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Project

Sabbatical S. Kelly SHANNON: Indigenous landscape urbanism: Vietnam

I would focus on fieldwork and research in Vietnam, a place I have been researching since my arrival to KUL in 1997 and where the sites of my doctorate (completed 2004) were located. I have a plan to make a book on indigenous landscape urbanism in Vietnam and the larger region of Southeast Asia. The research will include a number of emblematic cases, to create comprehensive documentation (archival and contemporary) and sharpen an interpretive frame concerning the relevance of indigenous landscape urbanism. The added value of the research stems from the integration lessons learned from indigenous landscape urbanism cases and the wealth of knowledge into both the transformation of existing and future settlement systems. There exists raw prescientific work of classification and documentation of case studies, which stems from a landscape urbanism course I have since 2004. The research project is more than a documentation of age-old legacies. It builds on the premise that relevant local culture, knowledge and indigenous practices can be combined with contemporary insights to generate innovation, particularly with regards to creating regenerative, building resilience and adaptive landscape and settlement systems. The multiple disruptions to nested ecologies have serious repercussions, as the present-day cascade of crises reveals—from the global pandemic to species extinction to ecological devastation. By improving the understanding of indigenous knowledge and providing concrete examples, the research seeks to offer a novel way to re-engage and intervene in the built environment—with the logics of the landscape as a structuring element to canalize or even guide (de)- urbanization. The sabbatical period in Vietnam would allow me to focus on defining the cases in that country and to develop a method for critical evaluation which could then be extended to other cases in Southeast Asia.

Date:20 Sep 2022 →  19 Jan 2023
Keywords:Landscape urbanism, fieldwork, indigenous adaptation to climate
Disciplines:Urbanism and regional planning