Design as an Answer to Value and Ethics Interview

She describes her open and inquisitive methodology built around centering the nonhuman actors – such as soil, plants and other living systems – that have too often been excluded from the conversation. She says that, “that has always been my approach, finding new assemblages, ecologies, and complicities with «the others». I see a huge potential in this as a new field of design.” For Gali-Izard, “understanding soil as a living entity is the beginning of a new way of approaching our field. Soil can potentially integrate production, biodiversity, and new forms of landscape for humans.”

She describes her vision for the Master of Science ETH in Landscape Architecture (MSc ETH LA) as “an open conversation, a meeting point between sciences, humanities, and design… We will be designing complex systems, resilient, adaptive and sustainable over time, looking for a new beauty as the answer to the current environmental challenges.” Emphasizing interdisciplinary collaboration and curiosity, the program will provoke new encounters; “if we are open, and ready for the unknown and unexpected, I am sure those encounters will create new forms of knowledge.”

Read the full interview here.

Prof. Gali-Izard started her chair of landscape architecture at ETH Zurich in 2020, co-creating the new master in landscape architecture which starts this autumn semester. In 2007 with Jordi Nebot she cofounded the office ArquitecturaAgronomia, a landscape architecture practice that explores new languages and forms translating the potential of sites through multifunctional answers