elements of the public realm. Further he is interested in the role of urban plazas, neighborhood parks, or community gardens as places where people of diverse backgrounds can meet, interact, and possibly learn about each other. Dr. Hoefer also serves as Co-Director of the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES), a collaboration between the Rutgers departments of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Sciences.
Flavio Janches
Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Arquitectura Diseno y Urbanismo, Ciudad de Buenos Aires, Argentina, fjanches@bjc.com.ar
Dr. Flavio Janches studied architecture at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, holds a postgraduate degree in urban design from the same institution, and received his doctoral degree in urbanism from Delft University of Technology. He currently works as a professor of architecture and urban design at the University of Buenos Aires where he also directs the Postgraduate Program in Strategies and Design for Cities and Territories. In parallel he collaborates with TU Delft as a Guest Researcher at the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategies. Janches also works as a practicing architect and urban designer, being a partner in the office BJC architects in Buenos Aires.
Anna Jorgensen
University of Sheffield, Department of Landscape, Sheffield, UK, a.jorgensen@sheffield.ac.uk
Professor Dr. Anna Jorgensen is Chair in Urban Natural Environments and Health and Wellbeing in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield. She leads the "Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature" (IWUN) project, a three-year project examining the relationship between mental health and urban nature in the city of Sheffield, UK. Her research interests focus around the ways in which different people experience, interact with, understand and represent landscape, and especially wild or natural-looking vegetation; and the desire to see a more holistic and environmentally friendly approach to planning and designing urban greenspace and green structure. She is also Director of Research for the Department of Landscape.
Karsten Jørgensen
Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning, Oslo, Norway, karsten.jorgensen@nmbu.no
Dr. Karsten Jørgensen is Professor of landscape architecture at Department of Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning at Norwegian University of Life Sciences, and holds a Dr.Scient.-degree from NMBU from 1989 in landscape architecture. He was Founding Editor of JoLA - Journal of Landscape Architecture 2006 - 2015. Karsten Jørgensen has published regularly in national and international journals and books. He co-authored Contemporary landscape architecture in Norway (Oslo: Gyldendal Akademisk) in 2010. In 2015, he edited Mainstreaming landscape through the European Landscape Convention (London: Routledge 2016) together with Tim Richardson, Kine Thoren and Morten Clemetsen. He edited Defining Landscape Democracy. A Path to Spatial Justice (London: Edgar Elgar 2018) with Shelley Egoz and Deni Ruggeri.
Idil Kanter Otçu
Ankara University, Department of Landscape Architecture, Ankara, Turkey, idilkanter@gmail.com
İdil Kanter Otçu, in 2010, she graduated from Düzce University Faculty of Forestry Landscape Architecture Department. She completed her master's degree in Ankara University in 2014 and now she continues her doctoral studies in the same university. She also works as a research assistant at The Department of Landscape Architecture at Ankara University.
Joern Langhorst
University of Colorado Denver, College of Architecture and Planning, Denver, Colorado, USA, Joern.Langhorst@ucdenver.edu
Joern Langhorst is Associate Professor, College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado Denver. Previously he held faculty positions at the University of Oregon and Iowa State University. His research and teaching focus on theories of space, place and landscape, in particular in highly contested urban contexts. A particular emphasis is on post-industrial, post-disaster and post-colonial cities with a focus on the cultural production of space, their mechanisms of de- and re-development and the “right to the city”. He has been consulting on the recovery and redevelopment of post-disaster and post-industrial sites nationally and internationally, with a particular emphasis on the role of emergent technologies, alternative processes and the relationships between traditional and new actors and agents.
Naama Meishar
Technion Israeli Institute of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Landscape Architecture Program, Haifa, Israel, naama.meishar@mail.huji.ac.il
Landscape architect Dr. Naama Meishar holds a Ph.D. in philosophy. She teaches in the Landscape Architecture Program in the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa. Her research interests include ethics in landscape architectural design discourse; ethical dilemmas of social and environmental distributions in urban landscape planning; and urban political ecologies of vernacular landscapes.
Joni M. Palmer
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, palmerjonim@unm.edu
Dr. Joni M. Palmer lives in Albuquerque, NM where she is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Community & Regional Planning, as well as an Adjunct Associate Professor in Geography & Environmental Studies at the University of New Mexico. Additionally, Dr. Palmer is a faculty affiliate of the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder. For over 25 years her professional life has been a blend of practice and academia, which has afforded her the opportunity to work with design firms, public agencies, non-profits, and community groups in their efforts to make connections between land and people, and place and time.
