The Glasgow School of Art

Karin Helms

 Karin Helms is a landscape architect and an Associate Professor in Design, is in charge of the international relationships at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Paysage Versailles. She is the founder of European Master: EMiLA. She studied Biology in Italy and later Landscape Architecture in Belgium and received her landscape architect Diploma by ENSP Versailles. She created her office „Karin Helms, Paysagiste Sarl“ in 1993-2002 and received a national prize for her work at Folleville from the French Ministry of Environment.

She is currently PhD candidate by RMIT Europe Barcelona – a practice based PhD, researching on large cultural landscapes transformations in rural. She received a Marie Curie grant trough the ADAPT-r programme. Her research topics have been on: „Architecture des espaces publics modernes (1993)“, „L´architecture de la grande Echelle (2009)“, IGNIS MUTAT RES penser l´architecture la ville et les paysages au prisme de l´energie ( 2012.) She received in 2013 the order: „Chevalier des Palmes academiques“ French Order of Chivalry for academic, cultural and education figures by the Ministery of Higher education for the modernisation of the curriculum at ENSP Versailles. She is State Landscape Architect Adviser since 1999 and is active in different Associations for the promotion of the profession such as IFLA Europe, FFP, APCE.

 Among her works are the urban extension of the city of Bruz, Brittany (1996 99co-authored with the planner P. Lemerdy), the renovation of a historical site in Folleville, Picardy (1996) and the motorway landscape project between Montpellier and Nimes (1997).

Anticipatory Landscape Strategies – Presentation at the Glasgow School of Art, 20 October 2017

Europe’s cultural landscapes are under pressure due to economic and social developments – and more recently due to a much faster pace of climate change than in the past. As a landscape architect I work with local actors or students to imagine their futures. My contribution to the topic has been to use design to draw up a proactive strategy for preparing future changes, transformations, an acceptance of disappearances and the integration of new artefacts in large cultural landscapes. The method draws on tacit knowledge and interpretative landscape reading to develop a 5-step method- The research methodology involved a self-conducted project in Northern Normandy with local actors and administrative as well as reflecting on various teaching experiences during different European workshops.

My contribution to the discipline is to highlight two factors – the role of a facilitator in designing large landscapes for and with locals and the testing of a tool used to activate landscape processes on a large scale.