Svava Riesto

Short presentation

Svava Riesto Mag.art., PhD, Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the University of Copenhagen.

Svava Riesto's research interests lie in the the cultural studies of urban landscapes, cities and architecture, specifically from the 20th and 21st century - focussing on their production, uses, historiographies, imaginaries and power, as well as intersections between heritage, preservation, design, planning and climate-adaptation. 

She studied art history at the Arctic University of Tromsø, at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Univesity of Copenhagen and holds a Phd in landscape architecture from the University of Copenhagen. She has worked severeal years in landscape architecture (SLA) and was co-funding partner of the participatory planning practice Ekstrakt.

Current research projets

PUSH- Public Space in Social Housing (HERA), leader of the work package on heritage

The project aims to push forward our knowledge about the integration processes and cultural encounters that take place in shared spaces on social housing estates in Europe. PuSH explores the concept of publicness through the lense of cultural heritage, informalities/formalities, democracy and policymaking by studying the dynamic relationships between people and places on-site.

Reconfiguring Welfare Landscapes. The past, present and future of Danish social housing (Danish Independent Research Fund), leader of a sub-project on urban practices 

The project explores the relationship between landscape and welfare by examining large-scale housing estates in Denmark 1950-1975 as  'Welfare landscapes'. Not only were these landscapes planned, designed and realised with a great share of public resources from the welfare state, they are also entangled with discussions about the meanings and material dimensions of welfare - between collective and individual, freedom and control, humans and 'nature'. The project explores approaches to address social housing estates as welfare landscapes in the past, present and possible futures.

Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, COST-action. Leader of working group on theory

This network is concerned with how theoretical reflections can stimulate the thinking and praxis of narrating urban places of medium-sized European cities. In 2019-2020,  Svava Riesto is co-editing the book 100 Minor Concepts for Writing Urban Places- a Vademecum together with Klaske Havik, Kris Pint and Henriette Steiner. 

Chair of the Öresund Design Research Seminars.

Publications

Svava Riesto is author of Biography of an Industrial Landscape. Carlsberg's Urban Spaces Retold (Amsterdam University Press 2018). The book develops biography as a critical writing practice to explore industrial open spaces from a dynamic and relational perspective with the case of the former Carlsberg breweries in Copenhagen.

The book Forandring i Forandring. Christiania og bevaring som ressource presents the freetown Christiania as a laboratory for alternative and critical architectural and urban preservation practices. (Co-edited with A. Tietjen and P. Skov, 2007).

Svava Riesto has edited themed  issues, Landscape Reserach, Nordic Journal of Architecture, Periskop Art histories and more. Exhibitions on urbanism, e.g. Wunderstadt - SLA (Galerie Aedes, Berlin). Svava Riesto is widely published in academic journals and books on heritage studies, landscape architecture, cultural studies and urbanism. Further, she has written more than 50 commissioned feature and review articles in professional magazines as an architecture- and heritage critic.

Teaching and supervision

Theories and Methods of Landscape Architecture, MSc course, course responsible

Landskabsarkitektens historie, nutid og fremtid, BSc, course responsible

MSc and BSc thesis supervision

Post-doc mentor for Heidi Svenningsen Kajita (Im)possible instructions. Inscribing use-value in the architectural design process). International post-doc based at Newcastle University., in collaboration with the University of Copenhagen, by the Independent Reserach Fund Denmark (2019-2021)

Phd supervisor for Ann-Charlott Eriksen: Green Facades as boundary-crossing objects  (main supervisor). (2017 - defended December 2019).

Phd supervisor for Lærke Keil: Practicing Welfare Landscapes – The social role of an architectural element in Albertslund Syd. (main supervisor). The Independent Resesarch Fund Denmark (2018-2020)

Various PhD courses 

CV

CURRICULUM VITAE, SVAVA RIESTO

Born 1974 in Vadsø, Norway

PREVIOUS APPOINTMENTS AND EMPLOYMENTS

2015-  Associate Professor, University of Copenhagen, Dept. Landscape Architecture and Planning.  

2011-2015   Postdoc Research Fellow, University of Copenhagen, Dept. Landscape Architecture and Planning. (maternal leave 2013)

2007-2012   Phd Fellow, University of Copenhagen, Forest & Landscape.

2006-2011   Co-founding Partner in the urban consultancy Ekstrakt – landscape architecture, participatory planning, urban strategies.

2005- 2006  Head of Communications SLA Landscape Architects.

