Urban and Landscape Ecologies Research Lab

The Urban and Landscape Ecologies(ULEL) Lab engages with current ecological concerns caused by the acceleration of contemporary urban and cultural landscape transformation processes. ULEL invites, promotes, and supports research, and engages with current matters through theoretical and practice-led projects producing new critiques and theories of design development and technology concerning social and environmental agendas.

There is an increasing interest in questions linking environment, urban landscape and design, bringing together urban ecology with eco-critical and cultural-ecological approaches by imagining the city as an indispensable part of the environment and as a place in which ecological problems emerge concretely. For ULEL, culture plays a fundamental role in being an active component within urban ecologies. For this reason, the city is, within this framework, both seen as an ecosystem and a cultural artefact.

ULEL investigates the consequences of climate and ecological change on community ecology in cities and identifies measures to maximise urban biodiversity for city users. ULEL explores urban landscape ecology, urban biodiversity conservation, and urban sustainability. Research is based on multiscale, sustainable, and interdisciplinary knowledge enhanced by new technologies.

Core Areas

• ecological-based urban regeneration strategies;
• the effects of urbanisation on urban biodiversity;
• edge effects in urban landscapes;
• the ecological impacts of residential development patterns, and more broadly, environmental design in human-dominated landscapes; and the improvement of habitat quality in urbanscapes.
• morpho-typological methodologies for architectural and urban design

Selected Publications and Practice-Based Research

• Dall’Asta Juan Carlos, Hay, Richard and Gisela Loehlein. Venice Biennale Architecture Chinese Pavilion, How We Will Live Together, Venice Biennale Venice, Italy, 2020–2021.
• Podda, Roberto, Laura Daglio and Giuseppe Boi, Chapter in edited volume Participated Strategies for Small Towns Regeneration. The Case of Oliena (Nu) Historic Centre, Springer Italy 2020
• Dall’Asta Juan Carlos, Rolla Sandro 2020 January Curated works: Physical exhibition/ Event/ Festival Itinerary Exhibition, with, Rajeev Kathpalia, Mill Owners Association building Between Architecture and Landscape, an itinerary exhibition. Ahmedabad,
• Teo Hidalgo Nacher 2020 July, Original creative work: Design, Architecture, Interiors Winner, The Pink Island. International Competition Seoul Metropolitan Government The Pink Island, Seoul, South Korea
• Dall’Asta, Juan Carlos. Hidalgo Nacher, Teo (2021).“The dynamics of the intermediate spaces. Form, translation and interpretation of the enclosure as a boundary, between the West and the East.” EIDOS. N17. Scientific Journal of Architecture and Urbanism. El Recinto como operador del Proyecto Arquitectonico, Urbano y del Paisaje. ISSN: 1390-5007.
• Dall’Asta, J.C., Landscape Design team leader, Y-team Solar Decathlon China 2020 XJTLU, Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University Department of Architecture and Design, with Zhejiang University / University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Institute Center for Research on Sustainable Systems, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, USA Department of Architecture.

Lab Coordinator

• Dr Juan Carlos Dall’Asta