Peter Parker
Malmö University, Department of Urban Studies, Malmö, Sweden, Peter.parker@mau.se
Dr. Peter Parker holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology and is a senior lecturer at the Department of Urban Studies at Malmö University. His current research focuses on urban governance and the complexities of negotiation in urban development. Themes include how urban regeneration is legitimized, urban commons, inclusive public space, temporary use and most recently issues related to how conceptions of property affect planning and everyday urban life.
Elizabeth Ravit
Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences SEBS, Department of Environmental Sciences, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, bravit@envsci.rutgers.edu
Dr. Beth Ravit spent three decades as a corporate executive before entering graduate school and earning her Masters (2001) and Ph.D. (2005) degrees in Environmental Science from Rutgers University. She joined the Rutgers faculty in 2005 and is currently an Assistant Research Professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences at the Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences (SEBS), New Brunswick, NJ. Dr. Ravit’s research focus is Living Shorelines that include Oyster Reintroduction in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary Raritan and Microplastic Pollution In freshwater systems. In 2006 Dr. Ravit co-founded the Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability (CUES). She is also the primary CUES liaison with New Jersey's environmental non-governmental organization (NGO) community. She has conducted public outreach through organized community meetings, one-on-one interviews, focus groups and online surveys.
Philipp Rode
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute of Landscape Architecture, Vienna, Austria, philipp.rode@zwopk.at
Dr. Philipp Rode is executive of zwoPK Landschaftsarchitektur in Vienna, lecturer and associated researcher at BOKU Vienna. He holds a Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture at BOKU Vienna; Research project “Politics of Remembrance and the transition of public spaces. A political and social analysis of Vienna” – Working Package Topography and Mapping; Mapping Project “re-map – Eine digitale Karte der Erinnerung für Wien” www.porem.wien
Staffan Schmidt
Malmö University, School of Arts and Communication, Malmö, Sweden, Staffan.schmidt@mau.se
Dr. Staffan Schmidt holds a Ph.D in fine art and is a senior lecturer at the School of Arts and Communication at Malmö University. His current research focuses on the concept of culture and allocation of resources in a socially stratified urban context. His research also focusses on the relation between transition and sacrifice, in particular how sacrifice of consumer lifestyles may help to reconnect and reinvigorate relations between human and non-human actors.
Gerda Schneider
University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute for Landscape Planning, Vienna, Austria, gerda.schneider@boku.ac.at
Since 1994, she is a professor and the head of the Institute for Landscape Planning, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna. She also holds the position of the deputy director of the university’s Department of Landscape, Spatial and Infrastructure Sciences. Her research and teaching focuses on metatheory and methodology of landscape planning and theory of open space and land use planning in context with societal activity, subsistence economy and feminist theory and practice. Her current research projects include 'Smart and Simple - Build your City together' in the context of the test field and livinglab vienna.transitionBASE, which is embedded in one of the largest smart-city-model-regions of Europe – Aspern Seestadt, or 'Biotope City – construction manual for the green city of the future'.
Eva Schwab
Graz University of Technology, Institute of Urbanism, Graz, Austria, eva.schwab@tugraz.at
Dr. Eva Schwab is deputy head of the Institute of Urbanism at TU Graz, Austria. Her research interests include informal settlements, politics of open/public space production and use, and participatory planning and design practices. Her PhD, entitled “Urban Promises? Spatial Justice in Public Space Based Upgrading Programmes of Popular Settlements in Latin America”, won the Landscape Research dissertation award 2016 and is the basis for her book “Spatial Justice and Informal Settlements: The Comunas of Medellín” (2018).
Alan Tate
University of Manitoba, Department of Landscape Architecture, Winnipeg, Canada, Alan.Tate@umanitoba.ca
Dr. Alan Tate, urbanist, landscape architect, professor at the University of Manitoba/Canada. Alan Tate studied urban planning and landscape architecture in Manchester. He worked in several practices in England as a project manager. He dealt with management of parks and green spaces in Nottingham and London. His projects include the landscape architecture of EuroDisneyland. Alan Tate is member of the United Kingdom Landscape Institute and of the Canadian Society of Landscape Architecture. In his doctoral thesis he explores typology and the built environment. He has been examining, exploring and describing Urban Parks since decades and is author of the definitive book Great City Parks (2001/2015) for which he received Landscape Institute Research and Policy Award.
