Welcome to CULTURESCAPE III

This guide is intended to provide the context of the ERASMUS Intensive Programme “CULTURESCAPE” and give you some of the important information you will need for the duration of the programme.

An Erasmus Intensive Programme is a short program of study, which brings together students and staff from universities in different participating countries in order to:

• Encourage efficient and multinational teaching of specialist topics which might otherwise not be taught at all, or only in a very restricted number of universities;
• Enable students and teachers to work together in multinational groups and so benefit from special learning and teaching conditions not available in a single institution, and to gain new perspectives on the topic being studied;
• and Allow members of the teaching staff to exchange views on teaching content and new curricula approaches and to test teaching methods in an international classroom environment.

CULTURESCAPE Rationale and Aim

Cultural landscape issues have been gaining an increasing interest in recent years on European and international context. In 1992, the World Heritage Convention became the first legal instrument to recognize and protect cultural landscape worldwide; and the European Landscape Convention came into force in 2004 to promote landscape protection, management and planning and to organize European cooperation on landscape issues. Recommendation by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on the Guiding Principles for Sustainable Spatial Development of the European Continent (Rec. 2002) aimed, among others, to protect Europeans’ quality of life and well-being taking into account landscape, cultural and natural values. More recently, the International Federation of Landscape Architects IFLA set up a Cultural Landscape Committee to understand an appropriate evolution of cultural landscapes to develop such skills to assure their vibrant future. Also on national level the conservation and enhancement of cultural landscapes is an issue underlined by scientific research, protection and management by regional and local authorities, action of public, private and voluntary stakeholders and discussions about driving forces and forms of future landscapes.

The aim of the Intensive Programme is to undertake an approach of academic study to enhance the competence in landscape design within cultural landscapes in an international context. The IP is also aimed at responding to the need of better understanding of the value of European cultural landscapes that we inherited from the past and to provide the students with the necessary knowledge on how to integrate cultural landscapes into landscape designs for a better quality of life.

CULTURESCAPE is supported financially by the European Union through the Life Long Learning (LLP) Erasmus Programme.

Participants

There are four academic partners in the CULTURESCAPE Programme:

• Akdeniz University (Antalya, Turkey) as coordinating institution
• Ankara University, (Ankara, Turkey)
• Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel (Brussels, Belgium)
• Hochschule fuer Technik und Wirtschaft Dresden (Dresden, Germany)

The exchange of information among the participants, preparation and documentation before and after the programmes is based on the “Culturescape” website http://culturescape.akdeniz.edu.tr/en.

Teaching Approach

CULTURESCAPE is conducted using an ‘active learning’ (i.e. learning through doing) teaching approach in which you will be expected to contribute actively to the learning experience.  Collaboration will be a key theme too, with much of the work conducted in small groups. Both the problem based approach and group work are reflected in their implications for participants, methods and content of analysis, assessment, concept and presentation.

Topical fields and regional context of CULTURESCAPE Programmes 2011-2013

The three consecutive Intensive Programmes all have a broad topical approach and similar methodology regarding issues of history, analysis and conceptual considerations conserving and designing cultural landscapes. However, there are differences in the regional context due to morphological and ecological, economic, social and cultural conditions as well as the degree of urban and/or rural character.

• Culturescape 1, Antalya, Turkey, 2011: The Adrasan valley – Integration of nature areas, historic cultural landscape, rural settlement, horticulture and agriculture as well as coastal tourism.
• Culturescape 2, Brussels, Belgium 2012: The Maelbeek valley – village cores and European Quarter. History and development of a diverse and multi-layered urban cultural landscape.
• Culturescape 3, Dresden, Germany 2013: The Elbe-Roeder-Triangle – Agriculture, infrastructure, nature, history, recreation and tourism: Cultural landscape and potentials of regional development.

 CULTURESCAPE Programme 2013

The outline programme is presented on the following pages.  As you will see fieldwork is an integral part of the programme, both local to the villages and to the area regarding their history and current interests of population and stakeholders. Also within the City of Dresden and the wider region examples for conservation, design and management of cultural landscapes will be introduced and discussed. During the IP, research topics and design briefs will be suggested and developed which will require your attention throughout the visit. Direct contacts with local people, stakeholders and decision-makers will happen during guided tours, site visits, lectures and informal contacts. The outcome of the first phase of survey, analysis and potential for future development, will be produced by the student teams during an intermediate presentation. Experts and representatives from the area will be involved in the discussion and give valuable advice for orientation.

Free time is granted after the intermediate presentation allowing students to explore outstanding natural and cultural landscapes of the wider region, for example the Saxon and Bohemian Switzerland National Park, internationally famous historic park landscapes, e.g. Muskauer Park, landscape architecture projects in large scale landscape transformation after mining or contemporary and historic landscape architecture in cities like Prague or Berlin.

During the second phase of the programme the analytical assessment and conceptual direction of the students teams will be consolidated by additional field work, research and best practice examples. At the end of the IP, each group will present their visions for the cultural landscape in the region, plans for local development and design proposals for exemplary topics and sites during a conference session.

A final programme will be issued at the start of the IP and appropriate and necessary changes to the programme will be decided upon and communicated during the course of the IP.

CULTURESCAPE staff list 2013

Final Programme

Adresses

Student Design projects

During the IP, all students will be allocated to a group of 5.  Each group will develop a design project for Maalbek Valley, the study area.

The activities undertaken during the IP will provide insight into each of these designs.  There will be time set aside for literature and web research.  In addition, there will be a document library available which consists of specific research papers, books and maps.

Student Conference

Towards the end of the IP, a Conference will be convened at which each group will present its design project to all of the other groups plus invited guests. It is expected that each presentation will:

• Last a maximum of 30 minutes
• Be presented using PowerPoint and project printouts
• Use examples identified during the IP.

After CULTURESCAPE III, these presentations, plus other contextual material collected during the visit will be converted into a Virtual Field Course. This will take the form of a web resource that contains structured learning material related to cultural landscape related landscape design in the context of Dresden, Germany. This will provide an ongoing record of CULTURESCAPE III as well as an important learning resource.

Certification

The recognition of studies will be done according to the rules and regulations of each partner universities based on the Erasmus University Charters. The students will be given 5 (five) ECTS credits upon successful completion of the programme. All students who participate will receive a Certificate of Participation.