Meet the Jury Bianca Maria Rinaldi on Staging Urban Nature: Figures, Aesthetics, and Performance in Contemporary Landscape Architecture

Arenberg Doctoral School is proud to invite you to Meet The Jury!

When internationally renowned experts visit KU Leuven as a member of a PhD Examination Committee, we like to seize this opportunity to give this expert a forum to a large audience. All members of Science, Engineering & Technology are most welcome to the Meet The Jury Lectures.

Prof. Bianca Maria Rinaldi (Polytechnic University of Turin, Italy) will give a lecture on “Staging Urban Nature: Figures, Aesthetics, and Performance in Contemporary Landscape Architecture”.

This lecture traces recent evolutions in landscape architecture grounded in an emerging “ecological imperative,” situating them within longer traditions of theory and practice. The lecture examines how contemporary design approaches reinterpret historical models of landscape—ranging from garden traditions to modern urban parks—through new concerns for climate, biodiversity, and resource management. Focusing on recurring design figures such as linear parks, constructed ecologies, and hybrid urban landscapes, the lecture explores how aesthetics and performance converge in shaping urban nature today. It argues that these projects not only respond to environmental challenges but also redefine the disciplinary foundations of landscape architecture, positioning it as a critical mediator between ecological processes, cultural narratives, and the spatial practices of the contemporary city.

Following the lecture, there will be opportunity for young researchers to interact with her.

• Venue: Asiat Park, Mechelsesteenweg 255, 1800 Vilvoorde
• Date: 23 June 2026 – 12:00-13:00
• Prof. Bianca Maria Rinaldi is visiting KU Leuven on the occasion of the PhD defence of Björn Bracke