Ruin Futures

Douglas Miller, Katya Larina

The worldwide pandemic has challenged long-held assumptions that define much of modern urban and landscape design. One of these is the belief that the expansion of the city will in some way subsume the natural landscape. The mass decentralisation of the workplace, however, has led to a recalibration of this assumption. What happens when once intensely populated cities retract, when infrastructure disappears or when disaster tears holes in the fabric of our urban environments? This year Studio 4 investigated the concept of ‘ruin as a medium’, a device for recording and sharing with us the stories of the past and present landscapes.

Our main projects were located on sites of past or future ruination. Each site was balanced between complex climatic conditions. Each project used detailed data modelling, on-site research and speculative drawings to map out long timelines across which proposed future landscapes could manifest. This year’s projects present an array of agendas chosen by each student, from combating the social and economic distress of food shortages in rural China to addressing the climate emergency on a local scale in the Island of Portland’s historic mining operations. In each instance, we learned from ruins to speculate potential futures.

Students

Landscape Architecture MLA, Year 2

Landscape Architecture MLA, Year 1

Landscape Architecture MA

Index of Works

The Bartlett
Autumn Show 2021

30 October – 13 November

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