BOOK
This book has its origins in conversations between Jens Haendeler and Alex Ioannou. They have regularly sat, with cups of coffee in hand, asking each other their opinions of the space in which they found themselves. One opening question would lead them down a rabbit hole of thoughts, ideas and queries which quite often left them with plenty more to debate for another time.
The book includes 3 essays and 2 visual essays:
PLACING IDENTITY – Alex Ioannou
PLACES OF PAUSE – Alex Ioannou (visual essay)
DIRTY REALITY – Alex Ioannou
FCPS* – Jens Haendeler (visual essay)
PUBLIC SPACE AS CAPABILITY – Jens Haendeler
The essay ‘Placing Identity’ questions the contemporary status quo encountered in the landscape architectural profession. It opens a discussion about the interrelationship between identity, the designer and the landscape and its importance as a vital connection within the landscape architectural process.
‘Dirty Reality’ presents a new model which would expand the relationshs, processes and actions involved in landscape architecture. It is a model which would enable the profession to truly mirror, operate and develop, within the complexities of the contemporary world.
The essay ‘Public Space as Capability’ argues that it is at the margins of the global city – in places like Deptford – where openings occur that allow for a new form of public space to be produced.
Drawing inspiration from the first three essays ‘NKL 524’ formulates an urban intervention that produces a new form of public space using the Ioannou landscape architectural model.
It is the intention of the authors for their work to be a platform from which discussions can be stimulated. It is hoped that other landscape architects, and those involved in making space, will be encouraged to explore conversations about our everyday space.
‘any landscape is compromised not only of what lies before our eyes but what lies within our heads’ – Meining and Jackson 1979
TEAM MEMBERS
Jens Ruben Haendeler
Alex John Ioannou