IFLA Newsletter

March 2025

IFLA Webinar Series: Designing Nature-Positive Landscapes: Integrating Circular Economy Principles

We successfully hosted our second webinar as part of our 2025 Webinar Series, bringing together thought leaders to explore how circular economy principles and nature-positive design can transform landscapes.

With an incredible panel featuring Nick Jeffries (Ellen MacArthur Foundation), Audrey Timm (AIPH), Kathryn Moore (West Midlands National Park Lab; IFLA), Maria Ignatieva (URBIO), and Elisabeth Belpaire (ISOCARP)—and expertly moderated by Marina Cervera—the discussion tackled the urgent need for sustainable, regenerative landscapes.

Key discussions

Integrating Circular Economy in Landscape Architecture – Eliminating waste, reusing materials, and regenerating nature are key to creating more resilient and sustainable landscapes.
Horticulture’s Role in Urban Sustainability – Innovative practices such as water-efficient irrigation, composting, and native plant propagation can enhance biodiversity while reducing resource consumption.
Collaboration is Key – Landscape architects, planners, ecologists, engineers, and communities must work together to drive successful nature-positive projects.
Policy & Planning for a Sustainable Future – Urban and regional planning frameworks must evolve to integrate circular economy principles and nature-based solutions.
Measuring Impact & Scaling Innovations – Tracking biodiversity, ecosystem health, and well-being is crucial to refining and expanding nature-positive strategies in urban and protected landscapes.

Missed the Webinar? Watch the full recording here.

Stay tuned for our next session as we continue to explore the future of sustainable landscapes!

Submit Your University's Projects to the Manel Ribas Piera International School Prize 2025!

The Barcelona International Landscape Biennial is pleased to announce the open call for the 13th edition of the Manel Ribas Piera International School Prize—a prestigious award recognising excellence in landscape architecture education.

Organised by the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya - Barcelona Tech (UPC) and the Col·legi d’Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC), with the support of the Fundació Banc Sabadell, the prize honors a set of five student projects from the same academic program that demonstrate innovative themes and methodologies with outstanding results.

The winning university will receive an endowment of €1,500. Selected projects will be presented at the Biennial Symposium, featured in an exhibition at UPC (ETSAB – School of Architecture of Barcelona), and included in PAISATECA, the Biennial’s digital archive.

Submission deadline: June 30, 2025

For more details, click here.

IFLA Africa and CLARB Aim to Advance Landscape Architecture Profession Through Strategic Partnership

IFLA Africa and the Council of Landscape Architectural Registration Boards(CLARB) have entered into a strategic partnership aimed at elevating and uniting the landscape architecture profession across the continent.

After several months of collaboration and discussion, CLARB president Joel Kurokawa and IFLA Africa president Graham A Young signed a memorandum of understanding to formalize the partnership.

“Landscape architecture is not regulated in Africa as in the United States and Canada, except in South Africa, where an act of parliament governs it. Most African national associations operate on a self-regulated basis. In this context, we look forward to our collaboration with CLARB,” said Young.

“We believe that CLARB will support us in enhancing professional recognition across the continent and assist in developing a unified framework for recognition and regulation in those countries lacking governmental acknowledgement.”

The agreement outlines the two groups’ efforts to work collaboratively on several common goals. Similar to the partnership formed with IFLA Americas Region in 2023, the two groups plan to work closely together to achieve their shared goals:

Read the full press release here.

Exploring Landscape, Garden, and Colonial Legacy

Don’t miss this inspiring talk where Jala Makhzoumi delves into the intersection of landscape, gardens, and colonial history. A leading voice in landscape architecture, Makhzoumi’s work bridges ecological design, cultural heritage, and contemporary challenges.

Watch the recording here.

