Experience the landscape architecture

The 46th IFLA World Congress, with the theme "Green Infrastructure: landscapes of high performance" took place between October 21st and 23rd with great success. We gathered in conference rooms at the Sofitel Hotel in Rio de Janeiro, 642 participants from over 40 countries. They also participated in visits to places of significance to the subject.

The event was opened by Suzana Kahn, General Secretary for Climate Change and Environmental Quality of the Environment Ministry, who spoke to the landscape architects on government strategies to face the challenges of climate change.

Among the international speakers, Charles Waldheim drew attention to the failure of bureaucratic planning that led to the rise of urban design and landscape design. This new way of operating may result in projects where ecology is used as spectacle but may also bring efficient designs that actually relate to how nature works and meet the needs of people.

Michel Hoessler, from France, presented sophisticated designs of his office, Agence Ter, which dealt with complex backgrounds and brought new answers. Kongjian Yu of China, criticized the obedience to the standards of the elite who channeled rivers and replaced rustic lakes by ponds, marshes and rice fields by exotic grasses. He also explained their projects to demonstrate how landscape architecture can be a powerful tool to create landscapes with new aesthetic values that respond to issues such as flood control, food production and environmental readjustments.

In communications, the issue of sustainability is often discussed in their four bases: social, economic, environmental and aesthetic. This was the common core, which was being presented in different ways. Solutions such as rain gardens, biovaletas, roofs and green walls, floors and draining ponds for retention punctuated some of the projects presented. The synthesis of the 113 communications is now available on CD for the participants.