Summary of the ISOLA Conference 2022

Summary of the ISOLA Conference 2022

The Indian Society of Landscape Architects ISOLA Conference was held on 11-13 February 2022. It was held in the virtual format.

The Keynote by Kotchakorn Voraakhom elaborately explained the impact of landscapes beyond crafting spaces. Not only did her projects make a case for the ecological balance that the landscape architects has been striving to achieve but also spoke about the culture, community, and land connection. The following discussion between her and Dr Sridevi Rao Hon President ISOLA and a senior landscape practitioner and researcher herself was indeed an extension of exploring the various facets of these connections.

In fact a very interestingly the three presentations on day one by Kotchakron,Mohan Rao, and Dirk Piejpe under the theme balance had another  common thread running across their talks.

Water! It was a delight to see the way all of them addressed water in their projects. The variation of scale, the stark contrast of the context in terms of the climatic conditions gave insights into how sensitive intervention can make an impact to balance the unbalanced irrespective of the scale. Be it creating a balanced environment for elephants at Hati Gao in an extremely hot and dry climate of Rajasthan or the public squares which became retention ponds, balancing both the ecology and the public life in the water project for Antwerp designed by Dirk. All the presentations explored the various facets of the theme balance.

The interactive session which was cut short due to the lack of time was equally enriching by the virtue of the quality of questions asked by the participants. The variety of the questions highlighted the fact that the presentations engaged the audience. The q and a session curated by Shilpa Chandavarkar and Prashanta Bhat, bought forth the interesting contrasting climatic conditions explored in the projects of both the presenters.

The workshop curated by Jitendra Pawgi and Aditi Galande deconstructed the complexities of an ecological planting palette. A complex topic was made easy through the way it was presented by Aditi. The success of selecting the right planting palate which eventually results in the creation of a complex web of associations thus resulting in a balanced ecosystem is the goal that we all strive to achieve. The workshop very succinctly touched upon the same.

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