The 11th Barcelona International Biennial of Landscape Architecture was held online in early October. HUST students participated in this global contest, making grand achievements. The HUST team from the Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Urban Planning emerged victorious and was rewarded with the “Winner of the Landscape Schools Prize Audience Award” and a celebrated painting. This award also marks the first time that a Chinese team has ever won a grand prize in the Barcelona biennial in the 22 years that it has been held.

With the theme being “Restoration and Conservation in a Changing Climate: Balance of Forest, Fire, and Human”, the HUST team presented the world with the following four works: Transition from rubber plantations to tropical forests with green-blue strategies, Building a Nature-based System to Prevent Severe Forest Fire Induced by Climate Change, Balance of Life and Fire, and Revival In Postnuclear Era: A Resilient Defensive System for Dark Tourism in Chernobyl.

Among the eight universities that were finalists for the grand prize, HUST is the only one in Asia. The other seven contestants are from Harvard Graduate School of Design, TUDelft, School of Architecture Urban Planning Construction Engineering Politecnico Di Milano, City College of New York, Amsterdam Academy of Architecture, Leibniz University Hanover, and University of Technology Sydney.

This achievement is also a new stride forward for the Department of Landscape Architecture in the international design competitions after winning the IFLA (International Federation of Landscape Architects) and ASLA (American Society of Landscape Architects) awards.

Award ceremony of Barcelona International Biennial of Landscape Architecture

Representatives of the winning universities

Official acknowledgement

The award of Barcelona International Biennial of Landscape Architecture, one of the awards that enjoys the highest authority in the field, is selected every two years. With the theme of “climate change again”, this year’s event called on participants to design strategies to deal with the deteriorating environment and global climate disasters. The four entries, submitted to the biennial in the name of the group, were dependent on the graduate course “landscape planning and design” run by the school. It took the participants two years from track picking, announcement of finalists, to the final competition.

The symposium received extensive attention from the global industry and invited many famous guests to elaborate on the theme “climate change again”. Among the guests who contributed speeches were Maguelonne Dé-jeant-Pons, Secretary General of the European Commission; Karin Helms, European president of the IFLA; C. Mercer Clarke, a renowned ecologist; and Martha Schwartz, a landscape designer who enjoys international fame. Among the speakers in China were Professor Yu Kongjian of the College of Architecture and Landscape at Peking University; Li Xiong, vice president of Beijing Forestry University; Professor Zhang Ming of the Original Design Studio of Tongji University; and Han Yiwen, a teacher representative of the Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Urban Planning of HUST.

Han Yiwen gave a presentation on the historical development of the department, the characteristics of the curriculum system, the topics of the four award-winning works and their detailed strategies. The competition presentation was kick-started by a short video produced by the participating team of the department, in cooperation with the teachers and students in the course of the video art design of the Department of Digital Media. Taking the natural disasters caused by global climate change as the starting point with the theme of “Restoration and Conservation in a Changing Climate: Balance of Forest, Fire, and Human”, Han described the site selection, preliminary analysis, strategies and prospects of the four sub-projects. Starting from the perspective of “forest, fire and human”. The projects aim to build a resilient and harmonious anthropocene system through landscape strategy.

Theme of the works of HUST team: Restoration and Conservation in a Changing Climate: Balance of Forest, Fire, and Human

Introduction to the Department of Landscape Architecture of HUST

Display of the representative awards won by students in the department

The teaching team and student members

All four winning projects are closely related to the theme of “climate change again” in terms of topics and content; they attempt to analyze and tackle the changing climate from a global perspective. Thanks to the comprehensiveness of the curriculum of the department, the design process integrates multiple data sources and uses quantitative analysis to formulate more scientific strategies, greatly contributing to the development of the projects. The achievement also testifies to the success of the advanced teaching concepts, scientific design methods and sufficient competition preparation of the department, and adds to the international teaching achievements and professional strength of the university.

Translated by: Cao Yutao

Edited by: Zhang Aoyi, Scott, Peng Yumeng