Peer-reviewed paper published: Practices in Transition
A new peer-reviewed paper by members of the NRGlab has been published recently. The paper by Roberta Pistoni and Sven Stremke is entitled Practices in transition: A comparison of how Dutch and French landscape architects contribute to energy transition and is published by the Landschap journal. The original paper is in Dutch and an English version is available. The paper is a result of a joint research effort between Wageningen University/Netherlands and the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage/France.
Abstract: The transition to renewable energy has started to affect landscapes in many countries, raising the interest of many disciplines. This research examines the involvement and contribution of landscape architects to energy-related projects. It compares the situation in The Netherlands with that in France making use of an online questionnaire. Results show that two thirds of the practitioners in both countries have been working on energy-related projects. Another 15-20% sustain that they would like to develop this kind of project. In the Netherlands, we witness a prevailing involvement of practitioners in the siting of energy technologies as well as the creation of long-term scenarios. In France, we observe a focus on mobility and energy savings. The research reveals that the different landscape architecture legacies in the two countries transcend into energy-related projects; historical characteristics are re-enforced, not without implications. The French historical profession connection with garden and park design, for example, may interfere with their contribution to long-term and strategic challenges such as energy transition. The Dutch, on the contrary, have been involved in the shaping of the land across spatio-temporal scales for long and evidence suggests that they maintain this role. To them, the challenge lies in the acceleration of a more sustainable energy transition which, to date, is almost exclusively determined by economical considerations.
Reference: Roberta Pistoni and Sven Stremke (2019) Practices in transition: A comparison of how Dutch and French landscape architects contribute to energy transition, Landschap, 36(4), 240–245. Access the paper here.
