The PhD Programme in LANDSCAPE CITY ENVIRONMENT originates from a process of revision and reorganization of the previous doctoral programmes in "Landscape and Environment" (see the link to the web site) and "Architecture and City Construction" active until the 41st cycle. It inherits their scientific objectives and educational framework, while integrating, expanding, and updating them.
The programme is part of the Doctoral School in DESIGN SCIENCES, it contributes to the definition of an integrated system that brings together different design disciplines and ensures a multidisciplinary third-level education, also based on shared teaching activities and applied research across the programmes within the School.
SCIENTIFIC FRAMEWORK AND AIMS
The PhD programme, established in consortium form with the University of Tuscia and the Fondazione AlberItalia, trains researchers capable of critically engaging with transformations of landscape, city, and environment, adopting design as a tool for knowledge production and for interpreting the changes of contemporaneity.
Landscape, city, and environment constitute a triad that gives meaning and value to the multiple configurations of habitats and forms of life.
Landscape, in a broad and inclusive sense, is understood as an interpretative key through which to question transformations and progressively redefine the conditions of inhabiting in its plural meanings. Within this perspective, city and environment represent two reference frameworks through which to read the forms of inhabited space and natural systems, brought back to the unity of anthropogeographical space, as the outcome of the interaction between environmental and territorial components, settlement patterns, and intangible values.
In a context marked by increasingly interconnected environmental, climatic, and social crises, landscape design is conceived as a tool capable of challenging sectoral approaches and consolidated models, recomposing knowledge, scales, and instruments within an integrated vision.
Placing landscape at the centre means operating within a continuous tension between conservation and transformation, between heritage and innovation, recognising in existing habitats—urban, peri-urban, rural, and forest—not only resources to be protected, but spaces of possibility and growth. Landscape thus emerges as a multiscalar practice that intervenes both in the spatial and environmental qualities of places and in social inequalities, contributing to redefining the environment as a shared domain of cohabitation and coexistence among species.
This PhD programme is therefore conceived as an open field of research, capable of engaging with the complexity of territories and the emerging forms of contemporary inhabitation. In this perspective, the inter-university consortium dimension represents not merely an integration of competences, but the construction of a space for dialogue among different disciplines, practices, and contexts: a framework that promotes the consolidation of relationships between landscape architecture, architectural and urban design, ecological design of agricultural and natural landscapes, technological innovation, and economic evaluation, with the aim of producing interdisciplinary forms of research capable of connecting, in a complex way, the cognitive and operational dimensions of design.
GOVERNANCE AND INTERNATIONALIZATION
The structure of the PhD reflects its transdisciplinary and inter-university nature. It is organized around a Board of Professors composed of scholars from different fields—landscape architecture, architectural and urban design, planning, aesthetics and contemporary arts, agricultural and forest sciences, geology—who contribute to building a shared research framework.
The governance bodies are designed to enhance the contribution of the consortium partners and ensure effective integration among institutions and expertise. These include the PhD Coordinator, the Deputy Coordinator, the Board of Professors, and a Scientific Committee composed of highly qualified scholars and experts from Italian and international universities and research institutions.
The inter-university dimension is a structural component of the programme, not only in organizational terms but as a device for dialogue and cooperation among different institutional and cultural contexts. In this direction, the programme also strengthens its international dimension through collaboration agreements, research networks, and the involvement of international scholars and institutions, with the aim of expanding its scope of exchange and consolidating its international positioning over time.
RESEARCH AREAS
The PhD promotes the continuous updating of research themes and practices, maintaining a balance between critical and operational dimensions. Themes are not conceived as disciplinary sectors, but as problem fields through which to investigate contemporary transformations and conditions of inhabitation.
Research is articulated around four thematic areas, understood as open and evolving fields:
- Design and Contemporary Practices of Landscape
Landscape design as a critical and practical tool; the conceptualisation of spatial arrangements and processes that interrelate ecological, social and cultural elements across different scales; the expressive modes of design practice, in relation to the uses, perceptions and practices of space in historical and contemporary contexts.
- City, liveability, health, and quality of everyday landscapes
Quality of open spaces and habitats; conditions of liveability in urban and non-urban contexts; relationships between environment, health, and well-being; practices of use and lifestyles; spatial inequalities, inclusion, and urban welfare.
- Design and contemporary landscape practices
Landscape design as a critical and operational tool; the prefiguration of spatial devices and processes connecting ecological, social, and cultural components across different scales; expressive modes of design action in relation to uses, perceptions, and spatial practices.
- Environment, resources, and ecological processes
Climate, energy, sustainable mobility, and resource management; agricultural and forest systems, biodiversity, bioeconomy, and circular economies; risk prevention and management, and resilience of territorial systems.
PROGRAMME OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the PhD programme are aimed at developing advanced training—both theoretical-critical and operative—in the fields of landscape, city, and environment, understood as domains of study and design in their historical and disciplinary evolution, as well as in their contemporary transformations, through integrated approaches and innovative working methods.
In accordance with the European Landscape Convention, the PhD programme recognizes landscape as an essential component of living environments, an expression of cultural and natural heritage, and a foundation of identity, and promotes research and training paths consistent with these principles.
The objectives include the investigation of landscapes as dynamic systems of material and immaterial relationships, in continuous evolution, also from the perspective of a progressive non-anthropocentric redefinition of the relationship between culture and nature.
The PhD programme also aims to develop collaborative working contexts in which transdisciplinarity constitutes a fundamental tool for addressing complex problems and producing advancements both within individual disciplinary fields and in their complementarity and synergy.
Within this perspective, the educational path is oriented toward contemporary challenges and aimed at intertwining research and design.
CAREER OPPORTUNITIES
The PhD programme trains researchers and professionals with advanced expertise in the design, analysis, and management of landscape, city, and environment, capable of operating across multiple scales while integrating theoretical and applied dimensions.
Career opportunities include research and teaching positions at universities and research institutions, as well as qualified roles within public administrations, cultural institutions, international organizations, and private entities involved in territorial transformation processes.
PhD graduates may work in the fields of landscape design, planning, and management; in urban and environmental regeneration processes; in heritage enhancement; and in the definition of policies and strategies for sustainability and habitability.
The profile developed is characterized by the ability to integrate research, design, and public policy, contributing to the advancement of innovative approaches to territorial transformation..
DISSEMINATION, VALORISATION, AND TERRITORIAL ENGAGEMENT
The PhD programme promotes a structured openness toward the institutional, social, and economic context through activities of valorisation, knowledge transfer, and dissemination of the research produced. Within this framework, the educational path is characterized not only by continuous interdisciplinary dialogue, but also by direct and ongoing engagement with institutions, public administrations, and local communities.
Design workshops and seminars constitute key devices for interaction with specific territorial and social contexts, fostering forms of situated learning and the operational return of research outcomes. The results of educational activities and design experimentations are collected and published in the PhD series ET, issued by LetteraVentidue Edizioni. Furthermore, in keeping with established tradition, the most outstanding theses will be published by the authors in the DiAP Print series, published by Quodlibet.
The dissemination of doctoral research is further supported through the circulation of national and international calls and through a systematic mentoring activity for scientific production (papers, essays, contributions), carried out by the PhD Coordinator and the Academic Board.
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