Axel Timpe
RWTH Aachen University, timpe@la.rwth-aachen.de
Dr.-Ing. Axel Timpe is a landscape architect trained at Leibniz Universität Hannover and Centre d’études Supérieures d’Aménagement in Tours. He started his professional career at lohrberg stadtlandschaftsarchitektur in 2003 and has been a research and teaching associate at RWTH Aachen University since 2010. He accomplished his doctoral degree “Designing Productive Parks – history and current practise of bio-based production in European parks” in January 2017. Axel Timpe had a coordinating role in COST Action Urban Agriculture Europe and is coordinating the transdisciplinary national research CoProGrün and Horizon2020 Innovation Action “Productive Green Infrastructure for post-industrial urban regeneration”. His research focuses on Green Infrastructure functions of Urban Agriculture and Urban Forestry and the potential to co-design and co-produce these with local stakeholders.
Annette Voigt
University Kassel, Institute for Open Space Planning, Kassel, Germany, voigt@asl.uni-kassel.de
Dr. Annette Voigt studied landscape planning at TU Berlin and holds a Ph.D from the Department of Ecology of the Technical University München. Additionally, she has worked at the University of Salzburg and University of Klagenfurt, Austria. Voigt’s research focusses on men-nature-relationships, the perception, valuation and use of urban nature as well as the social and cultural backgrounds of ecology, landscape planning, and urban green space management.
Ed Wall
University of Greenwich, Faculty of Architecture, Department of Architecture & Landscape, London, UK, eddwall@gmail.com
Ed Wall is the Academic Leader Landscape at the University of Greenwich, London, Visiting Professor at Politecnico di Milano (DiAP) and City of Vienna Visiting Professor for urban culture, public space and the future – urban equity and the global agenda (TU Wien/SKuOR). Ed’s research focuses on landscape, public space and cities. He has written widely, including for Urban (2013), Landscape (2011; 2012) and Topos (2011) and essays for books Questo Metropolitan Architecture (2015), Revising Green Infrastructure: Concepts Between Design and Nature (2014), Educating Architects (2014) and Infrastructural Urbanism: Addressing the In-Between (2011). He has co-authored, with Tim Waterman, Landscape and Agency (2017) and Basics Landscape Architecture: Urban Design (2009). He is the founding editor of the design research journal Testing-Ground (2015). In 2007 Ed established Project Studio. Work has been published and exhibited internationally, including at the Architecture Foundation, Royal Academy, Biennale of Landscape Urbanism, London Festival of Architecture and the Van Alen Institute.
Megan Frances Waller
Sheffield City Council, Sheffield, UK, meganfwaller@gmail.com
Dr. Megan Frances Waller is a trained landscape architect who worked for several years in private practice. She recently completed her Ph.D. thesis through the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield titled: Open spaces in informal settlements in Bangkok, Thailand and the potential role for landscape architects in their design and evolution. The research was funded by a University of Sheffield Faculty Scholarship. At present Waller works as an Assistant Planning Officer at Sheffield City Council and is involved in the planning, design and construction of public spaces in Sheffield. Currently preparing a chapter titled ‘An exploration of spatial appropriation in a series of informal settlements in Bangkok, Thailand’ for the forthcoming publication Urban Space, Experiences and Considerations from the Global South.
Krista Willman
University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland, Krista.Willman@staff.uta.fi
Krista Willman works as a Ph.D. student and university instructor of environmental policy at the University of Tampere, Finland. At her Ph.D. thesis, she explores recent (2010’s) forms of urban gardening in Finland. She is interested in community gardening as bottom-up oriented DIY-action taking place in public space. The potential for co-management and co-creation among the city organisation and citizens in urban gardening projects is another central aspect in Willman’s Ph.D. study. Willman is teaching research methods and a course called Expertise and environmental politics of everyday life. Willman has degrees of Master of Administrative Sciences (University of Tampere, 2013) and Bachelor of Arts (University of Eastern Finland, 2008).
Burcu Yigit-Turan
Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Department of Urban and Rural Development, Division of Landscape Architecture, Uppsala, Sweden, burcu.yigit.turan@slu.se
Dr. Burcu Yigit-Turan obtained her Ph.D. from Vienna University of Technology, with dissertation titled ‘Complexity of Meanings in Urban Landscapes: Between the Imagined and the Real’ (2010). She was a visiting professor at I.T.U. Interdisciplinary Urban Design Programme (2010) and at Ball State University, College of Architecture and Planning (2011–2012), and an assistant professor at Özyeğin University, Faculty of Architecture and Design (2013-2016). Yigit-Turan has been assistant professor in the subject area of “planning in cultural environments” at SLU, Urban and Rural Development Department, Landscape Architecture Division (Uppsala/Sweden) since 2016. Her works have concentrated on the cultural landscapes of planetary urbanisation and emancipatory planning and design practices in critical cultural and ecological contexts. Yigit-Turan currently focuses on emerging issues around migration.