Summary
The search for a grounded language on landscape architecture relies in great part on the search for Arabic terms that capture the complexity of the layered English meaning of “landscape.” Until then, we must contend with inadequate translations—and sometimes transliterations—that reduce “landscape” to scenery and narrow the professional scope of the landscape architect to urban beautification. Moving away from the “borrowed” landscapes in cities, we encounter “rooted” conceptions in rural cultures. These ideas have endured over time and are in tune with the regional ecology and cultural values. Here, we find many iterations of “landscape,” even if they can’t be captured in a single word. For example, the traditional house garden typology, the hakura, which originated in the eastern Mediterranean, combines production and pleasure and is grounded in a love of nature and caring for the land. Can these examples inform and inspire a contextualized landscape architecture in the Middle East and beyond?

Call for Abstracts for the IFLA 2025 World Congress in Nantes - DEADLINE EXTENDED

We encourage all interested participants to submit their abstracts in alignment with the Congress theme: "Guiding Landscapes".

Authors are invited to select one of the two main topics and the corresponding sub-topics that best describe their submission:

1. Guiding Cities

Through what is alive (ecosystems, rainwater, soil, rivers)
With society (art, design, consultation, uses)

2. Guiding Territories

By changing the design of regional projects (energy landscapes, agroforestry, risks)
With legislative and social advances in planning (planning law, nature & society, heritage landscapes)

For more details, visit their website: ifla2025.com/abstracts

The deadline to submit abstracts is 30th March 2025, at 23:59 CET.

Wrap up of our GSP Program 2024: Insights from the Concluding Session

In December 2024, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), through its Landscape Architecture program, hosted the Global Studio Program's virtual charrette in collaboration with the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Universidad de Guanajuato, Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, and ITESO Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara.

This was the first time these Mexican universities worked together on a landscape architecture project, representing a significant opportunity to highlight some of the realities of the Global South. It was also the first collaborative activity among these landscape architecture programs in Mexico following the Latin American Landscape Architecture Education Encounter in Buenos Aires in May 2024.

The theme for this chapter was a landscape intervention design in Tepoztlán, a town in central Mexico renowned for its cultural and natural heritage. The charm of this place lies in its magnificent mountains, the archaeological site featuring a pyramid atop the Tepozteco mountain, a stream that runs through the town, and the many cultural expressions that define the community’s identity. These elements attract significant local tourism, leading to the overuse of the few existing open spaces.

Eight teams of international and national students worked with tutors before the charrette (December and January), participating in lectures, brainstorming conceptual ideas, and finally engaging in the charrette itself from 13-16 January 2025.

Some of the key challenges addressed in this landscape architecture project included preserving the natural and cultural heritage of the site—considering its mountains, rivers, pyramids, churches, and markets—while integrating day-to-day human activities that bring this place to life.

This charrette marked the final chapter of the 2024 edition of the Global Studio Program.

The Open Landscape Academy (OLA) Online Symposium and call for abstracts

The OLA invites researchers, practitioners, and activists to submit proposals for an online symposium exploring the intersections of landscape democracy, co-creation, and democratic landscape transformation. This symposium aims to foster a dynamic exchange of ideas and practices that advance more inclusive, participatory, and equitable landscapes. We welcome contributions in the form of 10-minute presentations accompanied, if applicable, by a 30-minute methods workshop, providing an opportunity for both knowledge sharing and hands-on engagement. For inspiration, we encourage participants to consult the OLA Charta for Democratic Landscape Transformation.

The symposium will take place on Zoom on May 23, 2025, starting approx. around 14 pm CEST. More information here.

Upcoming webinar: Urban Biodiversity and Design in the Time of AI

📅 Date: April 10, 2025
🕒 Time: 13:30 CET–17:00 CET
📍 Register: Click here.

Organized by URBIO, this webinar will explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and urban biodiversity, focusing on the advantages, disadvantages, and challenges of AI-driven approaches in planning and designing urban nature.

The discussion will revolve around the role of AI in monitoring and enhancing urban ecosystems, data-driven decision-making for sustainable city planning, and the implementation of blue-green infrastructure projects. Additionally, the webinar will address ethical concerns, potential risks, and policy implications of AI in urban biodiversity management and design. Through case studies and best practices shared by participants, we aim to gain insights into the future of AI-supported research and implementation projects, advancing sustainability transformation with a focus on design for both biodiversity and people.

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