The team led by Stereo Architektur, together with Studio Céline Baumann and Schnetzer Puskas, has won first prize for the project Stadtfeld in Pratteln. The project envisions connecting the three plots of the Evangelical Reformed Church, the Post, and the Canton of Basel-Landschaft through an internal network of open spaces composed of alleys, plazas, and gardens.

We are pleased to announce the publication of the book Ramification, edited by Céline Baumann and published by the Museum im Bellpark.

We are familiar with the idea of ramification from botany: in the case of the tree, aboveground elements like limbs and twigs visibly branch out in order to enlarge the overall leaf surface and thereby maximize processes of photosynthesis. The principle of ramification can also be seen in the realm of larger systems: for example, in the case of a watershed, where small tributaries flow into ever-larger rivers before reaching the sea. Ramifications can cover larger areas without eliminating, or pushing out, what is already there, and can thereby connect otherwise isolated entities. And ramification is also a conceptual tool that offers insight— not only into the anatomy of a plant but also onto connections within and between landscapes.

The team composed of the three landscape offices Schmid Baumann Kuhn wins third prize for the competition of the open spaces of the Kaserne site in Zurich. The project aims to bring some wild disorder within the former military site.

The parliament of plants can be seen at the Nieuwe Instituut as part of the Dutch iteration of the show Garden Futures: Designing with Nature, an exhibition about the history and future of the modern garden.

A Tree, is about vegetal agency, plant knowledge, and the interaction between plants and people, with a specific focus on trees. Like all plants, trees make the world; they literally create soil, shape landscapes, and affect the climate. They produce oxygen. They provide fuel, food, building materials, and shelter, and form ecologies where a myriad of species come together to enter into various symbiotic partnerships. Trees are wonderful to think with, and humans have been doing so—through meditation, in all kinds of storytelling, and as partners in problem-solving—probably for as long as they have walked the earth. Trees are also time tellers, rather than following industrial time, clock time, or any time defined by human activity, trees relate to their own experience of time.

The team led by SERA (Studio Esch Rickenbacher Architektur) wins first prize for the construction of a mixed-use high-rise by Zürich-Oerlikon train station. The landscape project consists of two layers: an urban plaza on the upper street level and a logistic hub connecting with the ruderal landscape of the train tracks below.

The garden for the cooperative housing Lyse Lotte in Basel is completed!

The team of Studio Céline Baumann and Weyell Zipse together with Martin Frei and Knopp+Kiel wins first prize for the open spaces of the Rosental Mitte site in Basel. The proposal “Singing Spring” guides the transformation process over the next decade of Rosental Mitte site in Basel. It consists of a concept scheme securing the qualities of the newly created open space and a set of activating measures involving vegetative and human pioneers.

This exhibition brings together the work of landscape architects, urbanists, biologists and students from various backgrounds and generations, who are – consciously or unconsciously – drawing on the metaphor of ramification within their practice.

We had the pleasure to take part in this interesting competition together with architects Weyell Zipse, Assemble, and curator Vera Sacchetti.

During the autumn semester 2023, we are investigating how rhizomatic structures may allow us to act upon broad territories in order to shape ecological and climatic corridors for humans and non-humans alike.

“ Many of the ornamental plant species with which we share the domestic space, taking care of them daily without wondering too much about their origin, were imported to Europe from exotic climes, generating what Céline Baumann defines as a “cognitive dissonance between the decorative aspect of potted plants and a brutal colonial history”. The artist and landscape architect sheds light on the origins of those species and the journeys they have had to make to intertwine with our lives.