Category Archives: Uncategorised

OPENspace Co-Director, Prof Catharine Ward Thompson, honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award

From left to right: Prof Frederico Meireles Rodrigues, Prof Catharine Ward Thompson and Dr Ellen Fetzer. Photo taken by Anna Rhodes.

Professor Catharine Ward Thompson has been honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools (ECLAS) annual conference in Brussels on 10^th September 2024.

The award is given to a leading figure in Landscape Architecture, for contributions to research, education, and public service. Catharine has served on the ECLAS steering committee and was involved in hosting an early ECLAS conference in Edinburgh in 1994. She was part of a small group of European colleagues who secured the funding of an EU Culture programme Thematic Network project on Landscape Architecture education, called “Le:Notre”, in 2001.

Catharine was presented with the award by ECLAS president Dr Ellen Fetzer of Nuertingen Geislingen University, Germany, and ECLAS Secretary-General Professor Frederico Meireles Rodrigues of University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, Portugal.

Jeroen de Vries, Catharine Ward Thompson, Richard Stiles and Karsten Jorgensen after writing the first ‘Le:Notre’ bid in 2001

Read more about the ECLAS Awards 2024 and other awards recipients: ECLAS Awards 2024 – ECLAS

Prof Simon Bell and Iain Scott visit the Beijing Institute of Technology, strengthening ongoing collaboration

In early July 2024, Professor Simon Bell and Iain Scott visited the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT), where they took part in a number of activities including a summer school with students, academic meetings with Tsinghua and Peking Universities in Beijing, and a seminar on BlueHealth at the BIT campus in Zhuhai, in the south of China.

The summer school focused on students designing a blue space in a local park and Simon and Iain introduced the theories and practical usages of the BlueHealth Behaviour Assessment Tool (BBAT) and the BlueHealth Environmental Assessment Tool (BEAT) to the students. Iain was also appointed as a visiting professor during the visit.

This visit follows the establishment of the Joint Lab on Healthy Spaces by BIT and OPENspace in the Summer of 2023 and a successful visit by faculty and students from BIT in early May (Read News post here). Looking ahead, another visit by the Edinburgh College of Art’s Head of School and Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA) and OPENspace researchers is planned for December 2024, and there’s potential for a Joint Lab conference in 2026. There are a few other exciting initiatives in the works, including the launch of an ‘International Journal of Healthy Space.’

6th International Congress ISFT “Forest and its Potential for Health”

The 6th International Congress ISFT “Forest and its Potential for Health” will be held on 18-20th September 2024 in Druskininkai, Lithuania.

This congress, which is organised by the International Society of Forest Therapy and Association Gyvo Žalio, is a significant collaborating science event in the field of forest medicine and nature therapy, biomedical research, climatology, phytopharmaceuticals and forest-based tourism.

The central objective of the Congress is to present the latest research findings on how forest ecosystem services contribute to the health and well-being of people and communities. Additionally, it serves as a platform to share exemplary case studies of the non-wood forest economy and the application of forest therapies in the fields of public health and forest-based therapeutic tourism. There will be three days of scientific presentations, panel discussions, practical workshops of forest therapy and other healing practices as well as networking and cultural events.

Submission of abstracts is welcome until 31st May 2024.

Registration is now open, with early bird fees applicable until 30th June 2024.

Fostering Global Collaboration: OPENspace Welcomes Beijing Institute of Technology for Research Visit

We were delighted to welcome esteemed colleagues and students from the Faculty of Design and Arts at the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) to Edinburgh on May 3rd for a research visit hosted by OPENspace Research Centre. This event marked another milestone in our ongoing collaboration aimed at advancing research in the realm of healthy spaces.

OPENspace Co-Directors Prof Simon Bell and Prof Catharine Ward Thompson welcomed BIT visitors jointly with Dr Miguel Paredes Maldonado (Head of the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA)) and Dr Alex Nevill (ECA Director of Internationalisation). Faculty members and postgraduate students from both institutions exchanged ideas and presented their work.

This research visit follows the establishment of a Joint Lab on Healthy Spaces by OPENspace and the BIT Faculty of Design and Arts in Summer 2023, and OPENspace colleagues plan to visit Beijing in July 2024.

