Dr. Ben Gitai
LAND-EFPL
‘Landscape’ means an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.’ (Art. 1a)
and
‘(..) this Convention applies to the entire territory of the Parties and covers natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. (…) It concerns landscapes that might be considered outstanding as well as everyday or degraded landscapes.” (Art. 2)
Every perceived space is a landscape and deserves our attention as such. Transitional landscapes are in-between landscapes that connect and sustain surrounding urban environments while existing as a distinct productive space and/or socio-cultural entity. More precisely, transitional landscapes serve both as connective spaces between different land uses and as places defined by their own aesthetic, social, cultural, and ecological characteristics. Our research attempts to transcend the traditional city-countryside and urban-rural divide. As such, the project challenges the current socio-ecological frameworks through which landscapes are perceived and shaped. What were once rural landscapes, are now often transitional landscapes, a connective in-between tissue with a metabolic function for urban landscapes.
Transitional landscapes represent a growing category of landscape formations where industrial production, agricultural systems, and transport infrastructure converge in complex spatial relationships. They challenge conventional planning categories while creating unprecedented opportunities for integrated socio-ecological design. As climate adaptation becomes increasingly urgent, these hybrid spaces offer unique living laboratories for exploring how economic productivity and its waste/by-products can shape a new paradigm for ecologically resilient urban development.
The concept of a transitional landscape differs from Thomas Sieverts’ notion of the Zwischenstadt or the “in-between city.” It goes beyond the idea of a hybridized urban-rural space, instead representing a type of landscape that transcends this traditional categorical boundary. Zwischenstadt described the evolution of compact historical European cities as an extension of the urban area from old historical city centers into the open countryside. However, transitional landscapes are dynamic, productive and socio-cultural landscape entities in their own right, not merely extensions of cities.
At LAND, we examine transitional landscapes as dynamic systems that shape fundamental relationships between human activities and natural processes in ways that planners and policymakers often overlook. Our research employs chronomappingas well as landscape architecture methodologies and participatory approaches to evaluate how diverse stakeholder visions—from farmers to industrial operators to municipal planners—coexist in these transitional landscapes, and how local communities develop advanced knowledge systems for managing the complex interactions between urban landscape, natural dynamics and agricultural productive landscape.
Through our interdisciplinary framework combining landscape architecture, landscape ecology, urban planning, geography, and environmental sociology, we investigate how transitional landscapes function as metabolic systems where outputs from one sector, such as waste materials, become regenerative inputs for another across these three scales (regional, local, sectoral). Our research illustrates how transitional landscapes might operate as complex metabolic systems, where industrial waste streams can be repurposed into regenerative infrastructures that mediate between diverse land uses and might contribute to e.g. climate adaptation across seasons, spaces, and time.
