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.
