The Transitional Territories Studio is a critical design and theory platform that explores the dynamic relationship between altered natures, post-carbon form and the future of cities and territories. It operates on the premise that our current urban development and resource consumption systems are unendurable. It develops alternative/radical projects that question current material practices and ecological biases. To do so, the studio takes a transdisciplinary approach, bringing together experts from – among others – (landscape) architecture, planning, engineering, earth sciences, humanities and arts. The diversity and richness of perspectives enable us to push disciplinary confinement’s boundaries. The climate crisis, biodiversity loss, scarcity of resources, the unevenness of their share and the intersectionality of subjects and histories call for a U-turn: a shift in mindset and actions from viewing the land as a passive backdrop for human activities to recognizing it as an active and dynamic force that shapes intergenerational life.

The studio focuses on the transitional nature of the urban project – its spatial, material, and ecological implications. The notion of ‘territory’ is applied in the studio as a field of design praxis related to land (the socio-cultural and politico-economic) and the terrain (the architectonic -environmental and ecological). Projects develop across three leading scales: the subject/object scale (material/ artefact/ body/ site), the ensemble scale (living habitat/ community/ fabric), and the territorial scale (co text/ framework). Our approach is sensitive to the site’s plurality of life, matter, and histories. In this context, we see the agency of Urban Design as fine-tuning the  everchanging interrelations between societal practices, natural processes, and (geo)political frameworks. The studio structures the work around three working modes: archive, laboratory, and atelier. Documentation, analysis, synthesis, and narrative exercises support the development of interventions acting on the nature and causes of the urban and its externalities. During the graduation year, students are guided to construct and apply a theoretical, analytical, and conceptual framework at the interse tion of urban design, landscape architecture, and political ecology to study systemic relations leading to the state of scarcity. Critical thinking, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methods and approach, and the search for novelty in design found our studio. Students are encouraged to fo mulate their thesis subject and own critical position on the future status of the urban project.