60 543 Commons: Through Landscape-based actions. Case of the Oslo Fjord landscape (Autumn 2026)

Course responsible: Karin Helms

The aim of the studio is to explore how to design anticipatory landscapes and new landscape typologies in line with urgent landscape threats in the Oslo Fjord region. The threats are potential floods, pollution, and landfills. The method will be an initial large-scale mapping analysis, a topographic understanding of the area, and site visits along the coast and main rivers.

Thanks to stakeholders and research conducted together with the Systems Oriented Design course 70 504, we will understand the current actors and actions driving the Fjord and the many rivers forming Oslo. These cross-disciplinary perspectives, which combine sustainability with cultural, organisational, economic, and technical considerations, will inform consequential decisions and how to give space to the large-scale watershed landscape of Oslo. Decide where to act and look for future landscape approaches.

For this, we will understand the historical urban planning methods proposed in the Oslo-Fjord area, such as the “Parc systems”, explore policies on “Green and Blue infrastructures”, and examine landscape notions, such as “Landscape as a Prerequisite” for the urban. Will be taught techniques from the field of Landscape Ecology and from contemporary Nature-based solutions, through lectures, guest lectures, and experts and practitioners.

In a second stage, we will zoom in on one neighbourhood site, combining a macro perspective with local area development to address natural threats through Nature-based solutions (NBS) measures. The students will focus on and work through how to propose, at the local scale, this same threat, and also initiate socio-ecological proposals for the neighbourhoods.

The overall objective is to enable a large-scale urban landscape to align with its watershed and coastal areas, address security and biodiversity in towns, and provide more space for communities

At the conclusion of the course the student should be able to:

Knowledges

• Knowledge in the field of design, analysis and methods, social competencies in the field of landscape architecture
• On completion of this course, the student will be able to demonstrate an advanced level of design in landscape architecture, based on clear analytical and conceptual thinking at different scales and thought scales.
• Landscape site analysis, use of GIS and other digital tools to search and help with situational analysis. The analyses are also supported by outdoor teaching to understand geology, geography, climate, land use, and landscape and living changes.
• Introduction to System-Oriented Design and gain knowledge in interconnectedness of complex systems: systems thinking theories with a focus on Critical Systems Thinking and how social, technical, economic and environmental factors interact.
• looking for the analysis of dealing with complex, hidden, unseen actors of the area, that generate changes, political or long-term effects of land-uses for instead
• The studio presents the students with ecological and technical tools to propose.
• safer and better ecological landscapes thanks to designed nature-based solutions and landscape-based action at larger and local scales. The natural threats are the floods, landslides and pollution.
• Knowledge on how to address other landscape issues: banalisation of the landscape, the disappearance of identity landscapes refers to the progressive erasure of the unique cultural and natural characteristics that gave a territory its specificity and sense of belonging.
• At the zoom-in scale, the studio will support students in developing their landscape architecture general competences in: Understanding the foundation and soil fertility in towns; providing practical and theoretical tools for designing and specifying the plantation and the initial maintenance of a public space.

Skills:

The coursework relies on basic tools, hand drawing and software within landscape design to represent spatial and material conditions. Examples of these are AutoCAD, Adobe package, 3D modelling programs (Rhino), and others. There will be student support to help them learn these tools if they have not already acquired them.

We will apply various tools for mapping, analysing, and assessing sites, and capture insights into needs, challenges, and design opportunities. Through the creative group process of integrating insights from mapping into feasible designs, you learn key principles and tools for designing and running creative processes, both individually and in groups.

Students will be given skills linked to SOD teachings on strategic and iterative design: develop an interconnected cross-scale intervention portfolio aligned with sustainability principles and stakeholder objectives; practise iterative development to prioritise and test design directions.

Overall, students will be able to propose anticipatory landscape proposals for river and costal sites through landscape-based actions, focusing on regenerative processes for site-specific areas.

The studio is organised around three phases:

• 01

First stage: students work in pairs. Large- scale Mapping of Oslo-Fjord ´s Watershed by thematics – A full wall covered with Oslo´s river/fjord landscapes. Large-scale analysis and landscape diagnosis stage: site survey for a more morphological understanding of the living. GIS mapping,

Learning about Landscape NBS, landscape-based action methods. And precedents proposed thanks to lectures and with the support of methodological lectures.

Outdoor teaching: staying in the Oslo Fjord area, days in a cabin together with students from the SOD course. Coastal and River visits. Draw while walking!

This stage ends with an Interim presentation. The interim is the presentation of all the research and mappings, analyses done on-site, surveys, student collective and individual research. The quality of the mapping and the rigour of the mapping and research.

• 02

Group work of 3 or 4 – interactive with SOD students in developing future narratives, and designing interventions that propose sustainable, resilient, and ecological regeneration to the river /fjord landscape. Teams will engage with stakeholders across the Oslo watershed system to produce intervention portfolios that reflect both a systemic and an individual disciplinary perspective. (updates with Course 70 504 SOD will be done before the start of the course)

• 03

Selection of an area within the large-scale study area for scenario development. Elaboration of a clear concept for a comprehensive special design operating at a variety of scales. Design research and visualisation, small-scale design elaboration and details, until planting construction. Tools: Drawings, digital or hand drawings, and ideas expressed in words. Theoretical discussions and debate on the role of the NBS and watershed issues in the urban context. This stage ends with a final presentation with guests, experts or the target group

Physical attendance at lectures, reviews, supervision sessions, discussions, and other educational activities is expected and necessary in order to achieve the learning outcomes

Form of assessment: Project

Grading scale: Pass/fail

In order to be assessed in this course, the student must have completed the following activities and assignments:

The work assignment given for all three work stages are part of the learning outcome, and all three work deliveries are mandatory. Work and discuss the ongoing work with the other students, as attendance at the studio is part of the studio learning. The SOD course will be mostly visual learning and workshop exercises, and only active attendance at the workshops can be recognised as a learning moment.