2004-2005 Art Historian  SLA Landscape Architects.

2001-2005  Part-time Teacher, University of Copenhagen, Dept of Art and Cultural Studies, Art history (maternal leave 2003).

2001-2001   Editor, The Danish Town Planning Institute.

EDUCATION

2012   PhD, Landscape architecture and planning, University of Copenhagen, LIFE.

2001   MA (Mag.art.) Art history, University of Copenhagen, Faculty of the Humanitites

1997   BA  Art history, The Arctic University of Norway Tromsø, Dept. of Art History and Literature Science.

1995-96   Erasmus Grant Student, Freie Universität Berlin, art history, ethnology, history.

MAJOR GRANTS

2019-2021 EU Hera project PuSH Public Space in Social Housing – leader of sub-project on Heritage

2019-2022 EU Cost action grant Writing Urban Places. New Narratives of the European City, co-applicant.

2017-2020  The Danish Council for Independent Research, Humanities for  Reconfiguring Welfare Landscapes, co-applicant

2011-2015 The Cultural Agency of Denmark/Realdania, Post-doc scholarship for Large-scale planned urban areas in urban preservation –heuristic strategies and theories.

2007-2011  The Cultural Agency of Denmark, the University of Copenhagen and Carlsberg Properties Aps. PhD scholarship on Transformation of urban industrial urban sites.

Various grants for publication, travel, exhibitions etc. by the Dreyer Foundation, Politikenfonden, Letterstadska Fonden, Tuborgfonden, The Danish Arts Foundation and more.

AWARDS AND HONORS

2014   The Eslargart honorary scholarship for “research within the history of Danish garden art and its preservation”.

2013-2014   1.st prize invited design competition for Statens Museum for Kunst’s new entrance and garden, My role: site analysis and historical consultant for team Karres et Brands/Polyform. In 2015, this garden was awarded with the City of Copenhagen's Building Award (Københavns Kommunes Bygningspræmiering).

2010   The Haastrup honorary scholarship for “outstanding contribution” to the “success and internationalization of the research conference World in Denmark 2010” entitled As Found.

2005   1^st prize invited design competition for development plan for Valby Idrætspark. Participant in team SLA (where I was then employed. My role: site analysis, programming, design critique).

POSITIONS OF TRUST, COMMITTEES

Since 2016 Member of the editorial advisory board of the journal Nordic Journal of Settlement History, Swedish Science Press.

Since 2016, Member of Udvalget for Nyere Tid, Landsforeningen for bygnings- og landskabskultur. (Expert panel to advise in matters concerning the future of 20th century architecture and designed landscapes).

Since 2014 Co-founder and University of Copenhagen’s organizer in the Öresund Design Research Seminars.

2009-2012   Scientific committee member of the World in Denmark conference series on landscape-based urbanism.

2012   Advisory Board member, Hedehusene: Industrikulturens grænseløse kulturarv i byfornyelsen, Høje Tåstrup municipality/Ministeriet for By, Bolig og Landdistrikter.

2008   Expert panel member, the heritage and future development of Christiania discussion.

2008   Copenhagen X, member of the Urban Panel, Danish Centre for Architecture.

2001   Secretary for the expert board of the EU-project European Cities in a Global Era. Urban Identities and Regional Development, Danish Ministry of the Environment.

PHD EDUCATION

Phd assessment committees at universities and architecture schools in 2018, 2017, 2016 2015

Phd courses on research methodologies, experimental writing techniques, historiography, theory, app. one each year

Supervision of 2 Phd theses, since 2017

LECTURES, CONFERENCES, EXHIBITIONS

Invited speaker and panellist in a broad range of international academic contexts (in 2019 e.g. TU Delft and ETH Zürich) as well as in local urban contexts, such as grass root activism (in 2019 e.g. Folkemøde Sydhavn and Nordvest Lokalråd).

Since 2001   Design critic writing for ‘Scape International Magazine for Landscape and Urbanism, Topos the International Review of Landscape Architecture, Landskab, Arkitekten, Arkitektur NO, Arkitektur DK, Landscape Architecture Europe etc. Newspaper articles about heritage, urban regeneration, housing etc.

2015-2018 Chair of the international public lecture series Copenhagen Landscape Lectures, University of Copenhagen, Section of Landscape Architecture. (With Rikke Munck Petersen and Natalie Gulsrud).

2009- 2014   Co-organizer of the international conference series World in Denmark on landscapes and urbanism, entitled Nordic Encounters, City Plantastic, Fear of Nature, As Found.

