During our second year excursion to Denmark and Norway, a more detailed article will follow at a later time, four of Vista’s board members, Antti Hannula, Niina Repo, Säde Palmu and I, were privileged enough to visit the Section of Landscape Architecture. We were guided by Jon Frydenlund-Vad and Anton Juel Lund, both FLS (the Association for Landscape and Urban Design Students) board members, around their school building and surrounding area.
We visited the school building located at Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Fredriksberg C, where the section for Landscape Architecture together with the section for Forest, Nature and Biomass and a large part of IGN’s Administration resides. The building is an old hospital and contains teaching rooms, drawing halls, auditoriums, laboratories and workshops.
The school buildings front yard was designed by Schønherr and was completed in 2012. It consists of various dynamic elements and features, allowing activities, such as skate boarding and relaxing in the sun, in a both elegant and interesting environment.
Behind the school building you can find a couple big (in our regard although apparently not in the local students minds) greenhouses. When we asked if plant and soil research is conducted in them Jon and Anton humorously answered: “No, no, only lectures are held there. The research is done in the BIG greenhouses located on the other side of the campus.” We were astonished. Never had we considered having lectures in a greenhouse of our own, not to mention multiple facilities with various functions. We do have two compulsory field study courses in the summer after our first and second year. However, the scale and professionalism of this school’s facilities were on a completely different level
.
Now I don’t want to seem like a “the grass is always greener on the other side” type, nor do I want to overly criticise our school. We do have our good sides, some even better than others, ie. our wood and metal workshop. However, it never hurts and is very much recommended to widen one’s own horizon and not being afraid of trying “the grass on the other side”. Who knows, I might find myself in their Masters program in a year or two.
Finally at the end of our tour, as if to add the cherry on top of the cake, they showed us what they called “the inspiration garden”. It was kind of a botanical garden located right next to the school building on the University grounds, consisting of various miniature landscapes and biotopes with a wide range of plants, bushes and trees etc. All tagged and named to ease the students planning process.
Every year around 70 new students are admitted to the study programme for Landscape Architecture.
Left to right: Peter (me), Niina, Anton, Säde, Jon.
Photographs by Antti.
Links:
http://ign.ku.dk/english/
Text by Peter Tallberg, Ravistaja