Collaboration Milestone: OPENspace and Beijing Institute of Technology Forge Partnership on Healthy Spaces

The Faculty of Design and Arts at the Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) welcomed OPENspace Co-Director, Professor Simon Bell, in early March. This visit follows the establishment of a Joint Lab on Healthy Spaces by OPENspace and the BIT Faculty of Design and Arts in Summer 2023.

During this visit, Professor Bell was appointed a visiting professor at BIT and a small ceremony took place to unveil a plaque commemorating the establishment of the joint lab, and underscoring the significance of this partnership in driving forward interdisciplinary research and innovation.

Looking ahead, the collaboration is set to flourish further, with an upcoming exchange programme between OPENspace and BIT. On May 3rd, Faculty members and PhD students from BIT will journey to Edinburgh, so staff and students from both organisations can get to know each other before several staff members from OPENspace visit Beijing in July.

Dr Scott Ogletree’s research featured in The Guardian, revealing the impact of green space on cellular aging

The Guardian article focuses on findings from a recent study led by Dr Scott Ogletree, into the relationship between greenspace exposure and telomere length. The study found that those living in neighbourhoods with more green spaces had longer telomeres, the protective structures at the end of chromosomes associated with cellular health and aging. Telomeres prevent DNA unravelling and longer telomeres allow cells to replicate more times.

The study, based on the survey responses and medical records of over 7,800 participants, revealed that a 5% increase in neighbourhood green space was associated with a 1% reduction in cellular aging. However, the positive effects were less pronounced in low-income or segregated areas, indicating that a neighbourhood context, including deprivation, pollution, and segregation, may influence the health benefits of green spaces.

Landscape Forum 2024: Tartu and South Estonia

The Landscape Forum 2024 will take place in Tartu, Estonia, from 24-28 June 2024.

The forum, which is hosted by the Estonian University of Life Sciences (EMU), will focus on the topic of The Landscape as the Container of the Bioeconomy with working groups on water, forests, fibrescapes, foodscapes, mobility and nature tourism. As well as cross-cutting themes on landscape economy and landscape democracy.

The Landscape Forum aims to stimulate knowledge building, collaboration and action for local sustainable development, while integrating a European dimension. It provides a unique opportunity to interact creatively with colleagues from a range of landscape disciplines through informal workshops and in field visit settings.

Registration is now open, with early bird fees applicable until 30 April 2024.

Congratulations to Dr Scott Ogletree on receiving the WIMEK research fellowship 2024 at Wageningen University & Research

Dr Scott Ogletree has been awarded a visiting research fellowship this coming summer at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands. Scott will be collaborating with Agnès Patuano to explore the potential of Agent-Based Modelling (ABM) for testing the effects of design scenarios on the health of urban communities, in an effort to develop Research through Design methodologies. During his stay, Scott will also contribute to selected courses via guest lectures and provide reviews for courses in Landscape Architecture and Planning. The visit will be an opportunity to build networks and collaboration between OPENspace and other researchers in landscape and health.

Agnès is an Assistant Professor in Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning and a former postdoctoral researcher with OPENspace. She also completed her PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 2017 with Professor Catharine Ward Thompson and Prof Peter Aspinall.

Scott’s visit will run from mid-June to mid-July 2024.

Prof Catharine Ward Thompson contributing to a new parliamentary inquiry into Urban Green Spaces

OPENspace Co-Director, Prof Catharine Ward Thompson, is contributing to a new parliamentary inquiry into Urban Green Spaces.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee invited Prof Ward Thompson to attend an oral evidence session in the House of Commons, Westminster, on 5^th December 2023 as a witness, covering differences in access to green spaces, the barriers to using them, and how they can be made more inclusive, while linking this to the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces, and their relationship with health inequalities.

The full Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee event recording is available via Parliamentlive.tv.

Prof Catharine Ward Thompson’s essay published in ‘Garden and Metaphor: Essays on the Essence of the Garden’

Catharine Ward Thompson has a short essay published in ‘Garden and Metaphor: Essays on the Essence of the Garden’, a book edited by Ana Kučan and Mateja Kurir and published by Birkhäuser in October 2023. In this book, landscape architects, sociologists, architects, artists, philosophers and historians illuminate different aspects of the garden in the Anthropocene: the garden as a place of community, garden as art, and the garden as a place of enchantment and rapture. The book is in part a tribute to the work of the late Slovenian landscape architect, Professor Dušan Ogrin, whose work over many decades to support education in the profession was untiring, international and inspirational.