OBJECTIVES

The goal of the Research Centre for Landscape Architecture “Professor Caldeira Cabral” (CEAP) is the development of studies and projects towards the improvement of the theoretical framework of Landscape Architecture. The aim of Landscape Architecture is the study of landscape and further development of proposals related to its organisation and improvement at national, regional and local scales, in general, and open spaces in more detail. Therefore, research projects include several areas of study, such as:

- Identification and assessment of landscape resources, focusing on its potentialities and suitability for human activities, and on its natural, cultural and aesthetic dimensions;

- Landscape theory, in order to support landscape architecture proposals focusing the creation of sustainable landscapes, from the regional scale to the human scale, in which the garden, in its creation, perception, meaning and human function, is considered as a starting and crucial point. Search for new qualitative and quantitative methods for landscape architecture research;

- Landscape planning and management aiming a spatial distribution of human activities in the landscape which fosters a sustainable development of land and the management of natural resources,  focusing the conservation of existing values namely, natural, cultural and aesthetics;

- Landscape plans and projects for urban, peripheral-urban and rural spaces, as well as structural spaces and areas of natural resources exploitation, that include new interventions and rehabilitation, both in public and private domain;

- Research programs developing an interdisciplinary approach and, therefore, relating different scientific fields pertaining to Landscape Architecture engaged on the development of a wider theoretical framework supporting Landscape  Planning and Design, such as: design , landscape ecology, earth and environmental sciences, social sciences, and others.

 

 

UNITY OF I&D  FCT  648  

 

- Municipal Green Plans;

- Ecological Structure, concepts and delimitation;

- Soft Mobility;

- Urban Agriculture.

- Rehabilitation of Rural Settlements;

- Urban Rehabilitation;

AREAS OF ACTIVITIES

FUTURE RESEARCH:

 

1. OBJECTIVES

a) An Ecological Approach to Planning:

- Delimitation of the Ecological Network at a national scale and its application to Continental Portugal in order to be integrated in the revision of the Portuguese National Program for Landscape Planning Policy (PNPOT);

- Development of the integrative methodology “Landscape System”, integrating quantified data related to water and climate cycles, as well as data resulting from a previous analysis of the ecological subsystem, related to land morphology, hydrography, geology/geomorphology, permeability, soil, and natural and semi-natural vegetation;

- Research on methodologies focusing the optimization of multifunctional uses concerning the Urban Ecological Structure;

- Development of innovative design criteria pertaining to urban agriculture;

- Research on environmental landscape design applied to the cultural context of rural settlements, optimizing the efficiency of processes related to water, soil, vegetation and energy;

- Development of design guidelines concerning Rehabilitation Plans, applied to cultural contexts of rural settlements;

- Research on Landscape Planning and Management as prevention tools in forest fires;

- Research on Coastal Planning, in order to formulate management guidelines.

 

b) Soft-Mobility:

- Research on innovative criteria concerning “Soft Mobility”, such as bicycle and pedestrian transport schemes, integrated on the Ecological Structure;

- Creation of detailed methodologies focusing the integration of traffic calming measures in the Urban Ecological Structure, in order to improve pedestrian and bicycle circulation;

- Definition of essential criteria concerning projects focused on the recovery of old railways as pedestrians and cycling routes.

 

c) Landscape Architecture Theory

- Development of an interdisciplinary approach to Landscape Studies that sustains Landscape as a complete and integrated phenomenon and focuses the current guidelines on the subject through the scope of Philosophy and Landscape Architecture;

 

 - Development of a systematic study of Landscape Architecture images and projects, since the 90s until nowadays, in order to identify its inherent doctrines and contribute to an inventory of programs and intervention methodologies;

 

- Identification of key concepts operating since the 90s until nowadays on Landscape theory and influencing the modalities of transforming landscape and their future practices.

Last actualization: July 2012

Research Centre for Landscape Architecture “Prof. Caldeira Cabral”

Instituto Superior de Agronomia  -  Universidade Técnica de Lisboa

 

■

■

■

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY COMMITTEE

The Research Centre for Landscape Architecture “Prof. Caldeira Cabral” integrates a Scientific Advisory Committee, constituted by the following individuals:

Professor Amarílis Paula Alberti de Varennes e Mendonça, Agricultural and Environmental Chemical Department, High Institute of Agronomy, Portugal.

Professor António Maria Marques Mexia, Plants Protection and Phytoecology Department, High Institute of Agronomy, Portugal.

Professor Christian Kupfer, Landscape Planning Unit, University of Nurtingen, Germany.

 

The Scientific Advisory Committee helds annual meetings with the purpose of assessing the on going projects, contributing with suggestions that potentiate the work being developed by the Research Centre for Landscape Architecture “Prof. Caldeira Cabral”.