News
3RW’s article “Landscape healing: uncharted territories of architecture”, accompanied by images from Richard John Seymour, is found in the recently published book “Cartographies of the Imagination”. We wrote on alternative mapping, widening agency of architecture and the office’s contributions to the ambitious Norwegian project of restoring large swathes of land back to nature.
When restoring and rewilding is the subject, questions about the past, the present and the future emerges: What did it look like before? What is the preferred future use? What are the biggest limitations, and are they even visible? An important part of the design process is to investigate these questions, but also to gather information from various experts. The mapping and visualizations of the gathered information lead to confabulation and mutually agreed actions. “Landscape Healing” is touching the field of critical design, where the project as a whole is as much about a foundation for discussing deeper issues about what design essentially should be. When the mind-set is focused on staying put and subtracting, instead of rushing to the conclusion that innovation must be something we haven’t seen before, architecture takes on the role of facilitating alternative visions rather than defining them.
From the words of our London-based editors: “The “Cartographies of the Imagination” book presents an atlas of alternative maps, gathering over thirty works from the worlds of architecture, landscape, painting, sound, technology and film; navigating across scales, times, realities and the imagination, this publication charts practices and processes of cartography, challenging the outer reaches of human exploration and the definition of a map”.
If you want to read more about the book and collaborators, or order a copy, you can do so here.
Our work of the Norwegian Defense Estates Agency (NDEA)’s process of demilitarization of vast swathes of territory across the country since the early 2000s – one of the biggest environmental restoration initiatives in the country’s history. More on the “Landscape Healing” project from 3RW and Richard John Seymour here.


