Airports have never been more central to the life of cities, yet they have remained relatively peripheral in design discourse. In spite of this, however, landscape architects in recent decades have reaffirmed their historic assertions about the airfield as a site of design through a range of practices. Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age presents these practices through case study projects for the ecological enhancement of operating airports and the conversion of abandoned airports. This material supports the claim of an augmented role for landscape architects commensurate with their desire to be considered urbanists of the aerial age. Airport Landscape: Urban Ecologies in the Aerial Age gathers work from the eponymous exhibition that was held at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, presenting the airport as a site of and for landscape.
Sonja Dümpelmann is Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Charles Waldheim is John E. Irving Professor and Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.