Landscape as Territory addresses the question of how we might think and design landscapes from the perspective of territory. In the process, it draws upon and interweaves theoretical contributions from geography, architecture, landscape, art, history and critical theory, together with reflections on selected cartographic projects produced within the Landscape Urbanism master’s program at the Architectural Association (AALU) from 2013 to 2018. The cartographic images presented here are not employed as illustrations of theory, but as deviations from or navigations of certain concepts and their historical iterations. Landscape as Territory is structured so as to explore the resonances and reverberations between practice and theory. It aims, through this, towards a form of design praxis of landscape.

Clara Olóriz is a research and practicing architect. She is a studio master at AA Landscape Urbanism program and director of Groundlab London. She has taught both design and theory courses and workshops at ETSAUN and Leeds Beckett and other universities worldwide. She developed her international PhD at the AA and ETSAUN on the relationship between technology and architecture. Along with her PhD research and Groundlab practice, she has contributed to several congresses, magazines (AD, Wallpaper Design Awards, Kerb) and books related to innovations in landscape architecture, territory, and research by design at the intersection between history, theory, and praxis. She has directed the AA Research Cluster Urban Prototypes and curated the Processing Environments symposium at the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum. Her research has been supported by fellowships, grants, and awards from the British Council, Conacyt, Bilbao Ekintza, Caja Madrid, Caja de Arquitectos, and most recently, AA Publications Fellowship.

Douglas Spencer teaches history and theory of architecture at the Architectural Association (AALU and History and Critical Thinking) and University of Westminster, and lectures internationally. His recently published The Architecture of Neoliberalism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) has been described as “a milestone in architectural criticism...an indispensable reference for all those concerned with the social and political meaning of their work” (Journal of Architecture Education). He has contributed essays for numerous publications including Journal of Architecture, Radical Philosophy, Architectural Design, e-Flux, AAFiles, New Geographies, and Volume, and contributed chapters for collections such as Architecture and Feminisms: Ecologies, Economies, Technologies (Routledge, 2017); Landscape and Agency (Routledge, 2017); This Thing Called Theory (Routledge, 2016); and Architecture Against the Post-Political (Routledge, 2014).

Stuart Elden is professor of political theory and geography at University of Warwick. He is the author of books including The Birth of Territory (University of Chicago Press, 2013), Foucault's Last Decade (Polity, 2016), and Foucault: The Birth of Power (Polity, 2017). Shakespearean Territories is forthcoming with University of Chicago Press in 2018. He has been involved in editing several collections of Henri Lefebvre’s writings, and has edited or coedited books on Kant, Foucault, and Sloterdijk. He is currently working on the early Foucault of the 1950s and runs the Progressive Geographies blog.

Jose Alfredo Ramirez, BArch (Hons) MA AALU, is an architect, landscape urbanist, director of Groundlab, codirector of Landscape Urbanism MArch/MSc Graduate Program at the Architectural Association and director of AA Mexico Visiting School. He develops projects at the junction of architecture, landscape, and urbanism worldwide. His experience includes projects like the Olympic Master Plan for London 2012 and recently the redevelopment of 12 kilometers of Santiago de Chile’s main avenue, Alameda/Providencia. Ramirez has published articles in journals and books (AD, Kerb, Routledge, etc.) and has edited the book Critical Territories (Actar Publishers,2013) on landscape urbanism and Groundlab.

Liam Mouritz is a landscape architect and graduate of the Architectural Association’s Landscape Urbanism program. He practices in the international design studio Hassell, as well as collaborating with Groundlab on experimental design research projects. Mouritz’s interests span a wide range of subjects from the realities of practice to theories of political geography, ecology and generative technology. He has taught design at Leeds Beckett University along with workshops and lectures in the AALU, AAVS Mexico City, Oaxaca, and at the EPFL in Lausanne. Mouritz also maintains a lecturing position in history and theory of landscape architecture at the University of Western Australia.

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