Past, Present and Future of the Middle Landscape. Session in the AHRA 22nd Conference "Conceptualising Environment(s): Continuity and Change".

This session aims to explore the concept of the Middle Landscape, an idea first put forward by American academics in the 1960s as an attempt to overcome the duality between the natural and the human as absolute aesthetic models in the design of the environment.
Today we understand that human activity and environmental forces are inseparable, yet popular culture and many international institutions continue to reinforce the division between nature and artifice. It is therefore necessary to reflect on the inescapable consideration that we inhabit and construct a middle landscape, and how this consideration influences our possible futures. Furthermore, it is important that this notion be subjected to critique and updating, as the divide between the natural and the artificial has currently widened with the growing divide in our societies between the physical and the virtual. A tessiture that adds complexity to what a middle landscape might be.
This session questions the currency of the concept of the Middle Landscape and its influence in architecture, urbanism, landscape architecture, spatial planning and landscape ecology. Papers should propose theoretical and analytical explorations of the concept of the Middle Landscape (how it has been understood, how it has evolved, how it needs to be conceived today...) or present case studies based on or related to the concept of the Middle Landscape (past, present or future). The aim is to study practices and projects, built or not, whose interpretation allows a debate on the current validity of the concept of the Middle Landscape. The discussion following the selected presentations will focus on how the concept has been handled, how it is currently perceived and what potential it offers.

Proposals must be submitted through the document provided by the AHRA, available in the ‘Abstract submission form’ tab:
https://ahra-architecture.org/events/conceptualising-environments-continuity-and-change

It is important to indicate on the form that the subject line is ‘Past, present and future of the Middle Landscape’.

The purpose of this call and the session is to compile papers for submission to a high impact publisher.