Approaching the campus as a multispecies assemblage, the project explores non-anthropocentric modes of engagement while recognising that every encounter remains human-initiated and technologically mediated. Intermediate Zones name these partial, unstable situations—where attempts to decentre the human are bound to fail. Yet it is precisely within these failed mediations that something persists: residues of encounter, moments of resonance, traces that resist full representation and may, nonetheless, become productive.
The landscape, and the ways we divide, delimit, appropriate, and transform it, reflects this attitude. We treat non-human life as less valuable and justify this by cultivating a sense of human superiority, which also narrows our sense of justice. These attitudes have contributed to issues such as climate change, biodiversity loss, an unsustainable agricultural model, and a general alienation from our living environment.
This research seeks to break the duality between humans and nature and to explore the implications of adopting a more-than-human [MTH] perspective in landscape. Through intensive collaborations with spatial professionals, experiments in a living lab, and inspiration from other projects, we aim to develop tools and processes that enable landscape design to contribute to restoring the relationship between humans and their environment.
Recognizing that professionals operate within culturally informed ideologies, we also examine how stories, play, and rituals can have cultural impacts that extend beyond spatial disciplines. In this way, the research contributes to a world which is not only more just and sustainable but also one where humans feel a renewed sense of connection to a fundamentally shared world.