2014   Curator, the exhibition Revisit 1960s-1970s Suburbia, showing MA student projects at the University of Copenhagen.

2012   Curator, the exhibition Albertslunds Grønne Øhav, Albertslund city hall, a collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Kroppedal Museum and Albertslund municipality..

2005-2006   Curator, the solo-exhibition Wunderstadt (SLA landscape architecture, urban space and planning), Galerie Aedes Berlin.

2001   Co-organizer of international research, planning and policy conference EUROPEAN CITIES IN A GLOBAL ERA. Urban identities and regional development, for the Danish EU Presidency (Danish Ministry of the Environment/Danish Town Planning Institute).

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM PROJECTS (Selected)

2013-14 Frederiksværk Stålsatte Byrum Design competition by invitation for a heritage-based strategy for revitalizing an industrial town through encompassing urban space renewal, cultural planning, and citizen-driven strategic initiatives, pre-qualified and selected for the 2. Phase. Team: LIW Planning, Entasis Architects and 2-1 Ideas Agency. My role: site analysis, design critique, strategy for heritage definition and participatory strategic development and communication plan.

2013  Pilot project competition for transformation of derelict rural schools into cultural centres, Horbelev fra Skole til Kulturgård by the trust Lokale- og Anlægsfonden. Realized 2015. Team: Polyform. My role: site analysis, design critique, program analysis, dialogue workshops with users.

2012-13 Architecture competition by invitation Statens Museum for Kunst’s new entrance and garden, 1st price and realized in 2014, Team: Consultant for team Karres et Brands/Polyform. My role: historical site analysis, design critique, communication.

2012  Architecture competition by invitation, Kommunikationslinjen Urban space renewal Svendborg. Pre-qualified. Consultant for Effect/Masu Planning. My role: site analysis, design critique, communication.

2012  Architecture competition by invitation New Rock Museum, Roskilde, Musicon, 1^st prize. Team: Cobe/MVRDV/LIW Planning. My role: communication consultant for LIW Planning.

2010  Architecture competition by invitation for the strategic development of Køge Southern Harbor and Town Centre, Pre-qualified and selected for the 2^nd Phase. Team: Gromtij, Polyform, 2+1, Ekstrakt. My role: site analysis, user involvement-strategy, programming, design critique.

2007  Public meetings and vision plan for the strategic development of Køge Southern Harbor and Town Centre. My role: consulting the process in which various stake-holders, municipal departments etc. together formulated a vision, which I helped writing together with Karen Margrethe Krogh (Ekstrakt). Commissioner: The city of Køge

2006  Densification of Greve’s single family housing areas, user involvement strategy and vision plan in collaboration with planners, politicians and local residents. My role: workshops and dialogue platforms, producing scenarios in collaboration with Barbara Wandall and Karen Margrethe Krogh (Ekstrakt). Commissioner: The City of Greve

2006    Architecture competition by invitation Superkilen urban space design, Pre-qualified. Team: Spektrum. My role: site analysis, user involvement strategy, programming, participation in concept development, communication, together with Karen M. Krogh and Barbara Wandall (Ekstrakt).

2006    User involvement strategy for the urban square revitalization of Toftegårds Plads, Copenhagen. My role: Conceptualizing and carrying out the targeted user involvement workshops with various user groups in collaboration with Barbara Wandall (Ekstrakt). Commissioner: The City of Copenhagen.

2005   Open architecture competition Park am Gleisdreieck, Berlin. Pre-qualified and selected for the 2^nd Phase. Team: SLA. My role: site analysis, design critique, programming, workshops with users.

2005   Architecture Competition by invitation Valby Idrætspark, 1^st prize. Team: SLA. My role: programming, design critique participation in concept development, communication.

2004   Architecture Competition Mølleparken Århus, recommended by the professional jurors. Team SLA. My role: site-analysis, preservation strategy, co- developing concept, communication.

2003   Open architecture competition Alexanderplatz open space renewal. Team: SLA. My role: site-analysis, design critique, text.

2002   Open architecture Competition Die Sünderstaffel, Stuttgart – Friedhof der Zukunft. Design team together with Stine Poulsen and Anne Tietjen. Selected in the 2^nd round (Engere Auswahl) My role: site-analysis, programming, participation in concept development, text.

LANGUAGES

Native speaker: Norwegian (1^st mother tongue) and German (2^nd mother tongue)

Full professional proficiency: Danish, English