Pedagogy in transdisciplinary approaches to landscape: Training public administrations in renewable energy transition, the case of Amsterdam

Landscape architecture pedagogy is crossing the borders of our discipline, landscape architects are called to be facilitators for knowledge integration and reflections among different disciplines (Holmes et al. 2018). Among the grand challenges of the XXI century, landscape architects are active in the transition to renewable energy (Stremke & Sijmons, 2017). While central governments work on strategies for a sustainable future, local governments are called to increase capacity building in order to put in practice new directives and objectives through the direct engagement with sustainability science research, characterized by collaborative, problem driven and action oriented transdisciplinary approaches (Agenda 21, chapter 35; Kates et al. 2001; Clark & Dickson, 2003; Schmuck et al. 2013). We refer to the transdisciplinary concept as reviewed in Bernstein (2015). According to Vejre et al. the engagement of local governments in sustainability science research can improve their internal communication and skills of staff members (2013). Holmes et al. affirm that ‘the perceived significant benefit of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working is its ability to provide socially robust orientations to real-world problems: problems which cannot be solved by any one discipline alone’ (2018, p. 83). The aim of this contribution is to present and discuss the first outcomes of landscape architecture pedagogy in a research commissioned by the City of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to the landscape architecture research group at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture