In November 2022, Kerstin Thompson curated a Design Speaks symposium called “A Broader Landscape” alongside Phillip Arnold.1 The curators asked how architects understand the word “landscape,” and how else they might understand it. The symposium drew forth an understanding of landscape that went beyond its aesthetic appeal as scenery, toward an idea that is a defining force in Thompson’s decision-making – that landscape is also the site of life.
In fact, Thompson writes in Leon van Schaik’s monograph on her practice, “I think site and architecture exist in a continuum with their situation, part of a series, of a collection, contributing to a contiguous whole. There are two aspects to this: the first is to do with buildings as part of a greater composite; the second is to do with an ecological integrity. Both acknowledge the interconnectivity and interdependence of architecture with site and situation.”2
Thompson’s architectural processes bring together experiential concerns of building with considerations of place. The relationship made with landscape in its scenic understanding is defined throughout the work from within and without: low horizontal forms, buried or partially embedded buildings, landscaped settings, and deep verandahs overlapping the internal/external threshold.
Increasingly, Thompson’s understanding of place includes modes of landscape architecture and ecology, so that the structural and formal responses are shaped by the way that the building can participate in
