Linking landscape education, research and innovative practice

European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools

The European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools exists to foster and develop scholarship in landscape architecture throughout Europe by strengthening contacts and enriching the dialogue between members of Europe’s landscape academic community and by representing the interests of this community within the wider European social and institutional context. In pursuit of this goal the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools seeks to build upon the Continent’s rich landscape heritage and intellectual traditions to:

• Further and facilitate the exchange of information, experience and ideas within the discipline of landscape architecture at the European level, stimulating discussion and encouraging co-operation between Europe’s landscape architecture schools through, amongst other means, the promotion of regular international meetings, in particular an annual conference;
• Foster and develop the highest standards of landscape architecture education in Europe by, amongst other things, providing advice and acting as a forum for sharing experience on course and curriculum development, and supporting collaborative developments in teaching;
• Promote interaction between academics and researchers within the discipline of landscape architecture, thereby furthering the development of a Europe-wide landscape academic community, through, amongst other things, the development of common research agendas and the establishment of collaborative research projects;
• Represent the interests of scholarship in landscape architecture within Europe’s higher education system, encourage interdisciplinary awareness and enhance public understanding of the discipline;
• Stimulate dialogue with European landscape architectural practice and with other international organisations furthering landscape scholarship.
• European collaboration within the discipline of landscape architecture began with an informal meeting of European landscape schools in Berlin in 1989, and the subsequent establishment of ECLAS – the “European Conference of Landscape Architecture Schools” in 1991. Since then conferences have been held annually, each hosted by a different landscape architecture schools.

Journal of Landscape Architecture, established in 2006

JoLA is the peer-reviewed academic Journal of the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS). It is  published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group, and listed in the Web of Science, Thomson Reuters Arts and Humanities Citation Index and other relevant indices.

JoLA has three issues a year, is published in full colour, on paper and online. Cultivated through editorial and review strategy and a unique approach to the graphic design of its content, the aims of JoLA are to provide a platform for outstanding landscape architectural scholarship and research innovation, linking theory to practice.

While publishing articles following established research conventions and written modes of communication JoLA also encourages and publishes unconventional and emerging forms of research enquiry including those employing practiced-based methodologies, those having their origins in visual and artistic practices and media, and those espousing new method and rigour for the developing field of landscape architectural criticism.

JoLA thus gives space to the reflective practitioner and to design research. The journal has different sections in order to accommodate and cultivate this, among them the ‘Under the Sky’ and ‘Thinking Eye’ sections, explicitly underlining the importance of the creative imagination and promoting the thoughtful review of canonical projects and experimental representation as forms of thinking worthy of scientific endeavours.